What's the difference between "latino" "Hispano" and "Chicano?"
When Spanish speakers describe themselves, many terms are used. But what, really, is the difference between them? "Chicano" "Latino" and "Hispano" are all slightly different, but how?
5 Answers
Chicano, in it's narrowest sense, refers to someone who is Mexican-American or Hispanic from Chicago. Generallly, though, it refers to anyone who is Hispanic living in the U.S. (usually American citizens).
Latino usually refers to Latin Americans (latinoamericanos). Theoretically it could also be used to refer to someone who is of a Latin heritage (e.g. Italian, Spanish, Romanian), but I've rarely if ever heard it used that way.
Hispano has its roots in the Roman Hispania, and relates to anyone who is of Spanish (Hispanic) heritage. This does not primarily refer to race, but to cultural-linguistic factors.
In short, hispano encompasses all groups. Latino is more regionalized (and never used to identify Spaniards) and Chicano is the most narrow, referring primarily to Mexican-Americans.
I would say Latinos are people from Latin America and, Hispanos are ones all Hispanics from both Spain and Latin America. Chicanos are specific to Mexicans.
That is probably worthy of a disertation, but I think it is as simple as Chicano is/was a label made up by Americans, Latino being what our neighbors in, or from, Latin America prefer and Hispano being a carry over from the old days of Hispania
I just had a discussion about this the other day.
Ironically I have never heard of Chicano.
It also depends on context and what an individual wants to identify themselves with. There are lots of terms one might use. This is true everywhere. People will identify themselves by country of origin, or the families country of origin. Sometimes people will identify themselves by their decent from native populations in the area.
My friend identifies himself as pure puerto rican and a latino. However in reality he is probably mostly from european descent. His siblings are a pale white lol. And his father has a pinky color to his skin.
Another interesting example is people from Iran. They might call themselves Iranian or refer to themselves as Persian.
I've always thought how a person identifies themselves as somthing very interesting. Like for me, what am I? American, Canadian, French, Scottish, British? or Caucasian? European? lol White? It would depend on context and choice i guess, and how far back you want to go.
But the people a know usually refer to themselves by country of origin. IE Puerto Rican, Colombian etc. Like to them they are Puerto Rican vs my being 'white'. Its ironic because the terms don't really parallel.
Chicano relates to people of Mexican descent born in the U.S.A. Hispano to people of Spanish descent living in the s.w. U.S. and Latino to people born in any latin country
