Latinamerican influence in gyaru subculture! (UPDATED)

It's Talia again!

Many of my readers know that I'm studying sociology, making me an awful over-analist girl when it's comes to urban tribes and cultural expression. Everytime I think about something I try to research about it, and after trying to research the history of tanning, I'm making this entry to anylise the latinamerican influence in gyaru subculture because I often see references to Latin America and it makes me so happy! (if you ask what happened with the history of tanning, every article in Google Scholar was almost only about tanning and its relationship with skin cancer or about tanning leather).

Y'all know I'm from Chile, which makes me latin american (I'd rather to say latin american than latina because it specifies more clearly where I'm from, because to say only latino/a/e because the term 'latin' can apple to other cultures that speak any language derived from Latin, including european cultures), so whatever I see that looks kinda latin I love it. Especially when it's something with an andean influence because of my andean roots thanks to my dad who is from the chilean north. I rarely see andean stuff in fashion in general but if there's a little andean vibe to them I scream, it makes me happy and I want them to be recognized.

A random related fact, there was a protest in New York where people did a massive evasion (mass jumping the turnstiles) at the subway and THAT'S A CHILEAN INVENTION YEAAAAH finally some influence.

This entry was not made to be formal nor neutral, I'm pro-culture sharing. This entry is just made for fun (and anger). If you want a more serious entry in the future, write it down below. I didn't want to make it too serious because I'm writing this for a forgettable blog, not an academy article for university.

Keywords: Latin America, latin american, cultural element(s), gyaru, influence.

@yuuramomo7

I. Stuff you need to know first.

  *****HUUUUGE DISCLAIMER: Further investigation after this blog post I discovered that cultural appropriation is originally from circa mid 1800's, not as definied as today's conception of the idea but has it's roots in the Cherokee's lands legal defense made by Lewis H. Morgan. The conception of today is formulated kinda in the 70's of last century but with other types of names as cultural colonialism for example. Now, the nowadays concept of dominant-dominated culture dynamic is still a super new conception of the term due to it was before just when cultures get elements from other ones. I use the concept of Guillermo Bonfil Batalla and my mistake was to assume, by the way he writes that he propose the dynamics of decisions, that he proposed the term of cultural appropriation, no, he proposed a new and more specified way of classifying decisions about culture, so the resume, I used the variant of the Latin America anthropology and I apologise, specially the fact he was heavyly influenced by the reasearches of Frank Boas and Lewis H. Morgan. Still, WHY PEOPLE DON'T CREDIT LEWIS H. MORGAN, JUST BECAUSE HE DEFFENDED LEGALLY CHEROKEES IN A MATERIALISTIC (MARXIST) WAY AND TRY TO ERASE MARXIST INFLUENCE IN TODAY'S STUDIES? My conspiration theory of today. I'm grateful of my new archaeologist friend for sharing me this information and where to investigate so I thanks him (damn, he studied not only in Chile, also in Columbia), so now I must investigate this more properly. Either with this I'm saying it doesn't validate this way of stuying interethnic relationships, I'm saying this because I SEE PEOPLE USING THIS AGAINST ME IN THE ARGUMENT XD.

Another disclaimer is that now thanks to the Cyber Grl's (I forget how to write her name sowwy) interview with an actual 90's gyaru, we know now that Yamanba actually was born outside Gyaru and they were two different subcultures that they started to ally possibly in the late 90's. Now I have much more questions about the origin of Yamanba lol.

I'm about to go into a lot of detail, please don't cry ;;

1.0 Cultural Control Theory and demystification of cultural appropriation.

This theory is the proposal of the mexican anthropologist Guillermo Bonfil during the 80's for explaining interethnic relations about cultural elements and to analyze the cultural control of indigenous people in Mexico. He proposed a way to understand how much control autonomous cultures have on their own elements and how influenced it can be with other ethnicities.

Now, what is a cultural element? Cultural elements are all the components a culture produces and embeds within itself, they can be a) material, b) organizative, c) knowledge, d) symbolic and e) emotive or subjective.

