Entry · catalog no. 3392
my people my people
/ /maɪ ˈpipəl maɪ ˈpipəl/ /my-PEE-pul-my-PEE-pul
phrase · Nationwide · 1940s
✓ Verified
1.
An exclamation of affectionate exasperation about Black folks — half sigh, half love — said when your own community does something that makes you shake your head.
“Everybody rolled up an hour late to the cookout. My people, my people.”
Origin & Attribution
A long-standing African American expression, given lasting print by Zora Neale Hurston, who titled a chapter of her 1942 autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road "My People! My People!" — turning a common cry of communal frustration and belonging into a meditation on it.
1942
Hurston titles a chapter of Dust Tracks on a Road "My People! My People!"
2000s
Endures in everyday speech and online as a wry communal aside
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Nationwide · 1940s
Spoken by
Black America
$MYPEOPThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady84 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
48/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1942
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
Contribute your pronunciation
See also