Chicano or Chicana is an ethnic identity for Mexican Americans who have a non-Anglo self-image, embracing their Mexican Native ancestry. 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. 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. Chicano developed its own meaning separate from Mexican American identity. Youth in barrios rejected cultural assimilation into whiteness and embraced their own identity and worldview as a form of empowerment and resistance. The community forged an independent political and cultural movement, sometimes working alongside the Black power movement.
The masculine term Latino, along with its feminine form Latina, is a noun and adjective, often used in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, that most commonly refers to United States inhabitants who have cultural ties to Latin America.
Mexican Americans are Americans of Mexican heritage. In 2022, Mexican Americans comprised 11.2% of the US population and 58.9% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexican Americans were born in the United States; they make up 53% of the total population of foreign-born Hispanic Americans and 25% of the total foreign-born population. Chicano is a term used by some to describe the unique identity held by Mexican-Americans. The United States is home to the second-largest Mexican community in the world, behind only Mexico. Most Mexican Americans reside in the Southwest, with over 60% of Mexican Americans living in the states of California and Texas.
Bronze race is a term used since the early 20th century by Hispanic American writers of the indigenista and americanista schools to refer to the mestizo population that arose in the Americas with the arrival of Latin European settlers and their intermingling with the New World's Amerindian peoples.
Latino studies is an academic discipline which studies the experience of people of Latin American ancestry in the United States. Closely related to other ethnic studies disciplines such as African-American studies, Asian American studies, and Native American studies, Latino studies critically examines the history, culture, politics, issues, sociology, spirituality (Indigenous) and experiences of Latino people. Drawing from numerous disciplines such as sociology, history, literature, political science, religious studies and gender studies, Latino studies scholars consider a variety of perspectives and employ diverse analytical tools in their work.
The Brown Berets is a pro-Chicano paramilitary organization that emerged during the Chicano Movement in the late 1960s. David Sanchez and Carlos Montes co-founded the group modeled after the Black Panther Party. The Brown Berets was part of the Third World Liberation Front. It worked for educational reform, farmworkers' rights, and against police brutality and the Vietnam War. It also sought to separate the American Southwest from the control of the United States government.
La raza cósmica is a Spanish-language book written and published in 1925 by Mexican philosopher, secretary of education, and 1929 presidential candidate José Vasconcelos to express the ideology of a future "fifth race" in the Americas; an agglomeration of all the races in the world with no respect to color or number to erect a new civilization: Universópolis.
Católicos por La Raza is a political association organized by Ricardo Cruz in the later 1960s in Los Angeles, California. Formed in the fall of 1969, Católicos por La Raza was made up of Chicano Catholic student activists who were engaged with both "their Catholic and Chicano heritage," enabling them to name and fight against the racism in the Catholic Church and the effects on the community. The CPLR was concerned with the discrimination and hypocrisy of the church's institutional power and wealth, arguing that such should be "brought to bear in solving the current Chicano urban and rural crisis". CPLR sought to transform the Church into an institution for social change, creating projects focussed on housing development, education, and small business development; believing that the Catholic Church in Los Angeles should use its power and wealth to address the economic and social needs of Mexican Americans.
The Chicano Movement, also referred to as El Movimiento, was a social and political movement in the United States that worked to embrace a Chicano/a identity and worldview that combated structural racism, encouraged cultural revitalization, and achieved community empowerment by rejecting assimilation. Chicanos also expressed solidarity and defined their culture through the development of Chicano art during El Movimiento, and stood firm in preserving their religion.
Chicana feminism is a sociopolitical movement, theory, and praxis that scrutinizes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersections impacting Chicanas and the Chicana/o community in the United States. Chicana feminism empowers women to challenge institutionalized social norms and regards anyone a feminist who fights for the end of women's oppression in the community.
