people of color & Chicano

[Lynne Murphy]

I would hazard that there are not only individual variations in whether
people prefer Hispanic/Latino/Chicano (etc.) as self-reference, but there
are generational differences and probably also geographical differences.
In Texas, I hardly ever heard 'Chicano' even though most of the
Spanish-surnamed people there are of Mexican descent.  At Baylor, there's a
Hispanic Students Assn, and at UT/Austin there are 7 associations with
'Hispanic' in their name (including one that's 'Chicano/Hispanic'), plus
one with just 'Chicano', 2 with just 'Latino/a', one that's
'Chicano/Latino', and three with 'Mexican-American'.  Checking out Pomona
and Berkeley in California, many of the groups have Spanish language names
without one of these ethnonyms (e.g., 'Unidos', 'La Raza'), and only one
(at Berkeley) group with "Hispanic" in the name (but which uses 'Latino' in
the description of its purpose.  Berkeley also has 3 with 'Latino/a' in the
name, and 2 with 'Chicano/a', and one with Chicano/Latino (same natl group
as at UT).  Pomona has one with 'Chicano'.  Note that there are no 'Mexican
American' named groups in California.  I think feelings about self-labeling
are quite different in the two states.

Lynne


M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
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