![]() The Chicano movement was fundamentally created as a way to develop and increase Mexican-American pride and in turn help to establish equality in voting and political rights, farm workers’ rights, and improvement in education. ![]() While a Chicano can appear to represent the mixture of a Mexican-American child, Mexican nationalists reject the separate Chicano identity because it leads to an even more separate Mexican-American identity.Ĭhicano Political and Social Activism: Past and Present Contrarily, others see it as a reference to Mexican-American pride. Consequently, Chicano was rejected by many Mexican Americans throughout the Southwest in order to reject their Mexican heritage. From the beginning, Chicano was seen as a derogatory way to call Mexican migrants who were not Mexican enough nor American enough. The third and most likely origin of Chicano, however, emerges out of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, when 80,000 Spanish, Mexican, and Native Americans in the prosperous Rio Grande region (the current Southwest United States) were annexed to the United States after the Mexican-American War.ĭue to the multiple hypotheses of the name’s origin, for most Mexican Americans, the ethnonym has distinctive meanings.Similarly, Chicano could have originated from the combination of Chicano and the Chichimecas, an indigenous tribe from Guanajauto. Another hypothesis is that Chicano is derived from chilango, or someone from Mexico City or Central Mexico.Chicano or “Xicano” is interchangeably used out of respect to indigenous heritage because in the heydays of the Nahuatl people, who formed part of the Aztec tribe, the x or the sh sound was replaced by the conquistadores.There are quite a few hypotheses, but the main three are the following: This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.As was first documented in 1911 by Texas anthropologist José Limón, Chicano refers to a mestizo (or a mixture) of about 60% European heritage and 30% indigenous heritage. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This is precisely how I got to become a full citizen. Hopefully, the spirit of these texts reflects what I have learned from Ricardo: to always be bold, critical, committed, and connected to the pulse of the times to speak up and talk back. These pieces I wrote while touring a United States under the cloud of war and censorship created by the Bush administration. With this in mind, I wish to dedicate the following performance texts to him. I definitely can say that without his wisdom, openness and madness, I wouldn’t be where I am, doing what I do. And he has performed this role for many artists and thinkers. Throughout these years, Richard has become my padrino (godfather in Spanish), which is to say something more than just a mentor someone who advises me when I lose my political compass, and who politely scolds me when I don’t exercise enough rigor or when I am repeating myself. Even the most racy and controversial texts (which other magazines would have a problem with) appeared in TDR. And never has Richard or his collaborators rejected or censored any of my writings. For over 20 years, TDR has published an eclectic array of my performance work including essays, chronicles of projects, conversations, and many performance scripts. Through the journal I was able to connect with thinkers and practitioners from all over the world. ![]() ![]() With this piece I began my longterm association with the TDR intellectual community. In the late 1980s Richard Schechner asked me to write a text from a Chicano/Mexicano perspective for the pages of TDR.
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