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Chicano

"Chicana" redirects here. For the wrestler, see Sangre Chicana. For other uses, see Chicano (disambiguation).
A "Chicano Power!" by M.E.Ch.A. CSULA is held up in a crowd (2006).

Chicano (masculine form) or Chicana (feminine form) is an ethnic identity for Mexican Americans that emerged from the Chicano Movement.[1][2][3] Chicano was originally a classist and racist slur used toward low-income Mexicans that was reclaimed in the 1940s among youth who belonged to the Pachuco and Pachuca subculture.[4][5]

In the 1960s, Chicano was widely reclaimed among Hispanics in the building of a movement toward political empowerment, ethnic solidarity, and pride in being of indigenous descent (with many using the Nahuatl language or names).[6][7]

Chicano was used in a sense separate from Mexican American identity.[6][8][9][10] Youth in barrios rejected cultural assimilation into mainstream American culture and embraced their own identity and worldview as a form of empowerment and resistance.[11] The community forged an independent political and cultural movement, sometimes working alongside the Black power movement.[12][13]

El Paso's Second Ward, a Chicano neighborhood (1972)

The Chicano Movement faltered by the mid-1970s as a result of external and internal pressures. It was under state surveillance, infiltration, and repression by U.S. government agencies, informants, and agent provocateurs, such as through the FBI's COINTELPRO.[14][15][16][17] The Chicano Movement also had a fixation on masculine pride and machismo that fractured the community through sexism toward Chicanas and homophobia toward queer Chicano/as.[18][19][20]

In the 1980s, increased assimilation and economic mobility motivated many to embrace Hispanic identity in an era of conservatism.[21] The term Hispanic emerged from consultation between the U.S. government and Mexican-American political elites in the Hispanic Caucus of Congress.[22] They used the term to identify themselves and the community with mainstream American culture, depart from Chicanismo, and distance themselves from what they perceived as the "militant" Black Caucus.[23][24]

"Chicana by luck, proud by choice" at 2019 Women's March, Los Angeles

At the grassroots level, Chicano/as continued to build the feminist, gay and lesbian, and anti-apartheid movements, which kept the identity politically relevant.[21] After a decade of Hispanic dominance, Chicano student activism in the early 1990s recession and the anti-Gulf War movement revived the identity with a demand to expand Chicano studies programs.[21][25] Chicanas were active at the forefront, despite facing critiques from "movement loyalists", as they did in the Chicano Movement. Chicana feminists addressed employment discrimination, environmental racism, healthcare, sexual violence, and exploitation in their communities and in solidarity with the Third World.[26][27][28][29] Chicanas worked to "liberate her entire people"; not to oppress men, but to be equal partners in the movement.[30] Xicanisma, coined by Ana Castillo in 1994, called for Chicana/os to "reinsert the forsaken feminine into our consciousness",[31][32] to embrace one's Indigenous roots, and support Indigenous sovereignty.[33][32]

In the 2000s, earlier traditions of anti-imperialism in the Chicano Movement were expanded.[34] Building solidarity with undocumented immigrants became more important, despite issues of legal status and economic competitiveness sometimes maintaining distance between groups.[35][36] U.S. foreign interventions abroad were connected with domestic issues concerning the rights of undocumented immigrants in the United States.[34][37] Chicano/a consciousness increasingly became transnational and transcultural, thinking beyond and bridging with communities over political borders.[37] The identity was renewed based on Indigenous and decolonial consciousness, cultural expression, resisting gentrification, defense of immigrants, and the rights of women and queer people.[38][39] Xicanx identity also emerged in the 2010s, based on the Chicana feminist intervention of Xicanisma.[40][41][42]

