If you have a Latina friend or have taken Spanish before, you have probably heard the term Chismosa.

now many of you may ask, "what is a chismosa? isn't that just a gossiper?"

In a way, yes. A Chismosa is someone who is like the neighborhood gossiper, and its 99% percent of the time your grandmother or aunt. However it goes farther than that. It is often used as a derogation to Latina women because the male idea of a woman was that all they did was sit around and gossip or tattle tale about their family lives because they have nothing better to do. The term now has become more comical because it's a stereotype of Latin American female culture.

To give more perspective, Pero Like made a recent video about being Chismosa.

It's a satire on how the Latin American community deem chismes as something bad, but is it always? if so, why do we do it? What makes us want to tell chisme?

To side track a little, my uncle who was born ad raised in Peru had asked me why the American mentality was to be nice to someone upfront yet talk shit behind their back. I said it was middle american mentality rather than inner city mentality.He then proceeded to tell me that he was confused as to why that is because it is not in Latin American culture. Which I therefore thought " what about the una chsimosa?" Then I realized again that he was a man and therefore was never aware of this aspect of our culture.

However guys say chisme just as much as girls, just in a different way. They tell stories about their lives to or about their family members that often get's carried to other houses. The only difference is that they have been taught that what they what they say is important, in similar lining with Machismo culture as well. It's ingrained in society and our way of life nobody can say they haven't said chisme. No me digas!

chismosa isn't just in our culture; it's in every culture. In Swedish it's called "skvallertant", in Samoan it's called "faitala tamaitai". The concept of gossiping is global, and that's really our universal way of communicating. Without the gossiping, how would have communicated before the newspaper? How would have known about each other to warn others about invaders and diseases? we all like to gossip, to tell a story, just as long as it's not harmful. So embrace your inner Chismosa!