My favorite fluff magazine is “Eres“, whose catch phrase during the mid-nineties was ¿Y tú, quien eres?. I’ve been thinking of that since el Latino Pundit offered a link to an article by Sandy Escobedo on what it ment to her to be Chicana. She wrote that she did not identify as chicana.
“I don’t consider myself Chicana because I don’t relate to what I SEE associated with Chicanismo. I see Chicanismo, in context to LA, as associated with second or third generation Mexicans that were once from EAST LA who don’t speak Spanish and are too distant from being “Mexican.” First and foremost, the immigration experience of my parents is recent and it is different from the families of self-proclaimed Chicanos.
…My parents never worked in a field. In fact, I had never seen farm labor until I encountered it on the 101 Ventura Freeway on my way to UCSB. My parents instead began their life here in the service sector and now work in unionized jobs in which my dad earns a middle-class salary by working 12 hour shifts, at times, 7 days a week.”
This article made me relaize that I need to let go of the reasons I do not consider myself Chicana and come to really embrace the term. I used to argue that I didn’t consider myself Chicana because I am “fluent in Spanish, I’ve lived in Mexico, I feel Mexicana, I grew up in Ohio not on the border, only one of my parents is Mexican.” As a Mexicana, Chican@ was an ugly bad term.
I guess we can all make excuses that we don’t share the same backgrounds, that economically, socially, cutlrually we are different. However, we are still Chicanos. Others don’t pay attention to our diverse backgrounds they just see us as those people. Maybe our recent circumstances don’t unite all of us but our histories do. Somos Xicanos. Somos Raza. ¿Y Tú quien eres?
Soy Oso. But Eres by Cafe Tacuba is one of my top 100 favorite songs.
To me, the term Chicano is not really whether you are a first generation Mexican American or a second or third, but rather something that lets people know that you ascribe to a certain type of ideology (not a right wing sellout). You are proud of your history and your language and if others accept it then that’s cool and if they don’t you really don’t give a…To me the term Chicano is an outgrowth of the Black Power movement of the 60’s where minority groups refused to get co-opted by “white society.” Anyhow, I think I am talking too much but I also consider myself a Chicano.