This theory consist in six dynamics of decisions:

A) Cultural resistance: it's when a dominated culture tries to preserve their elements and rejects the dominating ones. This can be collectively conscious and unconscious. This perfectly embodies the chicano movement.

B) Cultural appropriation: it's when a dominated culture takes and reproduces elements from a dominating one. Yes, not as twitter people say. Its peak is when these elements start to be part of them too. For example, when it comes to the sociological aspect, having to learn the language of the dominant culture it's cultural appropriation, like when us latin people must to learn english. Another example related to language, in an article about creating a spanish-teaching programme for haitian immigrants in Chile, it is refered as a need to make them culturally appropriate the spanish language and chilean culture to work in the chilean society, with that words.

C) Cultural innovation: this can be made in an autochthonous or cultural appropriation context from a subordinated ethnicity. For example if we talk about Gyaru subculture, they appropriated the United State's fashion elements and they created a new style with them.

D) Cultural imposition: it's when a dominating culture imposes their cultural elements to an ethnicity foreign to them. It can be by force or imposed subtlety. For example, the entertainment media from the United States imposed a new lifestyle based on their movies and series, something we appropriated the people outside the United States in a way to be at par with them.

E) Cultural suppression: when a dominant ethnicity prohibits or eliminates cultural elements, this is suppression in action. Like the other dynamics of decisions, it can be by force or in a subtle way. For example, in times of slavery, afrodescendant people were prohibited from wearing their traditional braids for long time. Now they aren't prohibited to do so but they are said to often avoid wearing braids so as to not be perceived as 'dirty' (bro, a friend said to me she wore cornrows to school and thanks that she was the only one without lice in her class).

F) Cultural Alienation: This is the one that should be named instead of cultural appropriation. This is when a dominant culture reproduces elements from the dominated culture. An example Guillermo Bonfil gives of it it's when the labour and production of a country is being alienated by foreign business. This example mentioned has similarities to the concept of alienated labour by Karl Marx.

Bonfil (1991) clarifies that all these dynamics can have a level of negotiation between them. For example, in tourism some cultural elements are sacrificed for economical benefits.

Now, Bonfil (1991) explains these concepts are neutral to morality, this is because they are only for understanding inter-ethnical relations in the anthropological field, so it's a mistake when people talk about cultural appropriation like something inherently bad and the other is "appreciation", appreciation can be appropriation and alienation too, but this isn't necessarily inherently bad. It's often said too there's a difference between assimilation and appropriation, which is totally fake, because Bonfil (1991) when he's explaining the appropriated culture, he says this happens in a way to assimilate.

Normally, when it comes to the controversies about cultural appropriation (or better said, alienation) and what makes it wrong, it's actually due to the thea) there is a perpetuation of a harmful stereotype of a culture, b) it's a strong symbolic cultural element, amongst the ethnicity and by their moral vision it's not good for other ethnicities to reproduce them, c) it's alienation of the production of a culture, so their labour is being threatened and it affects their economic stability, d) what actually bothers them is the hypocrisy of the person who is reproducing the element in question.

Now, even this knowledge was ironically alienated from latin american academia, but we here don't have problem with it, it's useful. Sadly, it was distorted and I often say stolen because people uses the concept of cultural appropriation as if they know what it means and worse, they never give actual credit. They know who proposed the today's feminist concepts, like Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Buttler and/or Angela Davis, or who proposed the concept of neurodiversity who was Judy Singer, but everyone forgets who proposed cultural appropriation and I see often they assume its origin is in new academia from the USA. Knowing this was the first time I felt anger, just because latin american academia don't produce for United States or Europe doesn't mean it's irrelevant. Worse, these people try to impose on us how we should think about analyzing our societies without the knowledge that we created that academia for ourselves (and our own societies). We are different countries and regions with totally different histories, you can't just say how we need to see our culture.

Bring us back the cultural appropriation concept.

