Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a derog. term for a foreigner, esp. East Asian, e.g. (in chronological order of use) Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese; thus Gookland, Vietnam.

1920		in Nation 10 July 36: The Haitians in whose service the United States Marines are supposedly in Haiti are nicknamed ‘Gooks’ and have been treated with every variety of contempt.
1945		(ref. to 1912) Mencken Amer. Lang. Supplement I 610: The Marines who occupied Nicaragua in 1912 took to calling the natives gooks.
1947		D.W. Hamilton ‘Pacific War Lang.’ in AS XXII:1 Feb. 55: gooks. Japs, or any natives.
1950		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 8 Aug. 6/4: The term ‘Gook’ used in reference to South Koreans [...] started with the Korean word for American, which is ‘Me-Gook’. The first GIs to opccupy Korea in 1945 simply reversed the situation and the word for Koreans became ‘Gook’.
1952		J. Jones From Here to Eternity (1998) 131: The gook was the colonel’s orderly.
1953		L. Uris Battle Cry (1964) 395: [of Gilbert Islanders] Give us the word on the gooks.
1966		M. Rumaker Exit 3 and Other Stories 14: Gook! Gook! Kill ’em!
1970		(con. 1950s) H. Junker ‘The Fifties’ in Eisen Age of Rock 2 (1970) 98: Korea did little to enrich the language (brainwashing, gook).
1970		T. Southern Blue Movie (1974) 210: That’s a fucking Viet Cong flag [...] We’re at war with those gooks, for Chrissake!
1982		(con. 1970) J.M. Del Vecchio 13th Valley (1983) 14: The Americanization of Gookland.
1983		N. Proffitt Gardens of Stone (1985) 238: Big loss of face for a gook, you understand.
1993		G. Disher Deathdeal [ebook] Maybebe he could get this gook [i.e. a Malaysian] to see reason.
1993		Tarantino & Avery Pulp Fiction [film script] 4: If it’s not the gooks, it’s these old Jews.
1999		Guardian Editor 19 Nov. 16: I’m to join the army and fight what they call goddam chinks or gooks in Korea.
2000		Sun. Times Mag. 6 Feb. 27: There’s lots of us out here, who’ve never come back from ’Nam. We’re still there in our heads, still fighting the gooks.
2000		W.T. Vollmann Royal Family 358: Your sister-in-law was a gook [i.e. Korean], wasn’t she?
2006		C. Carr Our Town 278: ‘Slant-eyed son-of-a-bitchin’ gooks that you was paid a few bucks to kill and the son-of-a-bitches beat you back home!’ he fumed.
2011		(con. 1968) P.L. Nelson Incessant Voice of War 3: To him, all orientals are the same. Slopes, Gooks, Zips.
2021		P. Papathanasiou Stoning 81: ‘I forgot the Asians. They came after the Vietnam War’ [...] ‘No gooks ended up in Cobb’.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 115: ‘Glass collector in the Merchant navy. It’s a gook’s job. A dog’s job’.

2. any other foreigner.

1947		(con. 1944) J.H. Burns Gallery (1948) 262: These Eyeties [...] ain’t human beins. They’re just Gooks, that’s all.
1959		W. Burroughs Naked Lunch 132: Stand up, Gertie, and show respect for the local gooks.
2008		Mail and Guardian (Johannesburg) 12 Oct. 🌐 You call me Boer, Whiteboy [...] Whiter, Settkler, White Trash [...] but when i call you nigger, kaffir, [...] muntu or gook, you call me a racist.

3. any foreign language.

2001

(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 326: Marv Three translated — all pidgin-gook.