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"Chicano teenager in El Paso's second ward. A classic barrio which is slowly giving way to urban renewal." South El Paso, Texas, July 1972. Photograph by Danny Lyon.

Chicano (feminine Chicana) is another word for Mexican American (in the sense of native-born Americans of Mexican ancestry, as opposed to Mexican natives living in the States). While its consciousness of Mexican American political struggle. The terms Chicano and Chicana are used specifically by and regarding Americans of Mexican descent.^[1]

The origin of the word is debatable. One Mexican researcher Villar Raso traces the origin to 1930s and 1940s California, although most Chicanos believe the terms far predates that assessment. Nevertheless, according to Raso, the term supposedly stems from "the inability of native Nahuatl speakers from Morelos state to refer to themselves as Mexicanos, and instead spoke of themselves as Mesheecanos, in accordance with the pronunciation rules of their language."

The pronunciation was supposedly misunderstood by some Mexican Americans, who exaggerated the sound. In both cases, the term and its pronunciation are analogous to the Nahuatl word Mexica.^[2]

Additionally, another conflicting theory supported by an unknown labor economist in Los Angeles, California describes the term "chicano" as supposedly being a 1950's invention of the Federal Census Bureau to collectively describe any person of Latin American descent living in the United States^{[citation needed]}. However, there is currently no citation for this source, and this assertion thus far remains baseless. There is ample literary evidence to disprove this theory as a large body of Chicano literature exists with publication dates far predating the 1950s.

An alternate etymology that predates Raso holds that the conversion of the pronunciation of the "x" in Mexicano was converted to /ʃ/ or /tʃ/ as either a term of endearment^{[citation needed]} .

Some believe that the word chicamo somehow became chicano, which, unlike chicamo, reflects the grammatical conventions of Spanish-language ethno- and demonyms, such as americano, castellano, or peruano. However, this is highly unlikely and Chicanos generally do not agree that "chicamo" was ever a word used within the culture as its assertion is thus far entirely unsubstantiated. Therefore, most Chicanos do not agree that Chicano was ever derived from the word "chicamo". In fact, it is common knowledge within most Mexican American communities that the term "Chicano" has been used for centuries as an indigenous self-identifying reference. There is also a substantial body of Chicano literature that predates both Raso the Federal Census Bureau.

As stated in the Handbook of Texas: "According to one explanation, the pre-Columbian tribes in Mexico called themselves Meshicas, and the Spaniards, employing the letter x (which at that time represented a sh and ch sound), spelled it Mexicas. The Indians later referred to themselves as Meshicanos and even as Shicanos, thus giving birth to the term Chicano."

Thus far, the origins of the word remain inconclusive as the term is not widely used outside of Mexican American communities, further indicating that the term in primarily a self-identifying description.

The term's meanings are highly debatable, but most Chicanos view the term as a positive self-identifying social construction. Outside of Mexican American communities the term might take on subjective view but usually consists of one or more of the following elements:

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can (December 2007).

While most Mexican Americans do not consider the term Chicano to be a slur, outside of Mexican American communities the term might assume a negative meaning if taken out of context.

For example, in one case, a prominent Chicana feminist writer and poet has indicated the following subjective meaning through her creative work.

• Ana Castillo: "[a] marginalized, brown woman who is treated as a foreigner and is expected to do menial labor and ask nothing of the society in which she lives."^[3]

However, it should be noted that Ana Castillo refers to herself as a Chicana, and her literary work reflects that she primarily considers the term to be a positive one of self-determination and political solidarity.

http://voices.cla.umn.edu/vg/Bios/entries/castillo_ana.html

http://www.speakingofstories.org/Author%20Bios/anna_castillo.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ana_Castillo

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ769174&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ769174

http://www.anacastillo.com/a/index.php?page_id=6

Some believe that the word chicamo (with an "m") was supposedly used as a derogatory term for recently-arrived Mexican immigrants by Hispanic Texans at the beginning of the 20th century.^[4] However, this is once again a debatable point as numerous notable Chicano activists continue to reside in Texas. In addition, most Mexican Americans from this state self-identify themselves as Chicano. Also, a number of distinguished Chicano advocacy organizations continue to be based in Texas, such as the Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education.