1.2 Gyaru subculture.

Edit: I think I confused with "working class" with "high class", because I found like two versions of the origin of gyaru: one by high-class girls and other by working class girls, so I don't know exactly what one is the actual version or there is some mix.

Gyaru is a known subculture made by middle and working class teens and young women originated in Shibuya, Tokyo. Born from globalization and occidentalization, they want to emulate the american girl look, but with the information they were receiving at that time, the style changed a lot with time, appropriating new ways to get the western trending look, including using other occidental styles not related to United States. That means they didn't always produce an exact copy of the fashion of the time, making their own innovation simultaneously trying to emulate it, becoming a new style. The purpose of this was to escape Japanese cultural exigency (David, 2012a). Since this style required in their origins tanning, bleaching hair, heavy makeup, tight fitting and acting "wild", it had a prejudice associated with delincuency among japanese people, provoking exclusion and thus really enabling these girl to fall into actual delinquency and prostitution, but another japanese point of view would regard these girls as the unconcious origin of a sexual liberation movement. Because of sexual harrasment, they started to use the most undesirable styles in the eyes of the japanese people, creating the ganguro style, showing the racist and classist face of japanese culture by excluding much more these girls than they did before: this is the reason why it's commonly said it's a rebellion against beauty standarts, but at the same time they created their own one (David, 2012b).

They have their own male version called gyaru-o. It's commonly said it originated in the 90's, but according to other articles it could have an earlier origin in the 80's, but the official visual dramatization of the style was notorious during the 90's with ko-gyaru style.

The practices of gyaru people are normally shopping, hanging out with friends and dancing para-para, a dance style originated in Japan. This type of urban tribe commonly consumes cheap stuff, but buying international or luxury brands wherever they could, making it hard to some gyarus to afford their looks and to be accepted by other people as a gyaru too. (Churikko, 2022)

Nowadays gyaru is often toned down, characterised by a paler skintone and a mix of their own staple makeup with some Korean influence and more aesthetical pleasing clothing (or what's considered aesthetic today). Now, their change doesn't mean they are more accepted by the Japanese society, there is still a stigma around them. According to a statistic given in the video "Being 'gyaru' in Japan" by Nobita from Japan, 75% of Japanese men don't like gyaru.

Being "Gyaru" in Japan - Nobita From Japan

1.3 Syncretism.

Syncretism is a form of cultural resistance created during the Latin American colonial times, where indigenous and afro descendant communities were forced to convert into christianity, appropraited the religion and with it they still practice their cosmovision, maintaining a coexistence between the dominated and dominating culture (Espinoza et al., 2012).

This is emblematic of the majority of Latin America, a culture made of the fusion of cultural elements, so it's common to share between ourselves our cultures because it was made since circa 500 years ago roughly.

1.4 Latin American identity struggle.

Latin America identity is always fluctuating. Since the arrival of spaniard colonizers, the process of constructing an identity began. According Jorge Larraín (1996), chilean sociologist, there are four stages of the Latin America identity.

First, the concept creation of the other between indigenous people and spaniard colonizers. Since the conquest times, natives and Spaniards started to differentiate themselves, but due to the military power of the colonizers, native people were dominated and started to work for their new bosses. With time during the Colony, a new social stratum started to appear in Latin America: the mestizo (maaaaybe translatable to mixed race), who is the symbiosis of indigenous and european cultures and sometimes is included african heritage. The mestizos were considered lower than criollos (spaniard people born in Latin American, their status were less than a european) but higher than natives, making a limbo struggle because despite of being both of them, they were rejected from both ethnicities, making a new culture based in syncretism.

The second stage is the identity crisis of Independence, when syncretism already reached indigenous people and criollos and it wasn't something exclusive from mestizos. In the early years of the XIX century, declarations of independence were made by criollos with help of mestizos creating republics all over Latin America. In these new republican times, it prompted the power shift from the old aristocracies to the new oligarchies who took power in their countries. These high-class people started to give education to mestizos to compensate for the "bad moral mix", this because according to the social darwinian current in Latin America, the mestizo had the worst of every race. Also, in some countries it was common to repress popular practices, for example, Chile :p. This makes the mestizo seen as the origin of the civilization under-development and to have a disparaging view from higher classes.

