a cholo is a guys that is in a gang. Normally they are bald and wear baggy clothes, but the old school cholos wear dickies to the waist and slicked their hair back.
Cholo does not mean a "Mexican gangster" and it doesen't necassarily mean Mexican or Chicano. A Cholo is Spanish for Mestizo. A Mestizo is a person of mixed European and Native American heritage. Many Mestizos are Salvadoran, Honduran, Peruvian,Guatamalan, Mexican and Ecuadorian.
Some people don't even know what the word means and they post unreliable definitions.
Cholo can also be used as a generic term suggesting people with "low-life" street values. Commonly, Cholos are also violent thugs and may belong to street gangs. Their clothes are often "uniforms" with territorial peculiarities that have meanings that can be read by the cognicenti.
Mother to son: I'm worried that you are going to end up dead or in prison by hanging out with those cholo losers.
The word cholo means half breed, like mestizo, only in a more deragatory sense. Used to label Mexicans in the U.S. who neihter fit in with U.S. or Mexican culture, and flamboyently flaunt and take pride in that fact. An extension of Pachuquismo, cholos are hated in both U.S. and Mexico. Our styles have derived from this attitude as a way of expression and identification.