The labels that people of Latinx heritage use depends on the historical, regional, cultural, and political context. Labels can also be self-imposed, such as Chicano or Chicana, or imposed from without, such as Hispanic. Some ethnic labels, such as Californio, are specific to a region (California) and historical context (1800's). For example, Pío Pico was the last Mexican Governor of California and was part of the Californios, a term referring to the political, economic, and cultural elites of Mexican heritage living in California in the 19th century.
The term Chicano (or Chicana)gained popularity among people of Mexican origin during the 1960s in the midst of what is called the Chicano Movement. Young, radicalized Mexican Americans began to question the attempt of previous Latinx movements to assimilate into the Anglo-dominant America and became critical of the institutional discrimination and racism experienced by their community. There is some dispute among historians regarding the origins of the term Chicano, as it was commonly used as a slur in the early 1900s against recently arrived Mexican and working poor immigrants. The terms Chicano (and Xicano) may have been derived from the original pronunciation of the term for the Aztecs (Mexica). Regardless of its origin, the term Chicano (or Chicana) was reclaimed and embraced by politicize youth as a way to embrace their Indigenous heritage and roots ("Indigenismo"), reject Anglo-assimilation, recognize Mexicans as a twice colonized people, and take part in a larger social movement ("el movimiento") to challenge institutional discrimination and racism.
The Chicano Movement addressed different social problems and issues, a "movement of movements", as described by Chicano and Latino Studies Professor Jimmy Patino. As presented in Video 8.1.6 above, Chicano! Struggle in the Fields, the first was the fight for farm worker's rights, led by Cesar Chavezand Dolores Huerta through the United Farm Workers (UFW). This became the heart of the Chicano Movement and sought to improve the working conditions of farm workers but eventually extended and their efforts led to everyone having more labor and educational rights.
The second part of the movement was related to land rights of Mexican people and the reclamation of lands, led by the lawyer and activist Reies Lopez Tijerina. Tijerina challenged the unlawful transfer of land that took place after the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 through formal court challenges, protests, and even staged an armed raid to reclaim territory in New Mexico.
The third branch of the Chicano Movement was the rise of student activism and self-empowerment, as conveyed in Video 8.1.7 above, Chicano! Taking Back the Schools. For example, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales, an activist and former boxer, organized the National Youth and Liberation Conference in Denver, Colorado in 1969. This became a powerful organizing effort and brought in Chicanos from around the country to meet, take part in cultural workshops and events, and politicize and organize their own schools and communities. They drafted El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán (Spiritual Plan of Aztlán), to acknowledge the Indigenous ancestry and homeland of the Aztec people and also to map out a plan for Chicano nationalism and self-determination. In 1969, Chicano and Chicana students met at an historic conference at UC Santa Barbara to draftEl Plan de Santa Barbara based on the identity and philosophy of Chicanismo to propose a larger plan to advocate for self-determination and empowerment, Chicano nationalism, and the central role of higher education in achieving liberation at the community level. The result of the conference was the establishment of the student organization, M.E.Ch.A (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán), and became the blueprint for the establishment of Chicano and Chicana Studies programs and departments throughout the UC System. Featured in the Chicano! Taking Back the Schools video above, another example of the student movement was the East Los Angeles Walkouts that took place in 1968, where thousands of Chicano students took part in non-violent protests by walking out of their schools to protest unequal educational opportunities, a lack of Chicano-themed course and curriculum, and a lack of Chicano and bilingual teachers. (Noriega et al, 2010)
Panethnic Terms
A panethnic label is used as an "umbrella" term to categorize a set of ethnic subgroups with a shared culture, language, and history. The following are panethnic terms that are used to describe, generally, people of Latin American descent.
