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yuma

YOO-mahnoun, adjectiveInformal

A Cuban Spanish slang term. Browse all Cuban slang.

What it means

  1. A foreigner, especially a white foreigner from a rich country. Originally specific to Americans, now applied to any tourist who looks like one.

  2. La Yuma: the United States, and by extension anywhere abroad worth emigrating to. Irse pa' la Yuma is to leave for the States.

  3. As an adjective, foreign-made and therefore good: un teléfono yuma.

Examples with translations

  • Ese restaurante es para los yumas, ahí no come un cubano.

    That restaurant is for tourists, no Cuban eats there.

  • Se fue pa' la Yuma hace tres años.

    He left for the States three years ago.

Where it comes from

Two accounts circulate. The popular one credits the 1957 western 3:10 to Yuma, which played widely in Cuba and supposedly fixed 'Yuma' as shorthand for the United States. The other treats it as a clipping of a Spanish rendering of 'United States' by way of yunay. Neither is documented well enough to state as fact, and the film story has the shape of folk etymology even if it happens to be right.

First attested: 1960s–70s