Some anti-Chicano perspectives assert that in Mexico the term supposedly means a Mexican-American person of low importance class and poor morals.^[5][6][7] However, this purview is mainly based on opinion and is typically indicative of author perspective. The term Chicano is not widely known or used in Mexico since indigenous groups which originated the term are a very small minority of that country's largely mestizo population.

From a popular perspective, the term Chicano became widely visible outside of Chicano communities during the American civil rights movement, although it was commonly used as a historical point of reference within those communities for some time, during the mid 1960s by Mexican American activists ^[8], who, in attempt to reassert their civil rights, rid the word of its polarizing negative connotation, and reasserted a unique ethnic identity and political consciousness, reconfiguring its meaning by proudly identifying themselves as Chicanos.

According to the Handbook of Texas:

Inspired by the courage of the farmworkers, by the California strikes led by César Chávez, and by the Anglo-American youth revolt of the period, many Mexican-American university students came to participate in a crusade for social betterment that was known as the Chicano movement. They used Chicano to denote their rediscovered heritage, their youthful assertiveness, and their militant agenda. Though these students and their supporters used Chicano to refer to the entire Mexican-American population, they understood it to have a more direct application to the politically active parts of the Tejano community.^[9]

At certain points in the 1970s, Chicano was the preferred, politically correct term to use in reference to Mexican-Americans, particularly in the scholarly literature.^{[citation needed]} However, as the term became politicized, its use fell out of favor as a means of referring to the entire population. Since then, Chicano has tended to refer to politicized Mexican-Americans.

Sabine Ulibarri, an author from Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, once attempted to note that Chicano was a politically "loaded" term, although Ulibarri has recanted that assessment. In fact, most agree that Chicano is widely considered to be a positive term of honor by many.^{[citation needed]}

• In the 1991 Culture Clash play "A Bowl of Beings", in response to Che Guevara's demand for a definition of "Chicano", an "armchair activist" cries out, "I still don't know!!"^{[citation needed]}

• Bruce Novoa: "A Chicano lives in the space between the hyphen in Mexican-American", . . Houston: , 1990.^[10]

For Chicanos, the term usually implies being "neither from here, nor from there" in reference to the U.S. and Mexico respectively^{[citation needed]}. As a mixture of cultures from both countries, being Chicano represents the struggle of being accepted into the Anglo-dominated society of the United States while maintaining the cultural sense developed as a Hispanic-cultured U.S. born Mexican child^{[citation needed]}.

• Ruben Salazar: "A Chicano is a Mexican-American with a non-Anglo image of himself."^[11]

• Leo Limón: "...because that's what a Chicano is, an indigenous Mexican American".^{[citation needed]}

Many individuals of Mexican descent view the use of the words Chicano or Chicana as reclamation and regeneration of an indigenous culture destroyed through colonialism.^{[citation needed]}

• Reies Tijerina: "The Anglo press degradized the word 'Chicano'. They use it to divide us. We use it to unify ourselves with our people and with Latin America."Tijerina, Reies; José Ángel Gutiérrez (2000). They Called Me King Tiger: My Struggle for the Land and Our Rights. Houston: Art Público Press. ISBN 1558853022. 

However, it should be noted that Reies Tijerina was a vocal claimant to the rights of Hispanics and Mexican Americans, and he remains a major figure of the early Chicano Movement.

