Chicano information

Chicano (masculine form) or Chicana (feminine form) is an ethnic identity for Mexican Americans who have a non-Anglo self-image, embracing their Mexican Native ancestry.^[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 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 developed its own meaning separate from Mexican American identity.^{[6][8][9][10]} Youth in barrios rejected cultural assimilation into the 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]

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 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 Chicana/os.^[18][19][20] In the 1980s, assimilation and economic mobility motivated many to embrace Hispanic identity in an era of conservatism.^[21] The term Hispanic emerged from a collaboration between the U.S. government and Mexican-American political elites in the Hispanic Caucus of Congress. Likewise, the same assimilatory force associated with Hispanic has been tied to the usage of Latino.^[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]

At the grassroots level, Chicana/os 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, Chicana/o student activism in the early 1990s recession and the anti-Gulf War movement revived the identity with a demand to expand Chicana/o 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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Chicanos and Mexican Americans
Terms Identity Chola/o La Raza Pachuca Pachuco Pinta/o Xicanx Concepts Anti-Mexican sentiment
History Early-American Period Josefa Segovia Las Gorras Blancas Mexican–American War Mutualista San Elizario Salt War Sonoratown Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Pre-Chicano Movement 1917 Bath riots Bisbee Deportation Bloody Christmas Bracero program California agricultural strikes Cantaloupe strike of 1928 Citrus Strike of 1936 La Matanza Mexican Repatriation Operation Wetback Plan de San Diego Porvenir Massacre Sleepy Lagoon trial Zoot Suit Riots Chicano Movement Aztlán Black-brown unity Brown Berets Católicos por La Raza Centro Cultural Chicanismo Chicano Moratorium Colegio César Chávez CFMN Conferencia de Mujeres CRP East L.A. walkouts Hijas de Cuauhtémoc Huelga schools Land grant struggle Las Adelitas de Aztlán Los Siete de la Raza Los Seis de Boulder MANA MAYO MEChA Occupation of Catalina Island PCUN Plan Espiritual de Aztlán Plan de Santa Bárbara Quinto Sol Raza Unida Party United Farm Workers Post-Chicano Period 1985–1987 cannery strike 1992 Drywall Strike 2019 El Paso shooting Abolish ICE Arizona SB 1070 Castro 2020 Chicano Art Exhibit DACA Great American Boycott IRCA Farah strike Justice for Janitors Murder of Selena Proposition 187 South Central Farm
Culture Language Abrazos, no balazos Caló Chicano English Chicano names Órale Food New Mexican cuisine Tex-Mex cuisine Mexican-American cuisine Music Chicano rap Chicano rock Chicano soul Tejano music Symbols Cal-Style VW Homies Lowrider Lowrider bicycle Mexican-American folklore Pancho Claus Zoot suit
Literature Literature Chicana literature Chicano literature Chicano poetry Autobiographical Always Running Living Up the Street Who Would Have Thought It? Novels Bless Me, Ultima Caballero Desert Blood From This Wicked Patch of Dust Mexican WhiteBoy The Dirty Girls Social Club The House on Mango Street The Rain God The Revolt of the Cockroach People So Far from God Under the Feet of Jesus ...y no se lo tragó la tierra Poetry and Short Stories Emplumada I Am Joaquin Moment of Silence Pensamiento Serpentino The Moths
Chicano studies Fields Chicana feminism Chicanafuturism Organizations MAS Programs, Tucson NACCS UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Texts Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza Brown, Not White The Church in the Barrio This Bridge Called My Back Theory Barrioization Coyolxauhqui imperative Gringo justice Nahui Ollin Nepantla New tribalism Rasquachismo Spiritual activism Vergüenza Youth control complex
Visual art Visual Art Chicana art Chicano art Chicano cinema Paño Tortilla art Art Collectives Asco Culture Clash East Los Streetscapers Los Four Mujeres Muralistas Teatro Campesino Royal Chicano Air Force Art organizations Centro de Arte Público Galería de la Raza Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts Precita Eyes Self Help Graphics & Art Locations Balmy Alley Chicano Park Estrada Courts Great Wall of Los Angeles
Law Supreme Court cases Botiller v. Dominguez Hernandez v. Texas San Antonio I.S.D. v. Rodriguez Espinoza v. Farah Manufacturing Co. U.S. v. Brignoni-Ponce Plyler v. Doe Medellín v. Texas Flores-Figueroa v. U.S. Leal Garcia v. Texas Mendez v. Westminster Bernal v. Fainter Perez v. Brownell DHS v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal. Federal Court cases Madrigal v. Quilligan
Population Population by City Arizona (Tucson) California (Los Angeles) Illinois (Chicago) Michigan (Detroit) Nebraska (Omaha) Texas Dallas–Fort Worth Houston Multiethnic Blaxicans Californios Nuevomexicanos Tejanos Indigenous Mexican Americans Punjabi Mexican Americans
Lists Chicano films Chicano poets Chicano rappers Mexican Americans Writers Bibliography
United States portal Category Index
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