El Chicano Print

Chicano, or Chicana, is a chosen identity for Mexican Americans in the United States. Chicano are sometimes used interchangeably with Mexican-American, and both names exist as chosen identities within the Mexican-American community in the United States. Although Chicano had negative connotations as a term of denigration prior to the Chicano Movement, it was reclaimed in the 1960s and 1970s by Mexican Americans to express self-determination and solidarity in a shared cultural, ethnic, and communal identity while openly rejecting assimilation. Chicano identity hit a low point in the 1980s and 1990s, as assimilation and economic mobility became a goal of many middle-class Mexican Americans who instead adopted the terms Hispanic and Latino. By the end of the 1990s a shift in Chicano identity, initiated by Xicana feminists and others, supporting the adoption of Xicana/o identity, occurred among some members of the community. There has been a resurgence of Chicana/o/x and Xicana/o/x identity in the 2010s, centered on ethnic pride, Indigenous consciousness, cultural expression, defense of immigrants, and the rights of women and queer Latinx people; some even refer to it as a 'renaissance'.