Peruvians definitely have a mass of complexes to do with race, ethnicity and class. As far as I can gather, there’s at least three different senses of cholo/a:
1. people call each other ‘cholo’ in a buddy-pally kind of way, a bit like huevón/boludo/cabrón in Chile/Argentina/Mexico (or like Colombian girls calling each other ‘marica’). Peruvians may sometimes refer to themselves collectively as ‘cholos’ in the way your girlfriend did.
2. But, to describe an individual or group in normal conversation as ‘cholo[s]‘ is often interpreted as disparaging, and people can get pretty offended if you use it too loosely (‘indio’ is worse). This is because of the underlying racism and the tendency to look down on ethnic origins, despite the outward recognition that ’somos todos cholos’. In a group of Peruvians I know here in NZ, a girl from Ayacucho got really upset at another girl from the coast using ‘cholo’ in what the second girl thought was an inoffensive way.
3. ‘Cholita’ is different again, when used in an affectionate way with a girl. My arequipeña ex-girlfriend used to like me calling her ‘mi cholita’ — it being kind of a generic thing, like ‘gringo’ is for us. It’s also milder to talk about a girl of indigenous appearance as a ‘cholita’, especially if she’s young and pretty, although again you wouldn’t necessarily say it to her face at first.
Anyway, as a gringo you get forgiven most things, but there is a lot of sensitivity around this, and (as in the US or anywhere) a lot of it depends on who s saying and what the tone or context is.

look forward to reading more posts.

Simon Bidwell