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Hi y'all - loooong time no post, and I've missed you all muchly.
I've just spent some time travelling in the Pacific (I was closer to MaxQ and Bingley than to all you mainland US posters, which was a first for me) and had a question come to mind.
Many places seem to have a word for people not from that place - examples include gringo in Mexico, gaijin in Japan, and haole in Hawaii and, by extension, Pacific islands elsewhere (I heard it used on both Guam and Saipan). Haole even has modifiers applied to it - hapa haole meaning someone is half-islander and half-off-islander.
Are there other words that people use around the world to denote them folks from elsewhere? I can't think of any in the mainland US, perhaps because we're such a mutt nation, but maybe there are regional terms I haven't heard.
Related to my first question, what is the tone of any of these words for foreigner? "Gringo" does not usually have very positive connotations in Mexico, but it's not necessarily insulting either. I do a lot of work in Mexico and as I've gotten to know people there well, they'll use the term in a bantering sort of way (at least I think that's how they're using it...).
I don't know about gaijin's tone, but I know it's very widely used, so I suspect it's not overly offensive. Anyway, I'm interested in what these words are and whether they're used to simply state that someone ain't from around here, or to suggest that that someone is a foreign barbarian.
Oh - thought of another one, or at least a similar one - goyim. Any more, my long-lost AWAD friends?
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Sadaharu Oh, the professional baseball home run king, was gaijin even though he was born in Tokyo. His father was Chinese. So it can't automatically be considered negative.
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I always thought "gringo" was a specific reference to americans (or perhaps to white-skinned people. somehow i always assumed "gringo" actually meant white-skin ~ how *does it translate?). is it used for *all non-mexican nationals? would, say, italian folks visiting Cabo would be referred to by the locals as gringos? and FWIW, in my experience "gringo" is generally only mildly--and usually in jest--pejorative oh, and welcome back, hyla... we've missed you, too! 
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Many times have I been called a gringa, most times with only a very slight perjorative tinge. It is generally used only for USns and could actually be compared in value to n***er. One time, my father in-law was having a good time gringo bashing so I called him a beaner(with love, my tongue in cheek, and my heart in my mouth), just to illustrate that I felt that tinge. He didn't much like being called a beaner by someone he loved and conceded me the point. My ex-husband used to introduce me to new people as a Canadian. He thought that would be an advantage Hi Ginette .I usually didn't mind being called gringa by people that knew me. When I did mind it was when strangers called me that with the extremely perjorative intention. The Americans that truely deserve that appellation generally don't understand it anyway. There were times and places where I was ashamed of my fellow countrymen and their bad behavior. Anyway, it is my understanding that "gringo" stems from the war fought against General SantaAnna along the Texas/Mexican border. "Green Grow the Lilacs" was a popular song at that time and the American soldiers on sentry duty seemed to like singing it, thus "Green Grow" became "Gringo" as in "Shhh. Listen to those crazy gringos singing" as the Mexican soldiers crept closer to the bivoacs.
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A Californian I knew in college told me that "palo blanco" was choice Mexican epithet for USns. If I recall correctly there was an allusion to a disease resulting in a depigmented membrum virile.
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AHD indicates "gringo" was an earlier Spanish word, originally meaning "Greek" but then extended to mean any foreigner, much in the sense of "It's all Greek to me", or "one foreigner is the same as any other." (That proverb is clearly older.) See http://www.snopes2.com/language/stories/gringo.htm for the same view -- but suggesting that the Spanish-American War, 1846-1848, may have brought this word from Spanish into English. Edit: Apparently there has been some controversey over the "green grow" and "greek" theories. Various sources are summarized, with links, at: http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20000821.html
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Be that as it may, I was given the explanation by a Mexican. Also, I don't hear many Spaniards use that appellation, but I have heard many Mexicans do so. My Pequeño Larousse Illustrado also mentions the English as being included under gringo.
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(1) I know the word has racist connotations when used by those short of hair and social skills in Germany, but nonetheless it's a good descriptive word - "auslander" (sp?) (=out lander).
(2) Somebody will be able to help me with the chinese phrase - something like "gwai loh" (=foreigh devil)
(3) Broken Hill is a very remote mining town/city in outback New South Wales. For more than a hundred years it's been a strongly parochial place to the point where an apprenticeship in the mines was virtually an impossible dream if you weren't born in the town. Folks not born in Broken Hill were referred to as "coming from away".
This reminds me of the little I know about the New England Puritans - don't they say something like this? I remember the movies with Harris Ford (Witness) and others whereby non-Puritans were referred to collectively as "the English".
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Being careful here.
Hyla, I assume you are asking about words that mean "foreigner", rather than a specific type of foreigner. The latter would of course include numerous offensive ethnic slurs. I could rattle off a dozen off the top of my head, and I suspect that those who have lived in such a polyglot city as New York hi, Helen! could quickly add to the list.
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