PROGRAM INFO
- Title:
- The Significance Of A Name
- Program #
- 1976-01
- Theme:
- Identity
- Series:
- Social Issues
- Host:
- Richard Goodman
- Guest:
- Richard Goodman
- Date:
- Aug 25, 1976
The Significance of a Name
Richard Goodman discusses the history of the terms Mexicano, Latin American, Mexican American and Chicano. The first name examined is Mexicano, which Mexicans in the Southwest used to claim their new nation. After 1848, once the Southwest became more economically incorporated into the United States, Goodman claims the label served to unify the Mexican population and to distinguish them from other groups, like the Anglos who were moving in. Goodman explains that during the Great Depression, Mexican became a pejorative term for some Mexican Americans. In an effort to challenge discrimination and assert the citizenship of Mexicans in the U.S., Alonso Perales used the term, Latin American, which emphasized both their citizenship and their Spanish surnames in their new civil rights organization., the League of United Latin American Citizenz. Goodman explains that politically involved Mexicans started to refer to themselves as Mexican Americans, a term that asserted their citizenship, the ethnic pride and the blending of U.S. and Mexican cultures. The term Chicano, which Goodman claims was an apolitical term used within the Mexican community to refer to one another, emerged later. According to the author, the term Chicano appeared first in the 1920, but exact origin is unavailable. The author describes the relationship of “Chicano” to terms like Latin American, Mexican American and Mexican among Chicanos as well as mainstream society.
KEYWORDS
Alonso PeralesAnglo
Assimilation
Californios
Chicano
Customs
Hispanos
Labels
Latin American
League of United Latin American Citizens
Linguistic appropriation
Mexican American
Mexicanos
Name
Nationalism
Nomenclature
Northern New Mexico
Origins
Raza
Self-Reference
Southwest
Spain
Spanish-Surnamed Americans
Terminology
Texas-Mexicans
Traditions
United Farm Workers
Unity