While Mexican-American identity emerged to encourage assimilation into White American society and separate the community from African-American political struggle, Chicano identity emerged among anti-assimilationist youth, some of whom belonged to the Pachuco subculture, who claimed the term (which had previously been a classist and racist slur). The label Chicano is sometimes used interchangeably with Mexican American, although the terms have different meanings. El Paso's Second Ward, a Chicano neighborhood (1972)Ĭhicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States.