Rodolfo "Rudy" Francisco Acuña is an American historian, professor emeritus at California State University, Northridge, and a scholar of Chicano studies. He authored the 1972 book Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, approaching history of the Southwestern United States with a heavy emphasis on Mexican Americans. An eighth edition was published in 2014. Acuña has also written for the Los Angeles Times,The Los Angeles Herald-Express, La Opinión, and numerous other newspapers. His work emphasizes the struggles of Mexican American people. Acuña is an activist and he has supported numerous causes of the Chicano Movement. He currently teaches an on-line history course at California State University, Northridge.
Barrioization is a theory developed by Chicano scholars Albert Camarillo and Richard Griswold del Castillo to explain the historical formation and maintenance of ethnically segregated neighborhoods of Chicanos and Latinos in the United States. The term was first coined by Camarillo in his book Chicanos in a Changing Society (1979). The process was explained in the context of Los Angeles by Griswold del Castillo in The Los Angeles Barrio, 1850-1890: A Social History (1979). Camarillo defined the term as "the formation of residentially and segregated Chicano barrios or neighbourhoods." The term is used in the field of Human Geography.
Hispanic and Latino are ethnonyms used to refer collectively to the inhabitants of the United States who are of Spanish or Latin American ancestry. While the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, for example, by the United States Census Bureau, Hispanic includes people with ancestry from Spain and Latin American Spanish-speaking countries, while Latino includes people from Latin American countries that were formerly colonized by Spain and Portugal.
The Chicano Art Movement represents groundbreaking movements by Mexican-American artists to establish a unique artistic identity in the United States. Much of the art and the artists creating Chicano Art were heavily influenced by Chicano Movement which began in the 1960s.
This is a Mexican American bibliography. This list consists of books, and journal articles, about Mexican Americans, Chicanos, and their history and culture. The list includes works of literature whose subject matter is significantly about Mexican Americans and the Chicano/a experience. This list does not include works by Mexican American writers which do not address the topic, such as science texts by Mexican American writers.
Las Mujeres Muralistas were an all-female Latina artist collective based in the Mission District in San Francisco in the 1970s. They created a number of public murals throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, and are said to have sparked the beginning of the female muralist movement in the US and Mexico. Their murals were colorful and large scale and often focused on themes such as womanhood, culture, beauty, and socio-political change. Patricia Rodriguez, Graciela Carrillo, Consuelo Mendez, and Irene Perez are recognized as the founders and most prominent members of the collective, but other female Chicana artists assisted along the way and even joined later on, such as Susan Cervantes, Ester Hernandez, and Miriam Olivo among others.
La Raza was a bilingual newspaper and magazine published by Chicano activists in East Los Angeles from 1967 to 1977. The paper played a seminal role in the Chicano Movement, providing activists a platform to document the abuses and inequalities faced by Mexican-Americans in Southern California. Taking a photojournalistic approach, the editors and contributors at La Raza were able to capture images of police brutality, segregation, and protests that rallied support to the Chicano cause.
Xicanx is an English-language gender-neutral neologism and identity referring to people of Mexican descent in the United States. The ⟨-x⟩ suffix replaces the ⟨-o/-a⟩ ending of Chicano and Chicana that are typical of grammatical gender in Spanish. The term references a connection to Indigeneity, decolonial consciousness, inclusion of genders outside the Western gender binary imposed through colonialism, and transnationality. In contrast, most Latinos tend to define themselves in nationalist terms, such as by a Latin American country of origin.
A Mexican American is a resident of the United States who is of Mexican descent. Mexican American-related topics include the following:
Blaxicans are Americans who are both Black and Mexican American descent. Some may prefer to identify as Afro-Chicano or Black Chicana/o and embrace Chicano identity, culture, and political consciousness. Most Blaxicans have origins in working class community interactions between African Americans and Mexican Americans. Los Angeles has been cited as the hub for Blaxican culture. In 2010, it was recorded that 42,000 people in Los Angeles County identified as both Black and Latino, most of whom are believed to be both Black and Mexican American.
