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The terms Chicano/Chicana (also spelled Xicano/Xicana) are used as reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s. For Mexicans, "Chicano" meant "poorest of the poor" but during the Civil Rights movement, they used the word to unite themselves.

Etymology[link]

"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.

The origin of the word "chicano" is disputed. Some critics claim it is a shorterned form of "Mexicano" ("Mexican" in Spanish). The word "Mexico" as spoken in its original Nahuatl, and by the Spaniards at the time of the conquest, was pronounced originally with a "sh" sound ("Mesh-ee-co"), as opposed to current pronunciation, and was transcribed with an "x" as was the usage in Spanish at the time. The difference between the pronunciation and spelling of "chicano" and "mexicano" stems from the fact that the modern-day Spanish language experienced a change in pronunciation regarding a majority of words containing the "x" (for example: México, Ximenez, Xavier, Xarabe). The "sh" sound was dropped^{[clarification needed]} and in most, but not all, cases accompanied by a change of spelling ("x" to "j"). The word "Chicano" in the US was evidently not affected by this change.

The Chicano poet and writer Tino Villanueva traces the first documented use of the term to 1911, as referenced in a then-unpublished essay by University of Texas anthropologist José Limón.^[1] Linguists Edward R. Simmen and Richard F. Bauerle report the use of the term in an essay by Mexican American writer, Mario Suárez, published in the Arizona Quarterly in 1947.^[2] Mexican Americans were not identified as a racial/ethnic category prior to the 1980 US Census, when the term "Hispanic" was first used in census reports.

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" or "castellano" or "peruano". However, 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". There is ample literary evidence to further substantiate that "Chicano" is a self-declaration, as a large body of Chicano literature exists with publication dates far predating the 1950s.^{[citation needed]} There is also a substantial body of Chicano literature that predates both Raso and 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 used outside Mexican-American communities, further indicating that the term is primarily self-identifying.

Meanings[link]

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The term's meanings are highly debatable, but self-described Chicanos view the term as a positive self-identifying social construction. Outside of Mexican-American communities, the term has been considered pejorative and takes on subjective view but usually consists of one or more of the following elements.

Ethnic identity[link]

From a popular perspective, the term Chicano became widely visible outside of Chicano communities during the American civil rights movement. It was commonly used during the mid-1960s by Mexican-American activists,^[3] who, in attempt to reassert their civil rights, tried to rid the word of its polarizing negative connotation by reasserting a unique ethnic identity and political consciousness, proudly identifying themselves as Chicanos.

The term "chicano" may have come from Mexican immigrants to the U.S. during the 1920s and 1930s, but by those originated from Chihuahua (not the term "Chi-"hua-hua" when they came into Texas where the locals made fun of the way the Chihuahuan Mexicans, primarily indigenous rural peasants, spoke a "less common" dialect of Spanish).

Others believe it was a corrupted term of "Chilango", meaning an inhabitant from Mexico City or Central Mexico (i.e. the highland states of Mexico (state), Jalisco, Puebla (state) and Michoacán); and even from the term "Chileno" by the Chilean presence in mid 19th-century California, when miners from Chile arrived in the California Gold Rush (1848–51).

Political identity[link]

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.^[4]

At certain points in the 1970s, "Chicano" was the preferred term for 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. "Chicano" is considered to be a positive term of honor by many.^{[citation needed]}

Ambiguous identity[link]

The identity is seen as uncertain:

• 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!!"

• Bruce Novoa: "A Chicano lives in the space between the hyphen in Mexican-American", . . Houston:, 1990.^[5]

For Chicanos, the term usually implies being "neither from here, nor from there" in reference to the US and Mexico^{[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 Latino-cultured, US-born Mexican child^{[citation needed]}.

Indigenous identity[link]

The identity is seen as native to the land:

• Rubén Salazar: "A Chicano is a Mexican-American with a non-Anglo image of himself."^[6]

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

One theory is the origin of such terminology is from the Mayan temple Chichen Itza in the Yucatan Peninsula, a ruin of an ancient MesoAmerican civilization about 1,500 years ago. "Chicano" may be a Hispanized word for "Chichen" or the Mayan descendants, not limited to Aztec descendants or Nahuatl people. But essentially Chicanos, like some Mexicans, are American Indians who were influenced by the Spanish culture through conquest, while Latino or Hispanic refers to race/genetics. Therefore Latinos are Americans who are descendants of the Latin group (namely Spain, France, Italy and Portugal) and Hispanic refers to the descendants from the Iberian Peninsula (also known as Ibero-American).

Political device[link]

• 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."^[7]

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.

Historic origins[link]

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The earliest known record of "Chicano" was thought to be in the late 19th or turn of the 20th century in Northwest Indiana. Mexican factory workers and railroad crews first arrived in the Chicagoland area (Chicago, Illinois), used the term among themselves, probably to mean chicanery or the working man. But in the Spanish language, the words Chico (small) -a-no (man) stands for "the little people".

Term of derision[link]