What is "cacerolazo"

A cacerolazo , cacerolada or casserole is a form of popular protest practised in certain Spanish-speaking countries – in particular Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Ecuador, Cuba, Spain – and more recently English and French-speaking countries, most notably Québec, as well as in Turkey during the 2013 protests in Turkey and Brazil during the 2015 protests in Brazil – which consists in a group of people creating noise by banging pots, pans, and other utensils in order to call for attention. What is peculiar about this type of demonstration is that people can protest from their own homes, thus achieving a high level of support and participation.

The word comes from Spanish cacerola, which means "stew pot". The derivative suffixes -azo and -ada denote a hitting (punching or striking) action, and has been extended metaphorically to any sort of shock demonstration. This type of manifestation started in 1971 in Chile, against the shortages of industrial products during the administration of Salvador Allende.

When this manner of protest was practised in Canada, in English it was referred to by most media as "casseroles" rather than the Spanish term cacerolazo.