CHICANO'S CONTEXT

Now, talking about the context in which Chicanos live, we can distinguish a lot of important things that are very valuable to include in order to understand about what a Chicano is in different contexts, not just as a group of people who has Mexican ancestry and who lives in the USA.

According to Maciel and Bueno (1975) the Chicano people is the second numerical ethnic minority within American society. And if we rely on the 1970 census, there are over five million Chicanos on the USA. Regardless many people do not even know what a Chicano is, there are characteristics that make them different from another minorities living in the USA.

• The first is that their territory and their community are the result of a war (Mexican-American war).

• The second is that Chicano people is different from another sectors of the American population.

• The third is that the Chicano people has experienced an impressive growth because of the constant immigration that the USA lives every year.

• The fourth is their low socioeconomic status.

• The fifth is the proximity that Chicano people still have with Mexico.

This is basically what has made the Chicano people a special group in the USA.

Geographically, the Chicano people is located basically in five states in the south of the USA: California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. They all are like the nucleus of the Chicano people population. About the 87% of the total Chicano population lives there, being California and Texas the states in which the majority lives in.

The growth of the Chicano population in the USA, that we have already, mentioned, started to be increased at finals of the 20th century due to the continuous Mexican immigration, such as we still living now. And it is worthy to distinguish that Mexican immigration has depended on two factors: the socioeconomic conditions that Mexico has gone through and the demand for cheap labor in the American Southwest. (p. 7-10)