According to the UCLA sociologist G. Cristina Mora, the term Hispanic first officially appeared in the 1980 Census to categorize people from Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries, but excluding Brazilians. Prior to this census, those of Latin American descent were referred to as "Spanish-speaking", "having Spanish origin" or "white" which was frustrating to advocates and activists at the time, including the National Council of La Raza, who were lobbying for more resources and programs in Mexican and Puerto Rican communities. Although the term Hispanic emerged as an more official term and adopted by many, the term has its detractors because it tends to emphasize Spanish culture at the expense of Indigenous culture, it is an English word, perceived as an imposed label, and associated with the more assimilated who are hoping to de-emphasize their Latinx culture. According to Mora (2019):
"Resistance to the idea of Hispanic emerged at a time when academics and started applying a much more critical lens to colonial history. There was a pushback and a sense that words matter - that by elevating "Hispanic" one is obscuring a history of colonialism, slavery, genocide, the Spanish legacy across the Americas. So "Latino" developed as an alternative, albeit an imperfect one" (Schelenz and Freeling, 2019, p. 1).
According to historian Ramon Gutierrez, the term Latino or Latina has its roots in the abbreviated version of Latino Americano that emerged after the independence movements of several countries in the early 1800s. It re-emerged in the late 1900s and can be found in memoirs and political literature in the 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was promulgated as a preferred substitute for the more official term Hispanic. It is considered a more inclusive term and has also been used to "center" the experiences of other subgroups such as Afro Latinos and Muslim Latinos, whose experiences are oftentimes left out of the discourse and research (Gutierrez and Almaguer, 2016). According to a 2013 Pew Center survey, only about 20% of respondents described themselves as either Hispanic or Latino. Slightly more than half of respondents (54%) prefer to use their family's country of origin (such as Mexican, Cuban, Guatemalan) to identify themselves and just over 20% used "American" to describe themselves (Lopez, 2013).
The term Latinx has been used since the early 2000s and is meant to replace Latino and Latina as a gender-neutral alternative and to also acknowledge the experiences of LGBTQ people who are of Latin American descent. Although a recent Pew Center (2020) study found that only a quarter have heard of the term and only 3% use it in their daily lives, the label is growing in popularity and usage, especially among young, college educated women (Noe-Bustamante, Mora, & Lopez, 2020).
Race and Racial Identity
Gutierrez and Almaguer (2016) point out that that Lainx populations have a very long history of racial classification that goes back to the Spanish colonial period, which lasted hundreds of years in Latin America. The racial mixing (referred to as mestizaje) that occurred included Spanish troops, indigenous populations, and imported African slaves and led to the development of a color and class stratification system, sometimes referred to as a racial caste system. In those societies where indigenous people were used as the primary colonial labor force, indigenous ancestry was devalued and stigmatized, mostly in Mexico, Central America, and Peru. In those societies where the indigenous population was decimated and replaced by African slaves, such as the Caribbean islands, blackness was devalued. Terms such as mestizo, moreno, mulato and trigueño began to be used in the 16th century and are still used today. What resulted was a system where "either white and black, or white and Indian, were at opposite ends of this racial hierarchy, and a large set of intermediate brown categories that complexly stratified the population were deemed to occupy the middle" (Gutierrez & Almaguer, 2016, p. 154). It is evident that people who have migrated to the United States bring with them this complicated history of racial classification and identity. (See also Chapter 1.4 for an earlier discussion of multiracial individuals, including mestizo, mulatto, etc.).
This long history of racial classification has also resulted in a form of colorism within the Latinx population, defined by Chavez-Dueñas, Adames, & Organista (2014) as "a form of discrimination imposed upon Latinos/as by members of their own ethnic group." (Chavez-Dueñas et al., p. 4). This internalized hierarchy that devalues indigenous and African ancestry and a preference for whiteness or traditionally European features is reflected at the institutional level in terms of people in power, socioeconomic status, and depictions of people in media (i.e. movies, news broadcasters, telenovelas, etc.). At the micro level, Chavez-Dueñas (2014) found the following comments frequently used by Latinx family members to describe friends or relatives to be a clear reflection of colorism and an internalized racial hierarchy :
- Hay que mejorar la raza o cásate con un blanco. [We need to improve the race by marrying a white person.]
- Ahi que bonita es su niña, as tan güerita/blanquita! [Oh! How pretty your daughter is, she is so white/light skinned!]
- Oh, nació negrito/prietito pero aun asi lo queremos. [Oh, he was born black/dark but we still love him all the same.]
- Pobrecito, tiene el cabello tan malo. [Poor little thing, her hair is so bad/coarse.]
