Mexican Americans

Mexican Americans

mexicano-estadounidenses (Spanish)
Percent of population of Mexican descent in 2010[1]
Total population
10,697,374 (by birth, 2021)[2] 37,414,772 (by ancestry, 2022)[3] 11.2% of total US population, 2022[3]
Regions with significant populations
California (Los Angeles Bay Area San Diego Inland Empire Central Valley Salinas Valley) Texas (Houston DFW San Antonio Rio Grande Valley) Southwestern United States[4] (Arizona New Mexico Las Vegas Valley) Chicago area Colorado[5] Oklahoma Northwestern United States (especially Eastern Washington and Salem, OR)[6][7] NYC area[8] Milwaukee, WI Florida (especially Orlando) Greater Kansas City, KS and MO (also growing/emerging populations in Southeast (Georgia North Carolina Arkansas) Upper Midwest Great Plains Northeast) [9]
Languages
Mexican Spanish American English Spanglish Indigenous Mexican languages American Spanish Chicano English
Religion
Majority Catholicism[10] Minority Protestantism, Evangelical Christianity, Jehovah’s Witnesses[11]
Related ethnic groups
Hispanos (Californios, Neomexicanos, Tejanos, Floridanos), Chicanos, Afro-Mexicans, Indigenous Mexican Americans, Native Americans in the United States, Hispanic and Latino Americans

Part of a series on
Chicanos and Mexican Americans
Terms Identity Chola/o La Raza Pachuca Pachuco Pinta/o Xicanx Concepts Anti-Mexican sentiment
History Early-American Period Josefa Segovia Las Gorras Blancas Mexican–American War Mutualista San Elizario Salt War Sonoratown Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Pre-Chicano Movement 1917 Bath riots Bisbee Deportation Bloody Christmas Bracero program California agricultural strikes Cantaloupe strike of 1928 Citrus Strike of 1936 La Matanza Mexican Repatriation Operation Wetback Plan de San Diego Porvenir Massacre Sleepy Lagoon trial Zoot Suit Riots Chicano Movement Aztlán Black-brown unity Brown Berets Católicos por La Raza Centro Cultural Chicanismo Chicano Moratorium Colegio César Chávez CFMN Conferencia de Mujeres CRP East L.A. walkouts Hijas de Cuauhtémoc Huelga schools Land grant struggle Las Adelitas de Aztlán Los Siete de la Raza Los Seis de Boulder MANA MAYO MEChA Occupation of Catalina Island PCUN Plan Espiritual de Aztlán Plan de Santa Bárbara Quinto Sol Raza Unida Party United Farm Workers Post-Chicano Period 1985–1987 cannery strike 1992 Drywall Strike 2019 El Paso shooting Abolish ICE Arizona SB 1070 Castro 2020 Chicano Art Exhibit DACA Great American Boycott IRCA Farah strike Justice for Janitors Murder of Selena Proposition 187 South Central Farm
Culture Language Abrazos, no balazos Caló Chicano English Chicano names Órale Food New Mexican cuisine Tex-Mex cuisine Mexican-American cuisine Music Chicano rap Chicano rock Chicano soul Tejano music Symbols Cal-Style VW Homies Lowrider Lowrider bicycle Mexican-American folklore Pancho Claus Zoot suit
Literature Literature Chicana literature Chicano literature Chicano poetry Autobiographical Always Running Living Up the Street Who Would Have Thought It? Novels Bless Me, Ultima Caballero Desert Blood From This Wicked Patch of Dust Mexican WhiteBoy The Dirty Girls Social Club The House on Mango Street The Rain God The Revolt of the Cockroach People So Far from God Under the Feet of Jesus ...y no se lo tragó la tierra Poetry and Short Stories Emplumada I Am Joaquin Moment of Silence Pensamiento Serpentino The Moths
Chicano studies Fields Chicana feminism Chicanafuturism Organizations MAS Programs, Tucson NACCS UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Texts Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza Brown, Not White The Church in the Barrio This Bridge Called My Back Theory Barrioization Coyolxauhqui imperative Gringo justice Nahui Ollin Nepantla New tribalism Rasquachismo Spiritual activism Vergüenza Youth control complex
Visual art Visual Art Chicana art Chicano art Chicano cinema Paño Tortilla art Art Collectives Asco Culture Clash East Los Streetscapers Los Four Mujeres Muralistas Teatro Campesino Royal Chicano Air Force Art organizations Centro de Arte Público Galería de la Raza Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts Precita Eyes Self Help Graphics & Art Locations Balmy Alley Chicano Park Estrada Courts Great Wall of Los Angeles
Law Supreme Court cases Botiller v. Dominguez Hernandez v. Texas San Antonio I.S.D. v. Rodriguez Espinoza v. Farah Manufacturing Co. U.S. v. Brignoni-Ponce Plyler v. Doe Medellín v. Texas Flores-Figueroa v. U.S. Leal Garcia v. Texas Mendez v. Westminster Bernal v. Fainter Perez v. Brownell DHS v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal. Federal Court cases Madrigal v. Quilligan
Population Population by City Arizona (Tucson) California (Los Angeles) Illinois (Chicago) Michigan (Detroit) Nebraska (Omaha) Texas Dallas–Fort Worth Houston Multiethnic Blaxicans Californios Nuevomexicanos Tejanos Indigenous Mexican Americans Punjabi Mexican Americans
Lists Chicano films Chicano poets Chicano rappers Mexican Americans Writers Bibliography
United States portal Category Index
v t e

Mexican Americans (Spanish: mexicano-estadounidenses, mexico-americanos, or estadounidenses de origen mexicano) are Americans of Mexican heritage.^[12] In 2022, Mexican Americans comprised 11.2% of the US population and 58.9% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans.^[3] In 2019, 71% of Mexican Americans were born in the United States;^[13] they make up 53% of the total population of foreign-born Hispanic Americans and 25% of the total foreign-born population.^[14] Chicano is a term used by some to describe the unique identity held by Mexican-Americans. The United States is home to the second-largest Mexican community in the world (24% of the entire Mexican-origin population of the world), behind only Mexico.^[15] Most Mexican Americans reside in the Southwest, with over 60% of Mexican Americans living in the states of California and Texas.^{[16][17][18][19][20][21]}

Most Mexican Americans have varying degrees of Indigenous and European ancestry, with the latter being mostly Spanish origins.^[22] Those of indigenous ancestry descend from one or more of the over 60 Indigenous groups in Mexico (approximately 200,000 people in California alone).^[23] It is estimated that approximately 10% of the current Mexican American population are descended from early Mexican residents such as New Mexican Hispanos, Tejanos and Californios, who became US citizens in 1848 through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican–American War. Mexicans living in the United States after the treaty was signed were forced to choose between keeping their Mexican citizenship or becoming a US citizen. Few chose to leave their homes in the States.^[1] The majority of these Hispanophone populations eventually adopted English as their first language and became Americanized.^[24] Also called Hispanos, these descendants of independent Mexico from the early-to-middle 19th century differentiate themselves culturally from the population of Mexican Americans whose ancestors arrived in the American Southwest after the Mexican Revolution.^[25][26] The number of Mexican immigrants in the United States has sharply risen in recent decades.^[27]