They believe this change will enable them to teach courses on Latin America and thus increase their individual prestige. The pretexts are: it is a progressive move it promotes unity and it is strategically the right move - it makes us Number 1.Įven on my own campus where Chicana/o Studies offers over 172 sections per semester, a minority of Chicana/faculty members want to change the department’s name.
Some self-described sages, a minority I hope, even want to change the names of the few Chicana/o Studies departments that have survived the wars in academe to Chicana/o-Latino or vice versa. The result is that they confuse students and the public, thus creating an identity crisis that arrests the development of the disparate Latino sub-groups. Instead, they follow the latest fad or what is convenient for them. However, I have been disappointed by the inconsistencies in their epistemological stances. To movie directors, all Latinos look and sound alike.Ĭhicana/o Studies is supposed to be staffed by intellectuals, and you would think that they would bring about a resolution. The result is an arrested development that carries over into the popular media where it is not uncommon to see an Argentinian playing a Mexican on the screen with an Argentinian accent. Some, depending on where they live, will say Hispanic or Latino, despite the fact that there is no such thing as a Hispanic or Latino nationality. Today, the children of immigrants usually identify with their parents’ country of origin. If you would have asked my mother what she was, she would have answered, “ Sonorense,” my father would have said “ tapatio.” Identity takes a long time to form, e.g., it took Mexico over two hundred years to get over their regional differences and become Mexicans. The constant name changes are wrongheaded and ahistorical. It makes it easier for them to lump us into one generic brand. These differences strew the landscape with landmines especially for those who already believe that all Latinas/os look alike. Unfortunately, the level of the discourse lacks logic, and it prolongs a resolution to the identity crisis of Mexican Americans.Īdmittedly, Latinos have a lot in common, but we also have a lot of differences, e.g., in social class, population size, where we live, and our history to name a few dissimilarities. The problem is that the group has grown so large and the stakes so high that the consequences will hurt everyone.
The proposals are not new they are not innovative and they are symptomatic of the historical struggle of Mexican origin people in the United States to identify themselves. The debate as to what to name Chicana/o Studies will have future repercussions.
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