Selma are you sure you are spelling correctly the phonetic word that your mother "heard"? With the word Canecos and Canarim being so similar, it could be a mis-pronunciation of the speaker or a mis-interpretation of the listener. Both of them may or may not know the correct (meaning of the) term "Canarim" for a Goan Catholic.
And if they perhaps made a mistake, with due respect, you are making a 'mountain of a mole hill' by attributing all sorts of "racial slur" connotations to both terms. Just my opinion! Canarim is the correct technical term for Goan Catholics. It is the Goan Catholics, who may not appreciate their identity, and may consider the term as a "slur." We may be one grade less than the Anglo-Indian or the Mestizio in denying our own cultural identity. At least they were confused being in a mixed-race situation. Many native Goan 'fidalgoes' were reluctant to even speak their native language, another identifier of ones cultural heritage; trying to pass themselves as "aum Portuguese". So likely it is the Goan, who is transposing their 'inferiority complex' onto others. Regards, GL ----------- Carvalho I too am finding it difficult to trace the exact colloquial translation of this word but my mother remembers the slur clearly and I have found a reference made to it, in a 1950 booklet produced by the Goa League. Peinture a canecos, means to play the fool, so I am assuming the word canecos by itself when used as a racial slur, meant stupid.
