|
Chicano CultureChicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for people of Mexican descent born in the United States. Variations include Chicano (male-female inclusive) and Chicanx (gender-neutral). The identity may also appear as Xicano or Xicana, with Xicano and Xicanx being the respective variations of this alternative spelling. The identity is sometimes used interchangeably with Mexican-American, although both terms have different meanings. In the 1940s and 1950s, prior to the Chicano Movement, Chicano/a was widely used as a classist term of derision, although it had already been adopted by some pachucos as an expression of defiance to Anglo-American society.
|
Chicano/a was widely reclaimed in the 1960s and 1970s to express political empowerment, ethnic solidarity, and pride in being of Indigenous descent, diverging from the assimilationist Mexican-American identity. Many Chicano/a youth in barrios rejected cultural assimilation into whiteness and embraced pachuco/a and cholo/a identities as countercultural symbols of resistance.
Chicana/o ethnic identity is born out of colonial encounters between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Alfred Arteaga writes how the Chicana/o arose as a result of the violence of colonialism, emerging as a hybrid ethnicity or race. Arteaga acknowledges how this ethnic and racial hybridity among Chicanos is highly complex and extends beyond a previously generalized "Aztec" ancestry, as originally asserted during the formative years of the Chicano Movement. Chicano ethnic identity may involve more than just Spanish ancestry and may include African ancestry (as a result of Spanish slavery or runaway slaves from Anglo-Americans). Arteaga concludes that "the physical manifestation of the Chicano, is itself a product of hybridity." Information for this section retrieved from this website.
Chicana/o ethnic identity is born out of colonial encounters between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Alfred Arteaga writes how the Chicana/o arose as a result of the violence of colonialism, emerging as a hybrid ethnicity or race. Arteaga acknowledges how this ethnic and racial hybridity among Chicanos is highly complex and extends beyond a previously generalized "Aztec" ancestry, as originally asserted during the formative years of the Chicano Movement. Chicano ethnic identity may involve more than just Spanish ancestry and may include African ancestry (as a result of Spanish slavery or runaway slaves from Anglo-Americans). Arteaga concludes that "the physical manifestation of the Chicano, is itself a product of hybridity." Information for this section retrieved from this website.
Chicano History in SGV
Mexicans first came to the San Gabriel Valley in the late eighteenth century, when settlers from New Spain colonized the area as the San Gabriel Mission. In the nineteenth century, many more ranchers and small landowners came as the Mexican government encouraged migration to its northern frontier. In 1848 the area, along with the rest of what is today the western United States became part of the country following the Mexican-American War. However, it was not until the establishment of railroads across Mexico and the United States that large numbers of migrants started to arrive in Southern California. Mexicans came in the tens of thousands per year in this era, following railroads and job opportunities.
The Mexican population of Los Angeles county tripled in size by 1920. They came to work on a new form of large-scale industrial agriculture that relied on irrigation systems, close connections to associated manufacturing, refrigerated railroads to take produce to far-away markets, and most of all, large numbers of seasonal wage laborers. This is what the founders of El Monte meant when they described the area as a bountiful winter garden in promotional literature throughout California. Indeed, by the mid-twentieth century the valley was covered in large farms that produced oranges, lemons, walnuts, apricots, strawberries, and tomatoes, as well as dairy farms, horse ranches, and one lion ranch.
A racialized land and labor hierarchy developed alongside the citrus economy, with land and profits concentrated in the hands of Anglo Americans, and Mexican Americans and Asian Americans (Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, South Asian) constituting the labor force. Mexican and Mexican American laborers lived in colonias, also called barrios, throughout the SGV but especially in the El Monte area. One of these colonias, Hicks Camp, was the site of an important, multiracial, agricultural worker strike in 1933 -- at that point the largest agricultural strike in California history. During the early to mid-twentieth century, the SGV served as an important node in working-class Mexican political circuits in other ways as well: anarchist Ricardo Flores Magón gave a memorable speech in El Monte in 1917 and Ignacio López published the Spanish-language newspaper, El Espéctador, from his home in Pomona for nearly three decades (1933-1961). El Espéctador focused on issues local to the eastern SGV and openly advocated for racial and social justice.
For the migrants who came to Hicks Camp, the place was part of a much longer journey. Most came from the central Mexican states of Guanajuato, Michoacán, and Jalisco, in addition to the northern state of Chihuahua, and had worked and lived elsewhere in the United States prior to coming to El Monte. Most workers labored in agriculture, and for many this meant a migratory existence up and down California. "We would migrate back and forth to Fresno, Merced, and so forth in the summers," Pete Kunez recalled of his childhood in the 1950s. "And then we'd come back sometime between September and November, and go back to school."