The third part is in the early years of the XX century: the 1929 crisis and its relationship with latin american identity. The middle class -class made up of professionals- started to have a more of a stake in politics, and thus they participated more meanwhile oligarchies started to lose power due the stock market crash. This provided a new space upon which they questioned the previous vision of the miscegenation, creating a new current that had constant debates with the hispanist current, a current which is still active all over Latin America (and my country UF, help). This new current starts to see miscegenation and syncretism as the basic identity of Latin America and not as something shameful, which inspired at the near future promotion of popular practices.

The fourth part is not so much commented upon in this book because I only got the fourth chapter D: but in summary, it starts with another questioning of identity due to constant political instability and coup d'etats since the 60-70's. But by the history outside the book, coups were made in the name of security because the class struggle discourse was common (cold war) and it was bad for the international corporations, so to secure "freedom", the United States did a lot of military interventions.

As we see, the latin american identity is a whole debatable thing, from what we are exactly and what is our importance in this world, which it appears to be few. But, we have a story of being considered by others and between ourselves like we are less than occidental potencies or how we call them wrongly "first world" (I still use this concept but it's actually outdated). We even discriminate ourselves with classist views: the Latin American poor are uncivilized, the rich are civilized regardless of being latin american too, but they will deny it with their criollo or other european roots. We feel less, easily crushable , we try to hide our "uncilized" culture importing cultural practices from other places and we often let classism go unchecked, which is something we need to work on.

So, understanding this, it's not surprising when latin american people are happy to see our culture being minimally reflected, especially when it comes to popular practices. The j-fashion lovers from Latin America commonly applaud the integration of latin american stuff into japanese outfits, we feel a pride and a relief: finally someone who doesn't see us as undesirable or invisible!

Also, with our history of syncretism, sharing cultural elements are common between everyone, so we often include people to practice the traditions regardless of origin or race. This contrast the view of the anglophone world who see this wrong, accusing them of cultural appropriation (and doing so wrongly described in the point of Cultural Control Theory).

So yes, by making this entry I'm celebrating our influence and to remember that not everyone sees us undesirable.

II. Latin American influence in Gyaru subculture.

2.0 Chicano influence and other gaijin subcultures.

As latin american gaijin gyarus we reproduce the gyaru subculture, but japanese people have their own subculture about us, or in this case, mexican cultures. Now, Japanese Chicano subculture is a curious case because it wasn't made by Latin American people in Japan, it was made by Japanese people who love vintage cars. It's common to emulate Mexican culture, especially the mestiza one. Now, J-Chicano and Gyaru are separated, but there are self-claimed gyaru girls in it.

Inside Japan's Chicano Subculture | NYT

If I'm not wrong, Japanese Chicano subculture is one of the many gaijin-inspired subcultures, but honestly I haven't investigated further.

2.1 Cholo and derivates.

I separate this from Chicano influence because the "cholismo" is something that cross almost all Latin America instead of just one country (and after interviewing a mexican, even the cholo and the chicano differentiate between themselves in Mexico).

Normally, the cholo is undesirable, associated with poverty and delincuency sometimes, but we often forget they are the consequence from systemic poverty and racism. Cholos have different names and significances all across Latin America but all of them are another tag for mestizos. Now, to explain what is cholo in different countries is hard. Sometimes, like in andean countries like Perú or Bolivia they are the indigenous people with a syncretic culture, in other countries it's just a common nickname to refer someone with tan/dark skin in a loving way - mi cholita de mi corazón -. It doesn't matter if we like them or not (or us, sometimes cholos discriminate other cholos for being cholos), at the end of all, they are huge part of Latin America history and culture.

Now, there is a common association with cholos and canis/turros/flaites or how they are called in different parts of the region, something we need to clarify they are different: the cani is a recent subculture (born around the 90's) associated with delincuency too, but it's another lifestyle, more related to the consumption of hip-hop stuff and with a more derrogative meaning than cholo.

