What’s the difference between the words “chicano”, “latino” and “hispanic”?
This is not a question of race. This is just the difference between words, please extrapolate on your thoughts on this matter.
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Chicanos, are American born of Mexican descent.
Latinos are people from Latin America- Like Mexico, Central America and so on.
Hispanics are people from Spain.
Just because they all speak dialects of Spanish does not mean they are the same. They all have very different cultures. Just like there are a lot of English speaking countries but they are all very different and not all citizens of the native country. I speak English but I am not from England. And Canada speaks English but they are not Americans. It’s culture descent.
A Chicano is a person who was born in the U.S. but whose parents were born in Mexico, just from Mexico. A person whose parents are from say Puerto Rico is not Chicano.
A Latino is anyone was born in Latin America, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Argentina, it includes Brazil, Haiti etc., it does not include people from Spain or from Portugal.
Hispanic is a word the government created to refer to people that come from a Spanish speaking country. Literally it means from Hispania (Spain and Portugal), so this term includes Spain and Portugal, but not Brazil or Haiti, etc, just countries where people speak Spanish in.
Neither of them are a race, all of them are ethnicities. I personally prefer to be called Latina because I’m not from Spain or Portugal. Also, I’m not Chicana because my parents are not from Mexico. Don’t call someone who’s parents are not from Mexico a Chicano/a because he/she will get offended. It’s like calling an English person Irish. Same language, different culture. Also, most people don’t care whether you call them Hispanic or Latino because most don’t know the difference, but there is a difference.