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 the mainstream American culture 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.
A "Chicano Power!" by M.E.Ch.A. CSULA is held up in a crowd (2006).
El Paso's Second Ward, a Chicano neighborhood (1972)
"Chicana by luck, proud by choice" at 2019 Women's March, Los Angeles
Chicano may derive from the Mexica people, originally pronounced Meh-Shee-Ka.
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.
Symbols of the Southwest: a string of chili peppers (a ristra) and a bleached white cow's skull hang in a market near Santa Fe.
Mural in Chicano Park, San Diego, stating "All the way to the Bay"
The Henry B. González Convention Center and Lila Cockrell Theater along the San Antonio River Walk. The Tower of the Americas is visible in the background.
An example of a Chicano-themed mural in the Richard Riordan Central Library