Ok, so, with all this, I'M FAAAAN OF J-CHOLAS, I love the sociological phenomenon that is happening here. Imagine liking something that has a bad reputation among us, just as we like Gyaru in Latin America (I see often japanese people hate gyarus xd). Now, not all j-cholas claim to be gyaru. Eiko's blogspot wrote an entry about J-cholas, explaining their references to the common latina, these girls often tans, dresses short and fitting clothing, they dye their hair to natural colours, especially black and brown, and some of them even gain weight to get a curvier body, something very shocking considering that the beauty ideal in Japan is to be skinny (Eiko, 2015). I love how they look, they remind me of some of my relatives who wear that kind stuff and it warms me. A lot of latin american people agree that this way of expression is cool.

The unique thing I can agree on about these styles, they carry the negative part of the perpetuation of delincuencial stereotypes amongst latin american people, much like what happens when it comes to the perception of B-kei. But well, if they don't create their own delinquent gangs or if they copy the political instability and corruption everything is okay, just imagine some type of Japanzuela XDD. Also, it's often shows a more positive perspective about latin american cultures. Sad Girl, the chicano-influenced japanese rapper said she started to appreciate her family more due to our traditional family values and that saved her (Nobita, 2019). My maternal family is a traditional case of the good side of these values (because there is a dark side, as everything), because our social status it doesn't matter, if we need help here we are, and knowing japanese people often prioritize work and honour... We are giving them a new way that works for them and they didn't know where to get it. This is like how we take Gyaru's values.

I want her code

Now, Sad Girl explains too a lot of people get out of the style because they don't progress past the clothes and style to the real lifestyle of that subculture, but I don't blame them, a lot of gaijin gyarus do the same and at the end of all, keeping the style or not, you learn new perspectives of life and new cultural interpretations.

I wish to see more South American styles in the future because I see it as a good opportunity for Latin American people to question our classism and how we need to appreciate our own people more as people from other places do.

2.2 Cowboy aesthetic.

Did you know that actually cowboy stuff have its origin in Mexico?

The charro (mexican cowboy) is the poor countryside man from the south of the United States and Mexico, dedicated to the equestrian field in the times of colony. Its origin comes from the Spanish colonization, so that explains a lot of their aesthetic. The charro is the predecessor of the American cowboy, who also came to bolster Mexican Independence and Mexican Revolution too. (Vega, 2016)

A lot of us who didn't know we believed they were only american, which it was fake and I DIDN'T KNOW VKSVKSVKS, sorry mexican friends, I was tricked by the television.

Now, after the separation of part of the north of Mexico that is now the United States, they started to change to a more anglo-saxon style, creating the famed cowboy. So, today's charro and cowboy are different aesthetically (Vega, 2016).

Charro

But at least, the essence of the hat is something both of them share.

Cowboy

With the popularization of western movies around the world, in Japan the successor style was taken as a trend to dress, and very often in gyaru in styles such as tsuyome and 90's old school. I'm not Mexican, so to filter through the information about charros and cowboys was hard, if you want to collaborate write down below!

2.3 Ponchos and Chullos.

Quechua man with a chullo and poncho made with the characteristic aguayo fabric. He holds a siku, originary instrument from Andean culture. (I wrote it was a quena but I got confused)

Ponchos are all over Latin America, born in the prehispanic era and made for rainy days (if your poncho doesn't work like an umbrella for the body, you were scammed lol). Every latin american culture has their own signature fabric for them, for example, the Andean culture (indigenous and mestizo cultures from Los Andes mountain range) commonly has the aguayo. So now it's understandable when places outside Latin America try to emulate them, they look very off, but still cool because they are good for the cold, literally a whole blanket covering your body as if you were wearing your bed outside.

