Brown Pride - Etymology of the term Chicano

“Although the word Chicano may be a contraction of Mexicano, there is no clear etymology of the term or its origin. It seems to have originated in the first decades of the 20th century (see reference 1) in the south of US, and it was a derogatory term used by US landowners to refer to their Mexican workers. The term spread to Mexico to refer to people of low origins. The literary and political movements of the 1960s and 1970s among Mexican-Americans established Chicano as a term of ethnic pride; Mexican-descended or origin Americans became aware of their status as a community and began to use the term with pride to refer to themselves….”

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