Chicano / Chicanery

March 3rd, 2011 by admin

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Posted in columns, February 2011 | 9 comments

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9 comments on this post.

  1. Wm Watkins:

    May 9th, 2011 at 3:01 pm

    A long-time reader, I have not forgotten your advice to distrust word origins provided by tour guides. Recently a tour guide in Florida said that Spanish Moss (the fluffy stuff hanging from many trees in the American deep south) was so named by native Americans because it resembled the long beards worn by newly arrived Spanish soldiers.

    I had previously heard that the prevalent moss was given the name because, at the time, the deep south (especially Florida) was known as “New Spain,” much as the northeast was known as “New England”. (I also suspect that the natives had a word for the ubiquitous stuff long before the arrival of the Spanish.) Is either correct, or is there another explanation?

  2. Gene:

    August 18th, 2011 at 2:59 pm

    I’m disappointed there is no entry for “chicane” as this is a term commonly used in auto racing, especially sport car racing.

  3. Terje:

    October 29th, 2013 at 4:54 pm

    Dictionaries are even less to be trusted because they change with the changing of societal norms. Political correctness has tainted many elements. I have always been taught and even remember seeing it in the dictionary back before pc was rampant that the word chicano was a slur that took on a political value to the mexican american. Rather than be affected they wore it like a badge of pride, nullifying its harm.

  4. Thomas Roche:

    November 24th, 2014 at 7:16 pm

    Terje: I remember hearing, also long before PC took hold, just the opposite. In my (admittedly meager) reading on Chicano activism, I have not seen a reference the word “Chicano” addressed as a slur that was reclaimed. I HAVE encountered the etymology mentioned above (that it derives from “Mexicano.”)

    By your assertion that “Dictionaries are even less to be trusted,” I assume you mean “dictionaries are to be trusted less than individual tour guides”?

    Wow, that is a weird thing to say.

  5. luis:

    April 27th, 2017 at 9:12 am

    When I was a kid I used the word Chicano my father got upset told that I was Mexican American I asked why was he upset by the word he then told me that it came from the word chicanery and said at one time people would say watch out for that chican short for chicanery then over time Mexicans changed it to Chicano and my dad really believed this and in turn taught me this and to this day if someone asks me if I am Chicano I say no that I am Mexican American now if my dad was right or wrong this is how I see the word Chicano.

  6. Daniel. Torres:

    August 9th, 2019 at 8:19 pm

    Luis ur dad was right chicano comes fr chicanery meaning thief crooks given to us by gringos

  7. Susie:

    August 22nd, 2020 at 3:47 pm

    Please read so you have more info. on the origin of this word so you can choose how you feel about it.
    https://www.tache.org/defining-chicano

  8. Rafael Clemente-Ortegaux Ed. D.:

    April 7th, 2021 at 9:26 am

    Indeed! Chicano for us living south of the border in the late 40’s, Chicano was a pejorative adjective that named the ones that were rejected by 2 societies (or could not cope in either one). Of course, in later years it became an ideology for 3rd or 4th generation neglected immigrants.

  9. Rafa:

    February 16th, 2022 at 1:16 am

    just adding a little additional information on the work chicano …. after a little digging I found that the first time the work chicano was used in print… was in the Spanish-language newspaper La Crónica. I also found that the word chicano was used as far back as 1562 on the “Diego Gutierrez Map”.

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