Editing Chicano (section)

== Distinction from other terms ==
=== ''Mexican American'' ===
[[File:Mexican and negro cotton pickers inside plantation store, Knowlton Plantation, Perthshire, Miss. Delta. This transient labor is contracted for and brought in trucks from Texas each season. October 1939.jpg|left|thumb|181x181px|Mexican and Black [[cotton picker]]s inside a [[Company store|plantation store]] (1939). In the 1930s, the term ''Mexican American'' was promoted to attempt to define Mexicans "as a [[White Americans|white ethnic group]] that had little in common with [[African Americans]]."<ref name="Muñoz-2007" />]]
In the 1930s, "community leaders promoted the term ''Mexican American'' to convey an assimilationist ideology stressing white identity," as noted by legal scholar [[Ian Haney López]].<ref name="López-2009" /> Lisa Y. Ramos argues that "this phenomenon demonstrates why no Black-Brown civil rights effort emerged prior to the 1960s."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ramos|first=Lisa Y.|title=The Struggle in Black and Brown: African American and Mexican American Relations During the Civil Rights Era|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|year=2012|isbn=9780803262744|pages=19–20|chapter=Not Similar Enough: Mexican American and African American Civil Rights Struggles in the 1940s}}</ref> Chicano youth rejected the previous generation's racial aspirations to assimilate into [[Anglo-Americans|Anglo-American]] society and developed a "[[Pachuco]] culture that fashioned itself neither as Mexican nor American."<ref name="López-2009" />

In the Chicano Movement, possibilities for [[Black–brown unity]] arose: "Chicanos defined themselves as proud members of a brown race, thereby rejecting, not only the previous generation's assimilationist orientation, but their racial pretensions as well."<ref name="López-2009" /> Chicano leaders collaborated with [[Black Power movement]] leaders and activists.<ref name="Mantler-2013">{{Cite book|last=Mantler|first=Gordon K.|title=Power to the Poor: Black-Brown Coalition and the Fight for Economic Justice, 1960-1974|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|year=2013|isbn=9781469608068|pages=65–89}}</ref><ref name="MartinezHoSang-2013">{{Cite book|last=Martinez HoSang|first=Daniel|title=Black and Brown in Los Angeles: Beyond Conflict and Coalition|publisher=University of California Press|year=2013|pages=120–123|chapter=Changing Valence of White Racial Innocence}}</ref> ''Mexican Americans'' insisted that Mexicans were white, while ''Chicanos'' embraced being non-white and the development of ''brown pride''.<ref name="López-2009" />

''Mexican American'' continued to be used by a more assimilationist faction who wanted to define Mexican Americans "as a [[White Americans|white ethnic group]] that had little in common with [[African Americans]]."<ref name="Muñoz-2007" /> Carlos Muñoz argues that the desire to separate themselves from [[African-American culture|Blackness]] and political struggle was rooted in an attempt to minimize "the existence of [[racism]] toward their own people, [believing] they could "deflect" [[anti-Mexican sentiment]] in society" through affiliating with the [[Mainstream culture|mainstream]] American culture.<ref name="Muñoz-2007">{{Cite book|last=Muñoz|first=Carlos|title=Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement|publisher=Verso|year=2007|isbn=9781844671427|page=64|quote=They did not reject their Mexican origins, but, like the generation of the 1930s, emphasized the American part of their Mexican American identity... They promoted the image of Mexican Americans as a white ethnic group that had little in common with African Americans. They believed that by minimizing the existence of racism toward their people, they could 'deflect' anti-Mexican sentiment in society.}}</ref>

=== ''Hispanic'' ===
Etymologically deriving from the Spanish word "[[Hispanophone|Hispano]]", referring to the Latin word [[Hispania]], which was used for the Iberian Peninsula under the Roman Republic, the term Hispanic is an [[Anglicized]] translation of the Spanish word "Hispano". Hispano is commonly used in the Spanish speaking world when referring to "Hispanohablantes" (Spanish speakers), "[[Hispanic America|Hispanoamerica]]" (Spanish-America) and "Hispanos" when referring to the greater social imaginary held by many people across the Americas who descend from Spanish families. The term [[Hispanos of New Mexico|Hispano]] is commonly used in the U.S. states of New Mexico, Texas, and Colorado, as well as used in Mexico and other Spanish-American countries when referring to the greater Spanish-speaking world, often referred to as "Latin America".