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Lists
  1. ^ Salazar, Rubén (February 6, 1970). "Who is a Chicano? And what is it the Chicanos want?". Los Angeles Times. A Chicano is a Mexican-American with a non-Anglo image of himself.
  2. ^ Marie Contreras, Sheila (2017). Keywords for Latina/o Studies. NYU Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-4798-6604-5. To name oneself "Chicano" or "Chicana" is to assert a gendered, racial, ethnic, class, and cultural identity in opposition to Anglo-American hegemony...
  3. ^ Anreus, Alejandro; Folgarait, Leonard; Greeley, Robin Adle (2012-09-08). Mexican Muralism: A Critical History. Univ of California Press. p. 242. ISBN 978-0-520-27161-6. It fought against the privilege and power of the Anglo-European mainstream...
  4. ^ Macías, Anthony (2008). Mexican American Mojo: Popular Music, Dance, and Urban Culture in Los Angeles, 1935–1968. Duke University Press. p. 9. ISBN 9780822389385.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference HoughtonMifflinCompany-2005 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ a b López, Ian Haney (2009). Racism on Trial: The Chicano Fight for Justice. Harvard University Press. pp. 1–3. ISBN 9780674038264.
  7. ^ San Miguel, Guadalupe (2005). Brown, Not White: School Integration and the Chicano Movement in Houston. Texas A&M University Press. p. 200. ISBN 9781585444939.
  8. ^ Rodriguez, Luis J. (2020). "A Note on Terminology". From Our Land to Our Land: Essays, Journeys, and Imaginings from a Native Xicanx Writer. Seven Stories Press. ISBN 9781609809737.
  9. ^ McFarland, Pancho (2017). Toward a Chican@ Hip Hop Anti-colonialism. Taylor & Francis. pp. 12–13. ISBN 9781351375276.
  10. ^ Falcon, Kandance Creel (2017). "What Would Eden Say? Reclaiming the Personal and Grounding Story in Chicana Feminist (Academic) Writing". In Lee, Sherry Quan (ed.). How Dare We! Write: A Multicultural Creative Writing Discourse. Modern History Press. p. 14. ISBN 9781615993307.
  11. ^ List, Christine (2013). Chicano Images: Refiguring Ethnicity in Mainstream Film. Taylor & Francis. pp. 44–45. ISBN 9781317928768.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Mantler-2013 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference MartinezHoSang-2013 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Kunkin, Art (1972). "Chicano Leader Tells of Starting Violence to Justify Arrests". The Chicano Movement: A Historical Exploration of Literature. Los Angeles Free Press. pp. 108–110. ISBN 9781610697088.
  15. ^ Montoya, Maceo (2016). Chicano Movement for Beginners. For Beginners. pp. 192–93. ISBN 9781939994646.
  16. ^ Delgado, Héctor L. (2008). Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. SAGE Publications. p. 274. ISBN 9781412926942.
  17. ^ Suderburg, Erika (2000). Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art. University of Minnesota Press. p. 191. ISBN 9780816631599.
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference Gutiérrez-Jones-1995 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ Cite error: The named reference Orosco-2008 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  20. ^ Cite error: The named reference Saldívar-Hull-2000 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  21. ^ a b c Mora, Carlos (2007). Latinos in the West: The Student Movement and Academic Labor in Los Angeles. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 53–60. ISBN 9780742547841.
  22. ^ Lezama, Ricardo (2023-11-14). "Latino: the Manufactured Super Consumer (July 4, 2014)". La Cartita Noticias. Retrieved 2023-11-14.
  23. ^ Martinez, Daniel E.; Gonzalez, Kelsey E. (2020). ""Latino" or "Hispanic"? The Sociodemographic Correlates of Panethnic Label Preferences among U.S. Latinos/Hispanics". Sociological Perspectives: 1–5.
  24. ^ Gomez, Laura E. (Autumn 1992). "The Birth of the "Hispanic" Generation: Attitudes of Mexican-American Political Elites toward the Hispanic Label". Latin American Perspectives. 19 (4): 50–53. doi:10.1177/0094582X9201900405. JSTOR 2633844. S2CID 144239298 – via JSTOR.
  25. ^ Mora-Ninci, Carlos (1999). The Chicano/a Student Movement in Southern California in the 1990s. University of California, Los Angeles. p. 358.
  26. ^ Cite error: The named reference Blackwell-2016 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  27. ^ Navarro, Armando (2015). Mexicano and Latino Politics and the Quest for Self-Determination: What Needs to Be Done. Lexington Books. p. 72. ISBN 9780739197363.
  28. ^ Córdova, Teresa (2002). "Chicana Feminism". Mexico and the United States. Marshall Cavendish Corporation. pp. 154–56. ISBN 9780761474029.
  29. ^ Aldama, Frederick Luis (2018). "Chicana/o literature's multi-spatiotemporal projections and impacts; or back to the future". Routledge Handbook of Chicana/o Studies. Routledge. ISBN 9781317536697.
  30. ^ Roth, Benita (2004). Separate Roads to Feminism: Black, Chicana, and White Feminist Movements in America's Second Wave. Cambridge University Press. pp. 154–55. ISBN 9780521529723.
  31. ^ Cite error: The named reference Lerate-2007 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  32. ^ a b Velasco, Juan (2002). "Performing Multiple Identities". Latino/a Popular Culture. NYU Press. p. 217. ISBN 9780814736258.
  33. ^ López, Francesca A. (2017). Asset Pedagogies in Latino Youth Identity and Achievement: Nurturing Confianza. Routledge. pp. 177–178. ISBN 9781138911413.
  34. ^ a b López, Marissa K. (2011). Chicano Nations: The Hemispheric Origins of Mexican American Literature. NYU Press. pp. 201-208. ISBN 9780814752623.
  35. ^ Aguilar, Carlos; Marquez, Raquel R.; Romo, Harriet D. (2017). "From DREAMers to DACAdemics". Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Child Migrants: Seen But Not Heard. Lexington Books. p. 160. ISBN 9781498549714.
  36. ^ Rosales, F. Arturo (1996). Chicano! The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement. Arte Publico Press. p. 42. ISBN 9781611920949.
  37. ^ a b Olivia-Rotger, Maria Antònia (2007). "Ethnographies of Transnational Migration in Rubén Martinez's "Crossing Over" (2001)". Border Transits: Literature and Culture Across the Line. Rodopi. pp. 181–84. ISBN 9789042022492.
  38. ^ Romero, Dennis (15 July 2018). "A Chicano renaissance? A new Mexican-American generation embraces the term". NBC News. Retrieved 2 August 2019.
  39. ^ "From Chicano to Xicanx: A brief history of a political and cultural identity". The Daily Dot. 2017-10-22. Retrieved 2018-03-10.
  40. ^ Borunda, Rose; Magdalena Martinez, Lorena (4 August 2020). "Strategies for Defusing Contemporary Weapons in the Ongoing War Against Xicanx Children and Youth". Contemporary Social Psychology. 24 (3): 266–278. doi:10.1007/s40688-020-00312-x. S2CID 225409343 – via Springer.
  41. ^ Zepeda, Susy (Spring 2020). "Decolonizing Xicana/x Studies: Healing the Susto of De-indigenization" (PDF). Atzlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies. 45: 227–29.[dead link]
  42. ^ Luna, Jennie; Estrada, Gabriel S. (2020). "Trans*lating the Genderqueer -X through Caxcan, Nahua, and Xicanx Indígena Knowledge". In Aldama, Arturo J.; Luis Aldama, Frederick (eds.). Decolonizing Latinx Masculinities. University of Arizona Press. pp. 251–268. ISBN 9780816541836.

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