Now, chullos are more specific of Andean Culture and popularized by tourism principally in Peru because the citizens there often sell their own handcraft. Chullos are those knit beanies with two wings covering the ears and have braids at their sides (don't confuse them with ushankas). They are super good for winter: almost all your head is covered, so it's common to see people wearing them in every part of the world. Now, despite of being so famous, a lot of people outside Latin America don't know they are wearing these hats and call them "snow knit hat" (or that's what I saw in Everkies lol).

 

2.4 Hoop earrings.

Actually, if you ask any latin american living in Latin America, the majority will deny that hoop earrings are from us because we often see it more like a stereotype about us rather than an actual cultural element, so why are they the latino staple?

Hoop earrings had been in fashion history for centuries, in large parts of Europe, Africa and western Asia, especially India, so they have different simultaneous origins. The unique information I found in regard to the latin american aspect of the hoop earring trend was that it's from Europe, mixing Romani influence, spaniard influence and sometimes native cultures from here but they don't specify what indigenous culture, they should because THEY ARE TOO MANY. Now, the association with latin american culture began with the massive immigration to the United States after which they started to avoid these earrings because they were often associated with "oriental" stuff... which is confusing considering it was used by the european aristocracy... A lot of stuff I read didn't have a lot of connection, but whatever it happened, the latin american immigrants when they started their cultural resistance, they started to wear the hoops and show them off in order to challenge discrimination. So, even though it is not exclusive to latin american people, it has a huge role in the latino resistance in the United States.

Considering it's one of the most oldest fashion trends in the world and has multiple origins, it's not surprising it reached Gyaru, being one of the most known latin american accessory in their closet, giving a sexy look with a very casual vibe, when the bigger the better.

~'THE BIGGER THE HOOP, THE BIGGER THE HOE." - Khloe Kardashian.

I love hoops, everytime I go outside I use hoops to try and feel like an exotic fashion star (with exotic I refer to united statesian people, because for me they are the exotic people XD).

Personally I don't consider hoops as latin american, because I always associated it with european romani people and Spain, but latins, what do you think?

(I read an article 2 years ago about "white girls shouldn't wear hoop earring because it's cultural appropriation", that was a horrible article, just use hoops, they are cool and it always was a global trend)

2.5 Honorable mentions.

BR BR BR BR BR BR BR

It's common to associate latin american girls with a passionate sexyness and with a lot of partying due to a lot of festive practices. It's also a common stereotype some latin american women dislike due to sexualization, but I don't have a problem with it personally. It's a stereotype, it's obvious not everyone is like this, also, why is being sexual inherently wrong?? We need to kick out that mentality of "sexual=bad", just because you're sexy it doesn't mean other people have the right to disrespect you, latin or not. Please, I love to identify myself as a spicy latina D:

I just put this photo because it's cute. 

 This image is totally not related to the topic but

WHY HE HAS A MINI MARX IN HIS SHIRT NSJDKDJKSJDJDHR

III. Do you want to help Latin American people?

Outside Gyaru, Latin American people need help. Now, I often see a lot of people outside Latin America don't know how to help, or they help in a wrong way for some latin american people. Here some ideas:

A) Learn perspectives.

As I showed in this entry, we have a different view of culture. In order to widen your understanding you should think beyond the views of your country. It's not the same thing to understand Latin America from the United States or Europe to understand Latin America in Latin America.

B) Don't generalize Latin America.

As we say often "not all Latin America is Mexico and Brazil" (something we fail at because latin american people ironically generalise United States as Texas, California, Los Ángeles and New York XD), the region has a lot of countries and even has variation within those countries. Peru and Brazil have a lot of indigenous, afro descendant and asian cultures apart from the traditional one, sometimes their practices coexist in just one culture as a way of syncretism or fusion. Argentina is one of the strongest European descendant countries in Latin America (che) but their culture is more syncretic than a lot of people think. Bolivia is a plurinational country with an indigenous majority, while in other countries from Latin America indigenous people are a minority. Haiti is a nation full of syncretic practices born from African resistance and they are a cultural majority, unlike in other Latin American countries. It's a continent with multiple exceptional cases between itself and you will get a different result in who you will ask. This applies to Latin American people who live in countries outside the region, a lot of them will have a mentality influenced by the place they are living.

