"I remember too well when there were groups in the states bordering Mexico insisting on "Chicano/Chicana" as empowering, while others were just as loudly calling those terms demeaning and insulting. What's a poor Anglo to do?"
Indeed.
"Well, the right-wing crowd has it easy; they just call them werbacks. And the apathetic just ignore it all."
But not academia. Here's that ancient link:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/latam/schomburgmoreno/juntosweb.html
The apologia is called Juntos y Revueltos: The US Latino Population at the End of the Twentieth Century , and it was written for and by Arturo Madrid, the Norine R. and T. Frank Murchison Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas.
An extract:
IV. Why So Many Names?
I start with names. They (the students) are curious about names, as is confirmed by a questionnaire in which I ask them to list issues that are of concern or interest to them. What does Hispanic mean? Where does it come from? What is the basis of the opposition to Hispanic? Who does it include/exclude? Why call ourselves Latinos? Why can't I just be Argentinean (sic), or Colombian, or Ecuadorian, or Peruvian? Who is Boricua? Who is a Nuyorican? Who is a Chicano? What is the difference between Chicano and Mexican American? Why do people not want to be called Mexican? What does raza mean? What is a cholo? a pocho? a pachuco? Why the demeaning, disparaging, derogatory names? Why this obsession with names? Why so many names? Canât we all agree on one?
Subsequent chapter titles:
V. Do I Want To Hear This?
VI. Demography and Nomenclature
('The most intense discussions have to do with the distorted portrait of heterogeneous communities resulting from the aggregation of data and with the creation of an artificial, homogenous community through the use of a universal label: Hispanic. The label, most opine, conflates national origins, differing experiences, and cultural, ethnic, social, and racial differences, and in so doing liquidates the history of the longest-term and largest Latino (aka Hispanic) communities.')
VII. Hispanics: A Self-Inflicted Wound
VIII. Born in The U.S.A.
(Paraphrase: 'Increasing numbers of Latinos think of themselves as Hispanics; others think of themselves as simply being American. Ho hum.')
IX. Towards An Imagined Latino Community
The Norine R. and T. Frank Murchison Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Trinity University concludes with the words: 'We find ourselves at the end of the 20th Century (sic) thus looking for new models with which to enter the 21st Century (sic).'
And who could argue with that? Money well spent, I reckon. Three cheers for the prof! Four cheers for Norine R. and T. Frank!
(That makes seven in all, by the way. Don't skip any.)
Mickwick