- Eres tan Indio. [You are so Indian. (connoting negative stereotypes about indigenous people)] (Chavez-Dueñas et al., 2014, p. 17).
In the United States, Latinx people are not designated on the U.S. Census as a "racial group" but instead are considered an ethnic group with a shared cultural backgrounds, who can be of any "race". The 2010 Census form first asks respondents if the person in question is of Hispanics, Latin or Spanish origin and asks to specific a Latinx subgroup is the answer is "yes" to this question. Then, the following question asks for the person's race but only provides the following potential responses:
Given the limited responses to the race question, it is not surprising that in 2010 more than half (53%) of the Latinx respondents selected the "White" racial category on the Census form. Interestingly, there were differences across the subgroups. Cubans (85.4%) and South Americans (65.9%) were among the highest and Guatemalans (38.5%) and Salvadorans (40.2%) were among the lowest to select the "White" racial category. Approximately 53% of both Mexicans and Puerto Ricans selected the "White" racial category. Some 37% of Latinx respondents selected "some other race" and a majority in this group selected their nationality as their specified "race." A small percentage of Latinx respondents (6%) identified themselves as multiracial and even smaller percentages as American Indian (1.4%) or Black (2.5%) (Gutierrez & Almaguer, 2016). After the results of the 2010 Census were published, news organizations such as the New York Times wrote stories with headlines that read "More Hispanics Declaring Themselves White" and concluded that the results provided evidence that the Latinx population may "assimilate as white Americans, like the Italians or Irish, who were not universally considered to be white" (Cohn, 2014). So, is this the end of the story? Are Latinx people simply the next "Italians" and are assimilating into white America?
Other research actually reflects a more complex Latinx racial and ethnic identity. For example, in their survey of Latinx adults, Parker, Horowitz, Morin, & Lopez (2015) found that 67% of respondents considered their "Hispanic" background to be both a racial and ethnic background, contrary to the assumption made in the Census question and other standard race survey questions. In this same survey, a much higher percentage of Latinx adults described themselves as being of mixed race (34%), Indigenous (25%), and Afro-Latino (24%) then was captured in the 2010 Census. Part of this was the contextualization of the questions in the current survey. For example, respondents were asked if they consider themselves "Afro-Latino or Afro-Caribbean or, for example, Afro-Mexican." Respondents were also asked if they had ancestry that included specific indigenous peoples of the Americas, such as Mayan, Taino, Quechua, etc. As for being of mixed race ancestry, more culturally relevant terms such as mestizo or mulatto were utilized in this survey. The results provide a rich and more complex picture regarding the self-identity and racial classification of the Latinx population.
Cohn, N. (2014, May 21). More Hispanics declaring themselves White. NY Times.
Chavez-Dueñas, N.Y., Adames, H.Y., & Organista, K.C. (2014). Skin-Color Prejudice and Within-Group Racial Discrimination: Historical and Current Impact on Latino/a Populations. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences. Vol. 36(1), pp. 3-26.
Gutierrez, R. & Almaguer, T. (2016). Race, racializations, and Latino popuations in the United States in Gutierrez, R. and Almaguer, T. (Eds.) The New Latino Studies Reader: A 21st Century Perspective. Oakland, Ca: UC Press
Lopez, M. (2013). Hispanic Identity. Pew Research Center. October 22, 2013
Noriega, C., Avila, E., Davalos, K., Sandoval, C., & Perez-Torres, R. (2010). The Chicano Studies Reader: An Anthology of Aztlan, 1970 - 2000. Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press
Schelenz, R. & Freeling, N. (2019, October 10). What's in a name? How the concepts of Hispanic and Latino identity emerged. UC News.
Noe-Bustamane, L., Mora, L, & Lopez, M. (2020). About One-in-Four U.S. Hispanics Have Heard of Latinx, but Just 3% use it. Pew Research Center, August 11, 2020
Parker, K., Horowitz, J., Morin, R. & Lopez, M. (2015) Chapter 7: The Many Dimensions of Hispanic Racial Identity. Pew Research Center: Multiracial in America, June 11, 2015.
Schelenz, R. (2019, October). What's in a name? how the concepts of hispanic and latino identity emerged. interview of sociologist dr. g. cristina mora. University of California News.