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (December 2006)

The following terms are often used in conjunction with Chicano:^{[citation needed]}

• la raza (literal translation equates to "the race", however the terms technically refers directly to "La Raza Cosmica" a 1925 work written by José Vasconcelos referring to the "the human race," which also connotes "el pueblo" or "la gente", both of which mean "the people"), which refers generally to the people of habla Hispana (Spanish speaking) America who share the cultural and political legacies of Spanish colonialism, including the Spanish language and culture, and their descendants,as well as their Meso-American indigenous roots.)
• la raza de bronce ("the bronze race") (used to emphasize the "brown" or "bronze" Indigenous ancestry over their white or black ancestry)
• americanista (common in early twentieth-century^{[citation needed]})
• indigenist (common in early twentieth-century^{[citation needed]})
• la raza cósmica (the cosmic race)

Chicano has criss-crossed to some from other Hispanic/Mexican-American communities: Some who may identify themselves as Californio, Hispano, Isleño, Mexican Texian, New Mexico Spanish, Spanish American and Tejano. The word chico, not "Chicano", as some Anglos commonly confuse the term, is sometimes described for a child of Mexican immigrants, or resides in urban areas of (esp. Southern) California, Colorado and Arizona, or from a mestizo instead of fully Spanish background.

Please note that this section does not cite any references or sources, with the exception of Vasconcelos.

While most Mexican Americans embrace the term Chicano, some prefer to identify themselves as:^{[citation needed]}

• American (sometimes the term first like "American-Mexican")
• American of Mexican descent
• Hispanic
• Hispanic American
• Hispano/a
• Latino/a
• Latin American
• Mexican(o/a)
• Mexican American
• Spanish
• Spanish American
• "Brown" people, race, pride, etc.
• Californio, Nuevomexicano (New Mexico Spanish) or Tejano/a.
• Norteno as in the Mexicans referred the Southwest U.S. as el Norte, although anyone from the U.S. is NorteAmericano, since Mexico and Latin America (Central and South) long identified themselves as Americanos.

According to some Neo-Conservative American groups that aim to strip Mexican Americans of the term Chicano, the reasons for rejecting the term Chicano are be supposedly numerous and varied, however most groups generally associate the term with the American civil rights movement and more directly associate the word with the left-wing politics of the 1960s and 1970s. Supposedly, some families, particularly in the state of New Mexico, have attempted to trace their ancestry back to the original Spanish settlers of the colonial era.^{[citation needed]}

Some anti-Chicano, white Neo-Nazi, US-based, anti-immigration groups have accused the Chicano movement of being anti-American or supposedly having anti-white/Anglo sentiments^{[citation needed]} . However, this is unsubstantiated. Chicanos are referred to as an American minority group and it is common knowledge that Chicanos tend to align themselves with Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Jewish American groups along socio-political, historical lines. Some US-based, Neo-Nazi groups have utilized a "divide and conquer" strategy by attempting to demonize the term Chicano in an attempt to strip Chicanos of their political strength and solidarity and ultimately turn other minority groups against Mexican Americans.

Some anti-Chicano idealogues believe that the generation of Chicano and Chicano culture is only preserved and prolonged by academics, which is in turn only perceived as an appreciation of the historical context of the Chicano movement^{[citation needed]} . From this perspective, it is believed that it is now only a personal decision one makes of whether to identify themeselves as Chicanos^{[citation needed]} .

Chicanos, regardless of their generational status, tend to connect their culture to the indigenous peoples of North America and to a nation of Aztlán.^[12] According to the Aztec legend, Aztlán is a region; Chicano nationalists have equated it with the Southwestern United States. Some historians may to place Aztlán in Nayarit or the Caribbean while other historians entirely disagree, and make a distinction between legend and the contemporary socio-political ideology.

Whether this is true is still studied by archaeologists who studied ruins of ancient Amerindian civilizations in Arizona (the Hohokam), California (the Imperial and Palo Verde valleys), Colorado (Mesa Verde national park), Nevada, New Mexico, Texas (the El Paso area) and southern Utah^{[citation needed]} . To actually pinpoint the exact location of the mythical land of "Aztlan" might produce further vindication to Chicano and Mexican nationalists.^{[citation needed]}

Main article: Chicano Movement

Many currents came together to produce the revived Chicano political movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Early struggles were against school segregation, but the Mexican American cause, or La Causa as it was called, soon came under the banner of the United Farm Workers and Cesar Chavez. However, Reies Tijerina stirred up old tensions about New Mexican land claims with roots going back to before the Mexican-American War. Simultaneous movements to empower youth, question patriarchy, democratize the Church, end police brutality, and end the Vietnam War all intersected with other ethnic nationalist, peace, countercultural, and feminist movements.

