Chicano

"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. While its meaning has changed over time and varies regionally, it represents Mexican American ethnic identity and the accompanying consciousness of Mexican American political struggle. The terms Chicano and Chicana are used specifically by and regarding Americans of Mexican descent.^[1]

The term Chicano

Etymology

The origin of the word is debatable. Mexican researcher Villar Raso traces the origin to 1930s and 1940s California.

"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 met with derision by settled Mexican Americans, who exaggerated the sound to mock the recently-arrived. In both cases, the term and its pronunciation are analogous to the Nahuatl word Mexica.^[2]

An alternate etymology holds that the conversion of the pronunciation of the "x" in Mexicano was converted to /ʃ/ or /tʃ/ as either a term of endearment or of derisiveness.

One theory supported by a noted labor economist in Los Angeles, California describes the term "chicano" as a 1950's invention of the Federal Census Bureau to collectively describe any person of Latin American descent living in the United States.

Chicamo eventually became chicano, which, unlike chicamo, reflects the grammatical conventions of Spanish-language ethno- and demonyms, such as americano, castellano, or peruano.

Meanings

The term's meanings are highly subjective but usually consist of one or more of the following elements:

Slur

• 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]

Chicamo (with an "m") was first used as a derogatory term for recently-arrived Mexican immigrants by Hispanic Texans at the beginning of the 20th century.^[4]

In Mexico, the term means a Mexican-American person of low importance class and poor morals.^[5][6][7]

Ethnic identity

The term Chicano was taken up in the mid 1960s by Mexican American activists, who, in attempt to rid the word of its negative connotation and create a unique ethnic identity, reconfigured its meaning by proudly identifying themselves as Chicanos.

Political identity

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.^[8]

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 from the field of sociology.^{[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, notes that Chicano is a politically loaded term, though it is considered a positive term of honor by many.^{[citation needed]}

Ambiguous identity

• 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.^[9]

For Chicanos, the term usually implies being "neither from here, nor from there" in reference to the U.S. and Mexico respectively. 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.

Indigenous identity

• Ruben Salazar: "A Chicano is a Mexican-American with a non-Anglo image of himself."^[10]

• 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]}

Political device

• Reies Tijerina: "The Anglo press revolutionized the word 'Chicano'. We use it, but they use it to divide us from 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. 

Synonyms

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

• la raza (literally "the race", but also connoting "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, Isleno, Mexican Texian, New Mexico Spanish, Spanish American and Tejano. But Chicano is often 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.

Rejection

Some Mexican Americans 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.

The reasons for rejecting the term Chicano are numerous and varied, from an aversion to its association with the militant left-wing politics of the 1960s and 1970s, to the ability of many families, particularly in the state of New Mexico, to trace their ancestry back to the original Spanish settlers of the colonial era.^{[citation needed]}

Another common reason to reject Chicano is the bad connotations associated with it, primarily in Mexico. In addition, several Mexican Americans may have little or no indigenous ancestry. Today its harder for young 2nd and 3rd generation Latinos descendents from immigrants to identify themselves as a Chicano.

The Chicano movement is held as racially charged, or may have some anti-American or anti-white/Anglo sentiments. Most Mexican-Americans as well most U.S. Latino/Hispanic groups does not share that attitude to turn disloyal to the country they are from, contributed and served. Chicano nationalists like the political group, el Voz de Aztlan had a political ideology with some members hold racism against African Americans, Asian Americans and open anti-semitism against American Jews. ^{[citation needed]}

It is also widely believed 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. In addition, since learning of the Chicano movement is only academics, its is believed that it is now only a personal decision one makes of whether to identify themeselves as Chicanos.

However, this promotes a delay in Latinos identifying themselves correctly since theres is a wide misunderstanding that all Latinos in the U.S are Chicanos. Not everybody chooses to identify themselves as Chicanos and some do for the wrong reasons.

Social aspects

Chicanos, regardless of their generational status, tend to connect their culture to the indigenous peoples of North America and to a historically revised mythical nation of Aztlán.^[11] According to the Aztec Myth, Aztlán is an island; Chicano nationalists have equated it with the Southwestern United States. Historians tend to place Aztlán in Nayarit or the Caribbean, and make a distinction between the Myth, the potential historical location, and the contemporary socio-political recreation.

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. To actually pinpoint the exact location of the mythical land of "Aztlan" might produce further vindication to Chicano and Mexican nationalists. ^{[citation needed]}

Political aspects

Main article: Chicano Movement

Many currents came together to produce the 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.^[12] 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.^[13]

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.^[13] Chicano identity has expanded from its political origins to incorporate a broader community vision of social integration and nonpartisan political participation.^[14]

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.

Cultural aspects

Main article: Chicanismo

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

Literature

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

Arts

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.

Music

Lalo Guerrero is considered the "father 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.

Rock

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).

Jazz

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.

Rap

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, Delinquent Habits, Chingo Bling, Big Oso Loc, Woodie, Speedy Loc, Baby Boy Ene, Tito B, LIL Coner and Aztlan Underground.

Other

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.

See also

• Aztlán
• Caló (Chicano)
• Casta
• 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

References

• 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.

Notes

External links

• Making Face, Making Soul...
• Chicano-Art
• "I Am Chicana, Not Hispanic!"
• Network Aztlan
• Network Aztlan: The Art of Aztlan

Miscellaneous

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