[[File:CHCcirca1984.JPG|thumb|205x205px|[[Congressional Hispanic Caucus]] (1984). The Caucus played a key role in promoting the term ''Hispanic'' among Mexican Americans, partly motivated by a goal to separate themselves from how the [[Congressional Black Caucus|Black Caucus]] was viewed.<ref name="Gomez-1992" />]]
Following the decline of the [[Chicano Movement]], ''Hispanic'' was first defined by the U.S. [[Office of Management and Budget|Federal Office of Management and Budget]]'s (OMB) Directive No. 15 in 1977 as "a person of [[Mexicans|Mexican]], [[Dominican Republic|Dominican]], [[Puerto Ricans|Puerto Rican]], [[Cubans|Cuban]], [[Central America|Central]] or [[South America]] or other [[Spanish culture]] or origin, regardless of [[Race (human categorization)|race]]."<ref name="Martinez-2020" /> The term was promoted by [[Mexican Americans|Mexican American]] political elites to encourage [[cultural assimilation]] into the [[Mainstream culture|mainstream]] culture and move away from ''[[Chicanismo]]''. The rise of Hispanic identity paralleled the emerging era of political and cultural [[conservatism]] in the United States during the 1980s.<ref name="Martinez-2020" /><ref name="Gomez-1992" />

Key members of the Mexican American political elite, all of whom were middle-aged men, helped popularize the term ''Hispanic'' among Mexican Americans. The term was picked up by electronic and print media. [[Laura E. Gómez]] conducted a series of interviews with these elites and found that one of the main reasons ''Hispanic'' was promoted was to move away from ''Chicano'': "The Chicano label reflected the more radical political agenda of Mexican-Americans in the 1960s and 1970s, and the politicians who call themselves Hispanic today are the harbingers of a more conservative, more accomadationist politics."<ref name="Gomez-1992" />

Gómez found that some of these elites promoted ''Hispanic'' to appeal to [[White Americans|white American]] sensibilities, particularly in regard to separating themselves from [[Black people|Black]] political consciousness. Gómez records:<ref name="Gomez-1992" />{{blockquote|Another respondent agreed with this position, contrasting his white colleagues' perceptions of the [[Congressional Hispanic Caucus]] with their perception of the [[Congressional Black Caucus]]. 'We certainly haven't been militant like the Black Caucus. We're seen as a power bloc—an ethnic power bloc striving to deal with mainstream issues.'<ref name="Gomez-1992" />}}In 1980, ''Hispanic'' was first made available as a self-identification on [[U.S. census]] forms. While ''Chicano'' also appeared on the 1980 U.S. census, it was only permitted to be selected as a subcategory underneath ''Spanish/Hispanic descent'', which erased the possibility of [[Afro-Chicano]]s, Chicanos of [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Indigenous descent]], and other Chicanos of color. ''Chicano'' did not appear on any subsequent census forms and ''Hispanic'' has remained.<ref name="Stephen-2007" /> Since then, ''Hispanic'' has widely been used by politicians and the media. For this reason, many Chicanos reject the term ''Hispanic''.<ref name="Montoya-2016-1">{{Cite book|title=Chicano Movement For Beginners|last=Montoya|first=Maceo|publisher=For Beginners|year=2016|isbn=9781939994646|pages=[https://archive.org/details/chicanomovementf0000mont/page/3 3–5]|url=https://archive.org/details/chicanomovementf0000mont/page/3}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Guerra Tezcatlipoca |first=Leo |date=22 November 1993 |title=We're Chicanos – Not Latinos or Hispanics |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-11-22-me-59558-story.html |access-date=26 June 2020 |website=Los Angeles Times |archive-date=27 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200627025157/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-11-22-me-59558-story.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Other terms ===
Instead of or in addition to identifying as Chicano or any of its variations, some may prefer:
* [[Latino (demonym)|Latino/a]], also anglicized as "Latin." Some US Latinos use Latin as a gender neutral alternative.
* Latin American (especially if immigrant).
* Mexican; ''{{lang|es|mexicano/mexicana}}''
* "[[Brown race|Brown]]"
* [[Mestizo]]; [insert racial identity {{var|X}}] ''{{lang|es|mestizo}}'' (e.g. ''{{lang|es|blanco mestizo}}''); ''{{lang|es|pardo}}''.
* ''{{lang|es|californiano}}'' (or ''{{lang|es|californio}}'') / ''{{lang|es|californiana}}''; ''{{lang|es|[[nuevomexicano]]/nuevomexicana}}''; ''{{lang|es|[[tejano]]/tejana}}''.
* Part/member of ''{{lang|es|[[la Raza]]}}''. (Internal identifier, Spanish for "the Race")
* American, solely.