Since Chicanismo covers a wide array of political, religious and ethnic beliefs, and not everybody agrees with what exactly a Chicano is, most new Latino immigrants see it as a lost cause, as a lost culture, because Chicanos don't identify with Mexico or wherever their parents migrated from like new immigrants do. So in essence new immigrants are not Chicanos and their kids will not be Chicanos because Chicanoism is now only being prolonged by academics, it's an appreciation of a historical movement.

For some, Chicano ideals involve a rejection of borders. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo transformed the Rio Grande region from a rich cultural center to a rigid border enforced by the United States government. At the end of the Mexican-American War, 80,000 Spanish-Mexican-Indian people were forced into sudden U.S. habitation.^[13] As a result, Chicano identification is aligned with the idea of Aztlán, which extends to the Aztec period of Mexico, celebrating a time preceding land division.^[14]

Paired with the dissipation of militant political efforts of the Chicano movement in the 1960s was the emergence of the Chicano generation. Like their political predecessors, the Chicano generation rejects the "immigrant/foreigner" categorization status.^[14] Chicano identity has expanded from its political origins to incorporate a broader community vision of social integration and nonpartisan political participation.^[15]

The shared Spanish language, Catholic faith, close contact with their political homeland Mexico to the south, a history of labor segregation, ethnic exclusion and racial discrimination encourage a united Chicano or Mexican folkloric tradition in the United States. Ethnic cohesiveness is a resistance strategy to assimilation and the accompanying cultural dissolution.

Main article: Chicanismo

The term Chicano is also used to describe the literary, artistic, and musical movements that emerged with the Chicano Movement.

Main article: Mexican American literature

Chicano literature tends to focus on themes of identity, discrimination, and culture, with an emphasis on validating Mexican American and Chicano culture in the United States. Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales's "Yo Soy Joaquin" is one of the first examples of Chicano poetry. Other important writers in the genre include Rudolfo Anaya, Sandra Cisneros, Gary Soto and Oscar Zeta Acosta.

See also: Chicano poetry

QuetzalCoatlicue dance troupe member evokes the spirit of the four winds to bless Hiawatha Line Rail first train's arrival at Midtown Station. The Hiawatha Project. Minneapolis, Minn.; United States. 2004.

In the visual arts, work by Chicanos addresses similar themes as works in literature. The preferred media for Chicano art are murals and graphic arts. San Diego's Chicano Park, home to the largest collection of murals in the world, was created as an outgrowth of the city's political movement by Chicanos. Rasquache art is a unique style subset of the Chicano Arts movement.

Chicano performance art blends humor and pathos for tragi-comic effect as shown by Los Angeles' comedy troupe Culture Clash and Mexican-born performance artist Guillermo Gomez-Pena.

One of the most powerful and far-reaching cultural aspects of Chicano culture is the indigenous current that strongly roots Chicano culture to the American continent. It also unifies Chicanismo, within the larger Pan Indian Movement. Since its arrival in 1974, What is known as Danza Azteca in the U.S., (and known by several names in its homeland of the central States of Mexico: danza Conchera, De la Conquista, Chichimeca, etc) has had a deep impact in Chicano muralism, graphic design, tattoo art (flash), poetry, music, and literature.

Lalo Guerrero is regarded to be the "founder of Chicano music".^{[citation needed]} Beginning in the 1930s, he wrote songs in the big band and swing genres that were popular at the time. He expanded his repertoire to include songs written in traditional genres of the Mexican music, and during the farmworkers' rights campaign, wrote music in support of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers.

