By Melanie Escalante
‘Chicano,’ once used as a racial slur, now represents a sense of pride for individuals of Mexican descent identifying as Chicanas and Chicanos.
Tina Fuentes, retired professor and director for the school of art, said her parents were actively involved in the political scene in the 1960’s.
“There was also young people that were getting involved and when I say young people, people that were my age or maybe about four or five years older than I. They were already out of high school and I was like a sophomore in high school — that’s when my parents got really involved,” Fuentes said.
The political scene included the American GI Forum, the League of United American Citizens, and other groups that tried to get the Hispanic community involved in voting .
“We’d go out and we were canvassing neighborhoods and things like that and then there was the movement called, ‘Los Chicanos.’”
Fuentes said she was intrigued by the movement and seeing young people with such strong, rebellious voices.
Tina Fuentes
Courtesy of Tina Fuentes
“I started classifying myself as a Chicana, somebody that was wanting to have a stronger voice other than being the ‘Mexican-American’ — that’s what my parents identify as,” Fuentes said. “They identified as Mexican-American which okay they’re descendants of family de México and then coming in and settling, and I’m a fortunate person that I was born here in the United States but I do have of course a legacy of the familia down from México.”
The retiree from San Angelo, Texas, said although her parents did not agree with the rebelliousness of ‘Los Chicanos,’ Fuentes enjoyed the vitality of the group and wanted to identify and find respect as a minority woman.
“I’m not a backstabber, I’m not one that goes out and badmouths or whatever but I go out and I try to be, I guess, ‘politically correct’ if you want to use that phrase to go in, and be assertive,” Fuentes said. “I’ve always been very very disciplined and I’ve been assertive in my directions.”
Sylvia Mendez-Morse, a retired professor for the college of education, participated in political activism in San Antonio in the 1970s.
“It was really exciting to be part of groups who were trying to make political changes that were in the state of Texas in politics — not only in politics but in union, organizing. One of the biggest movements I thought was really good was just a plain ole’ voter registration,” Mendez-Morse said.
“We’d go walk canvasing different neighborhoods in San Antonio and just door to door registering people to vote.”
Mendez-Morse said ramifications from the movements were having more Chicano and Chicana representation in school boards, city council, local positions, state positions, and national positions.
Mendez-Morse said being a Chicana means being proud of her Mexican heritage and embracing those cultural aspects.
“Being able to decide what I’m going to label myself, not having someone else label me — that was one of the reasons why we used the word Chicano or Chicana, because we decided we wanted to be called that,” Mendez-Morse said.
Mendez-Morse said part of her decision to identify as Chicana came from a feminist perspective, which also served as a point of contention within the Chicano movement.
“There always is that contention between feminism and misogyny. It’s there in part of the Mexican culture, the whole idea of ‘machismo’ and all that,” Mendez-Morse said.
Mendez-Morse said she grew up with this idea and rebelled against it.
“My father was very much about women roles and doing that but I was never denied the opportunity to go to college — that was promoted, getting a college education was promoted in my family,” Mendez-Morse said.
Fuentes said one of the biggest challenges she faced as a Chicana was at the age of 15 at a five and dime store she worked at called Woolworth’s. She was on her lunch break when an elderly white man sitting two stools away from her approached her.
“I’m sitting there and he’s ordering and all of a sudden he sees that I’m being served and he just looks at me and stares at me and I kind of get nervous and I’m sitting there like, ‘Hmm’ — He stands up, literally stands up, looks at me and spits right at me,” Fuentes said.
Fuentes said although people tell her that the matter of racism isn’t as difficult to handle anymore, she reminds them that it’s only more concealed.
Alexandra Salinas, senior agricultural leadership major from Mission, Texas, is a third-generation Mexican-America. Salinas, whose family is originally from Tamaulipas, Mexico, said going home to Mission, Texas allows her to feel prideful of her culture.
“It’s just a different sense, especially when being surrounded by such a large Hispanic community because the valley is just filled with Hispanics so anywhere I go I see people that look like me, I hear people that sound like me,” Salinas said. “I hear people speaking Spanish, I hear Spanish music playing at the restaurants, at the grocery store, so when I get here (Lubbock, Texas) it’s like I don’t see that many people that look like me, I don’t hear that many people that sound like me.”
Salinas said the intensity of the culture shock when moving to Lubbock was unexpected.
“My first year of college was kind of hard because I was really focusing on trying to be someone that I wasn’t raised to be so I was trying to talk a lot more English, kind of pick up a more west Texas accent and like leave out my Mexican accent that I had and leave out this valley slang that I had gotten from being born in the valley,” Salinas said. “I cut Spanish completely out of my language, I stopped listening to Spanish music even though I loved it.”
Salinas said during her first year of college she didn’t celebrate Cinco de Mayo or Día de los Muertos; holidays that were important to her and that she traditionally celebrated with her family.
“Towards the end of my first year of college I was like, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ it genuinely made me so sad and I was like, ‘I can’t do this anymore, I can’t not be proud of where I came from,’” Salinas said. “Because when I’m back home all that proudness comes back but I have to be able to carry that everywhere that I go with me,” Salinas said.
“Coming into my second year of college I was like, ‘you know what, you’re going to be yourself and whoever likes you, likes you like that,’” Salinas said.
Salinas said a defining experience she had as a Chicana was when she was serving on the Texas Future Farmers of America organization.
“There was this time when we were meeting with someone and he gave everyone his business card, shook everyone’s hand, completely denied that I was even there — did not give me his business card, did not shake my hand, and did not say goodbye to me,” Salinas said.
The senior agricultural leadership major said the encounter wasn’t the first she had experienced while serving on the organization. The organization’s Instagram account received crude comments about Salinas being the only minority member.
“I learned that I have to be proud of where I come from and even if people are going to do this to me, that is my opportunity to stand up for myself and stand up for my community, stand up for my heritage,” Salinas said.
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