Lupe Ruiz was born in Mexico, and when she was little she moved to Texas, where her parents picked cotton. She then lived in Arizona until 1925, "when my grandmother decided to come to California... I was her favorite grandchild, she brought me with her. We landed in Hicks Camp. A year later my parents came to El Monte to pick me up and go back to Mexico, but they like[d] it here so they--my father decided to stay." Lucy Florence, who grew up outside the camp, told college student Pat Aroz, "Every summer, by August, you'd go into Hicks Camp, and there wouldn't be fifty people in it. Everybody would take off, and go up north, and pick cotton, or pick grapes, and come back. So if you went there in August or September, or whenever the seasons were, it was a ghost town. By October everybody would be back." By the 1940s, the decline of walnuts and other year-round crops meant that more camp residents had to migrate for work, or leave the fields entirely for other types of work.
Once the 10 freeway opened up access to Los Angeles from SGV, there was a significant migration of Mexicans from Los Angeles. Additionally, as more Mexicans filled various communities, white people moved out. This Latinos and Asians co-habitating in various cities throughout SGV, while many cities are mostly Latino. Latinos make up the largest group in SGV.
Information for this page was taken from this website and this website.
The Mexican population of Los Angeles county tripled in size by 1920. They came to work on a new form of large-scale industrial agriculture that relied on irrigation systems, close connections to associated manufacturing, refrigerated railroads to take produce to far-away markets, and most of all, large numbers of seasonal wage laborers. This is what the founders of El Monte meant when they described the area as a bountiful winter garden in promotional literature throughout California. Indeed, by the mid-twentieth century the valley was covered in large farms that produced oranges, lemons, walnuts, apricots, strawberries, and tomatoes, as well as dairy farms, horse ranches, and one lion ranch.
A racialized land and labor hierarchy developed alongside the citrus economy, with land and profits concentrated in the hands of Anglo Americans, and Mexican Americans and Asian Americans (Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, South Asian) constituting the labor force. Mexican and Mexican American laborers lived in colonias, also called barrios, throughout the SGV but especially in the El Monte area. One of these colonias, Hicks Camp, was the site of an important, multiracial, agricultural worker strike in 1933 -- at that point the largest agricultural strike in California history. During the early to mid-twentieth century, the SGV served as an important node in working-class Mexican political circuits in other ways as well: anarchist Ricardo Flores Magón gave a memorable speech in El Monte in 1917 and Ignacio López published the Spanish-language newspaper, El Espéctador, from his home in Pomona for nearly three decades (1933-1961). El Espéctador focused on issues local to the eastern SGV and openly advocated for racial and social justice.
For the migrants who came to Hicks Camp, the place was part of a much longer journey. Most came from the central Mexican states of Guanajuato, Michoacán, and Jalisco, in addition to the northern state of Chihuahua, and had worked and lived elsewhere in the United States prior to coming to El Monte. Most workers labored in agriculture, and for many this meant a migratory existence up and down California. "We would migrate back and forth to Fresno, Merced, and so forth in the summers," Pete Kunez recalled of his childhood in the 1950s. "And then we'd come back sometime between September and November, and go back to school."
Lupe Ruiz was born in Mexico, and when she was little she moved to Texas, where her parents picked cotton. She then lived in Arizona until 1925, "when my grandmother decided to come to California... I was her favorite grandchild, she brought me with her. We landed in Hicks Camp. A year later my parents came to El Monte to pick me up and go back to Mexico, but they like[d] it here so they--my father decided to stay." Lucy Florence, who grew up outside the camp, told college student Pat Aroz, "Every summer, by August, you'd go into Hicks Camp, and there wouldn't be fifty people in it. Everybody would take off, and go up north, and pick cotton, or pick grapes, and come back. So if you went there in August or September, or whenever the seasons were, it was a ghost town. By October everybody would be back." By the 1940s, the decline of walnuts and other year-round crops meant that more camp residents had to migrate for work, or leave the fields entirely for other types of work.
Once the 10 freeway opened up access to Los Angeles from SGV, there was a significant migration of Mexicans from Los Angeles. Additionally, as more Mexicans filled various communities, white people moved out. This Latinos and Asians co-habitating in various cities throughout SGV, while many cities are mostly Latino. Latinos make up the largest group in SGV.
Information for this page was taken from this website and this website.