Main article: Chicano rock

In the 1960s and 1970's, a wave of Chicano rock surfaced through innovative musicians Johnny Rodriguez, Carlos Santana, Linda Ronstadt, and Joan Baez, herself of Mexican-American descent included Hispanic themes in some of her protest folk songs. Chicano rock is rock music performed by Chicano groups or music with themes derived from Chicano culture.

There are two undercurrents in Chicano rock. One is a devotion to the original rhythm and blues roots of Rock and roll including Ritchie Valens, Sunny and the Sunglows, and ? and the Mysterians. Groups inspired by this include Sir Douglas Quintet, Thee Midniters, Los Lobos, War, Tierra, and El Chicano, and, of course, the Chicano Blues Man himself, the late Randy Garribay.

Chicano punk is a branch of Chicano rock. Examples of the genre include music by the bands Los Illegals, The Brat, The Plugz, Manic Hispanic and the Cruzados; these bands have come out of the punk scene in Los Angeles. Some music historians argue that Chicanos of Los Angeles in the late 1970s might have independently co-founded punk rock along with the already-acknowledged founders from British-European sources when introduced to the US in major cities.^{[citation needed]}

The second theme is the openness to Latin American sounds and influences. Trini Lopez, Santana, Malo, Azteca, Toro, Ozomatli and other Chicano Latin Rock groups follow this approach. Chicano rock crossed paths of other Latin rock genres (Rock en espanol) by Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and South America (La Nueva Cancion).

Although Latin Jazz is most popularly associated with artists from the Caribbean (particularly Cuba) and Brazil, young Mexican Americans have played a role in its development over the years, going back to the 1930s and early 1940s, the era of the zoot suit, when young Mexican American musicians in Los Angeles began to experiment with Jazz-like Mexican music. This type of Latin Jazz came back into vogue in the 1990s and 2000's, with a strong recent example being the work of the singer Jenni Rivera.

Main article: Chicano rap

Chicano rap is a unique style of hip hop music which started with Kid Frost, who began using Spanish in the early 1990's. While Mellow Man Ace was the first mainstream rapper to use Spanglish, Frost's song "La Raza" paved the way for its use in American hip hop. Chicano rap tends to discuss themes of importance to young urban Chicanos. Today's main chicano artists are Lil Rob, Baby Bash, B-Real, Kemo the Blaxican, Chingo Bling, Lil Coner and Aztlan Underground.

Other famous Chicano/Mexican American singers include Selena, who sang a variety of Mexican, Tejano, and American popular music, but was killed at age 23 in 1995. And Los Lonely Boys are a Texas style country rock band, but never shyed away from their Mexican American roots in their music. In recent years, a growing Tex-Mex polka band trend and from Mexican immigrants (i.e. Conjunto or Norteno) has influenced much of new Chicano folk music, esp. in large market Spanish language radio stations and on television music video programs in the U.S. The band Quetzal is known for its political songs, while The Kumbia Kings had combined Mexican regional: cumbia, merengue and tropical, with American rap, hip-hop and rock rhythms, and Daddy Yankee although Puerto Rican, has connected well to Mexican-American/Chicano music styles.

• Aztlán
• Caló (Chicano)
• Casta
• Chicanismo
• Chicano movement
• Chicano nationalism
• Chicano Rap
• Chicano studies
• Cholo
• Ethnicity (United States Census)
• Hispanic
• Latino
• List of notable Chicanos
• Los Siete de la Raza
• Mestizo
• Mexican Americans
• Murals, i.e. Chicano Park, San Diego
• Pachuco
• Race (U.S. Census)
• Tejano
• White Hispanic

• Villanueva, Tino (1985). "Chicanos (selección)" (in Spanish). 

• John R. Chavez (1984). "The Lost Land: A Chicano Image of the American Southwest", New Mexico University Publications.

• F. Arturo Rosales, "Chicano! The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement" (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1996). ISBN 1-55885-201-8

• Making Face, Making Soul...
• Chicano-Art
• "I Am Chicana, Not Hispanic!"