What is Creole?

What Does Creole Mean

The notion of criollismo refers to the creole characteristic . The term is also used to refer to the position that leads to the exaltation of the properties of the Creole .

Before moving on, it is important to know what the idea of Creole refers to . A Creole individual is one who was born in a former European colony in America and who is descended from Europeans. Sometimes, the Creole is specifically a black subject born in an American territory that belonged to Spain .
In the broadest sense, a Creole is someone who was born in a Spanish-American nation, as opposed to a European or other continent immigrant. By extension, the Creole is something typical of these countries .

Retaking the concept of criollismo, usually it refers to a movement of literature that emerged at the end of the nineteenth century and was consolidated at the beginning of the twentieth century focusing on native customs. Although he has different features depending on the region, in general his works coincide in highlighting the fight against oppression.
Criollismo usually realistically describes the living conditions of blacks , gauchos, and aborigines . It is important to bear in mind that, in its origins, the independence of the former colonies was still recent.
In Cuba , for example, criollismo focused on Cuban identity, with Alejo Carpentier as one of its references. On the other hand, authors of criollismo in Chile , such as Gabriela Mistral , detailed the daily difficulties of those who lived in rural communities .
Popular legends, the use of idioms , the preponderance of the autochthonous and the sociological claim are some of the distinctive qualities of criollismo.
This autochthonous term is key when speaking of criollismo. Since the second half of the 16th century, the word criollo has been used to refer to the children of Spaniards born in the American continent, in a land that would have been dominated by Spain and turned into a colony . It goes without saying that throughout his life, a Creole did not feel a single well-defined identity, but had to combine his two origins, his two languages, the cultural differences of his parents and the violence that had originally united them.
The Creole did not speak the same as the Spanish born and raised in Europe, nor were their respective cultural backgrounds the same . In the 18th century, the differences between the two became even more accentuated after the Bourbon reforms, which did not allow the Creole to access the most important positions in the Church and the Government.

This gave rise to the emergence of a new identity that could shelter the Creole in their own roots, where they should not suffer contempt and discrimination from those who had usurped the lands of their ancestors. Looking for the autochthonous, criollismo was consolidating little by little.
Another of the most important concepts in the context of criollismo is illustration, a cultural movement that emerged in Europe in the seventeenth century and extended until the nineteenth, characterized by the predominance of reason over faith and the commitment to progress . It is also related to liberalism, which served as the basis, since it defends individual freedoms.
The development of cities in Latin America was boosted by the waves of immigration that arrived between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and that is why it represented modernity but also the foreigner. At the other extreme, rural life is understood as a symbol of the national people, of what is proper, of what had always been there, and that is why criollismo appreciates it so much. In his literature, both the characters and the customs of the countryside are exalted , preciously because they have not been "modernized."