What does Chicano mean? A Chicano is a person who is Mexican American. In other words, it’s someone of Mexican descent who was born in or now lives in the United States, as in Although Jorge loves living in the United States, he remains a proud Chicano, frequently visiting his Mexican hometown. Chicano is also used as an adjective to describe Mexican American people or things involving them or their culture, as in Rosa loved Chicano food so much that she became a chef and opened a popular Chicano restaurant. Chicano comes from Mexican Spanish, a language that uses gendered nouns. Chicano is the masculine form, while Chicana is the feminine form. Chican@ and Chicanx are sometimes used as gender-neutral forms. As with any term that refers to a person’s identity, it is best to ask the person what term they prefer to identify themselves with. Even if a person fits the dictionary definition of Chicano, they might prefer to be identified by another term, such as Mexican American, American, Mexican, Hispanic, or Latino. Example: The ad campaign was targeted at the city’s large Chicano population, who were proud of their Mexican heritage.
First recorded in 1960–65; from Mexican Spanish, by shortening and alteration of mexicano Mexican ( def. )
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In the 1970s, Chicano artists in the U.S. adopted Kahlo as an emblem of their cultural pride and demand for equal rights.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 1, 2026
Cal State Fullerton Chicano studies professor Alexandro José Gradilla remembered inviting Acuña to speak on his campus in 2011.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 24, 2026
His death was announced in a Facebook post by Cal State Northidge’s Department of Chicano and Chicana Studies, which Acuña helped establish and where he taught for over four decades.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 24, 2026
The region became the birthplace of the Chicano civil rights movement that included the East L.A.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 21, 2026
She even gave me a book called Growing Up Chicano about people who look like me, but made it out of the ghetto.
From "The Freedom Writers Diary" by The Freedom Writers
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
