Terms Flashcards
What is acculturation?
Acculturation refers to how groups adopt certain cultural traits of another group while retaining their own unique customs and traditions.
What is assimilation?
The process through which minority or immigrant communities adopt cultural norms of the dominant society.
Critiqued in Ethnic Studies for oversimplifying the complex ways identities shift and adapt.
What is Aztlán?
A Chicano/a concept identifying the U.S. Southwest as the mythical homeland of the Aztecs and, symbolically, of Chicano identity and cultural pride.
What are Borderlands?
Refers both to geographical border regions (e.g., U.S.-Mexico) and metaphorical ‘borders’ of identity, culture, and language.
Originally articulated by Gloria Anzaldúa.
What is Chicanismo?
A political and cultural philosophy associated with the Chicano Movement, emphasizing cultural pride, political empowerment, and activism among Mexican Americans.
What is diaspora?
The dispersion of people from their homelands, resulting in transnational communities connected by shared heritage, culture, and sometimes language—even across distances.
What is integration?
The process by which immigrant or minority communities become part of the social, political, and economic fabric of mainstream society, while often retaining certain cultural practices and identities.
In Latinx contexts, it can involve navigating new institutions (schools, workplaces, political systems) and building communities that blend aspects of both the host and home cultures.
What is intersectionality?
A framework for understanding how overlapping social identities (race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality) create unique modes of discrimination or privilege.
What is Latinidad?
Refers to the shared cultural identity and experiences among people of Latin American descent, encompassing diverse nationalities, racial identities, and cultural practices while recognizing unifying threads.
What are machismo and marianismo?
Gendered constructs within many Latinx cultures. Machismo refers to traditional expectations of masculinity (often associated with strength, dominance, force); Marianismo refers to idealized femininity rooted in Catholic symbolism of the Virgin Mary (submission, passivity, virginity).
What is mestizaje?
The concept of racial and cultural mixing in Latin America, often used to discuss both historical legacies of colonization and contemporary identities that blend Indigenous, European, and African heritages.
What is Nuyorican?
A term describing the cultural identity of Puerto Ricans living in or with roots in New York City, often connected to artistic and literary movements (e.g., the Nuyorican Poets Café).
What is panethnicity?
The process by which various distinct ethnic or national-origin groups (e.g., Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Salvadorans) come together under a larger collective label (e.g., ‘Latinx’ or ‘Hispanic’).
What is Spanglish?
A hybrid blend of Spanish and English, reflecting linguistic creativity and cultural fusion among bilingual and bicultural Latinx communities in the U.S.
What is transnationalism?
The practice of maintaining active connections—social, economic, political—across national borders, reflecting the reality of many Latinx individuals and families who move between or span multiple countries.