C) Get conscious about what struggles Latin America has.

Our region is one of the most dangerous when it comes to being an environmental activist. Many of these activists are threatened and killed for wanting changes in production and governments cover this up for economical purposes, normally allying themselves with international corporations. Human rights violation is still a whole theme in Latin America, from nowadays dictatorships and democratic governments too. If you are more about workers' rights, neocolonialism is a problem too. Maybe we are free from colonial power but we are being exploited by foreign nations like China, the United States and by state and private corporations. Reashearching the history is a good way to start, however I should say that you shouldn't get too stuck in the history of colonial times because I see often people outside Latin America just look at the problems born from the spanish, french and portuguese colonies, wich are not fake problems, we definitely still are dealing with the consequences of those times, but don't forget all the XX century that plays a huge part in our current problems, including the problems we latin american people created too.

D) Don't ignore/underestimate Latin American people because we live outside your lived experience.

This is a topic that isn't touched upon much but I feel it's necessary to talk about. It's often that when latin american struggles are discussed with a latin american view that specifically conforms to a "first world" understanding. I recommend you ask how much you are paying attention. You don't need to know Spanish or Portuguese to ask yourself if you are paying more attention and give more weight to the views to a latin american person who lives in a "first world" context rather than a latin american person who lives in Latin America. I say this because I was underestimated about how much I can talk for my context and other latin american people too. I could talk much more, but this post would be too long. So ask yourself if you are really paying attention to more than one vision.

E) Don't gatekeep the "latiness" of someone. Kinda related to the last point. This point I'm talking specially to us people from Latin America. Don't gatekeep the "latiness" of a latin american person living outside Latin America just because "no es latino, es gringo", I say this because some latin american from United States, Europe, Australia or any place even though some of them are "too gringo" for us, to the person of these places doesn't care and they will discriminate them for being latin, they will suffer for being latin american, so it's not uncommon for them to challenge this discrimination by harnessing their cultural elements as much as they can. I used to laugh at these "gringos" because they are more american than latin american but I was ignoring all their pain too (to be honest even today I fall into this prejudice, I'm working in it). Also, for the latin american person outside of Latin America, you shouldn't gatekeep this either. I often see some of them deny other latin american people because "they are too white/asian/black", yes, these people who think like this still exist.

If you reached here, thank you for reading! It took me days to make this entry with the most trustworthy information I could find :D 

English correction credits to @luna_gyaru (instagram).

 💕 Follow me in my Instagram 💕

@talia_pendeja_pride (drawings)

@molotovist_gyaru (gyaru)

References:

Bonfil, G. (1991). Teoría del Control Cultural en el estudio de procesos étnicos. Colima, México: Estudios sobre las Culturas Contemporáneas.

David, W. (February 28, 2012a). The history of the Gyaru - Part one. Neojaponisme. Recovered from neojaponisme.com/2012/02/28/the-history-of-the-gyaru-part-one/

David, W. (June 6, 2012b). The history of the Gyaru - Part three. Neojaponisme. Recovered from neojaponisme.com/2012/06/06/the-history-of-the-gyaru-part-three/

Eiko. (December 4, 2015). Influencia latina en el Gyaru: ¿J-Cholas?, ¿Un subestilo?. Gal Side. Recovered from gal-side.blogspot.com/2015/12/influencia-latina-en-el-gyaru-j-cholas.html

Espinoza, M. and Gilyam, M. (2012). Sincretismo Cultural: Mestizaje cultural en México y Perú. Argentina: Universidad Nacional de Cuyo.

Larraín, J. (1996). Historia e identidad latinoamericana, en Modernidad, razón e identidad en América Latina, Editorial Andrés Bello, Santiago, 1996, pp. 127-166.

Vega, E. (September 9, 2016). Origen y tradición de la charrería. Primera Plana. Recovered from primeraplanadigital.com.mx/blog/2016/09/09/origen-y-tradicion-de-la-charreria/