In 1967, Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales published his poem, “Yo Soy Joaquin” and it had a profound impact on Chicano social identity. The poem is considered to be the “epic of the Mexican-American people (Blackwell, 110). On March 23, 1969, the Chicano Youth Liberation Conference was assembled. A generation of Mexican-American youth came together on a large scale to discuss and act on issues plaguing the Mexican-American community: discrimination and oppression. The Mexican-American’s history of struggle and sentiment for change peaked during the Civil Rights Movement, which formulated the Chicano social identity.
Above all, Chicana/o is a social identity articulated in the civil rights movement. Tajifel (1981) defines social identity as the aspects
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Cultural nationalism was to undermine socioeconomic status, rather bring people together based on their struggle, culture, and Mexican blood. It is a multi-faced movement that involved labor rights for farmworkers, educational reform, and economic reform. However, the Chicana’s voice is silenced, and their ideas went ignored. Many Chicana feminists were against cultural nationalism because it replicated patriarchal power structures and cultural norms (Blackwell, 94). A Chicana possesses a political stance that confronts and undermines patriarchy as it overlaps forms of disenfranchisement and silence such as racism and nationalism (Quien Soy Yo, 10/8). In her analysis of the Mexican American epic, Chicana feminist cultural theorist Rosa Linda Fregoso argues that the images of the poem of “Yo Soy Joaquin” portray a “collective” cultural identity that is male-centered. The Chicano identity also does not embody the complete Latino population; rather it focuses on Mexican Americans. Mexicans compose a majority of the Latino population in the United States. However, there are other Latino groups such as Guatemalans, Salvadorians, and Hondurans that have been through similar struggles as Chicanos in the United States. There is a limitation of who can claim the Chicano identity, because certain individuals may not have participated in social activism on behalf of the Mexican-American community or because they may not be Mexican-American. Also, Chicano identity acknowledges mestizaje or the process of mixture of Spanish and indigenous cultures (Conquest, 10/15). A limitation with mestizaje is the mixture of Africans with indigenous, that leave Afro-Mexicans out. Furthermore, the racial mixture of Mexican with Chinese is not mentioned in the Chicano identity, which excludes Chino-Mexicans. Indeed, different interests,