Blaxican

or blax·i·can

[ blak-si-kuhn ]

noun

1. a person of mixed-race heritage who self-identifies racially and culturally as both African American and Mexican American.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Blaxican¹

First recorded in 1985–90; Bla(ck) ¹( def ) + (Me)xican ( def )

Example Sentences

At times, he cites their work to elucidate the fact that many Latinos, from the Afro-Puerto Rican to the Blaxican or part-Asian, feel they don’t fully belong anywhere.

From Los Angeles Times

In a 2015 essay for BuzzFeed, he wrote, “I first learned I was a Blaxican from a DJ on Power 106 FM, a Los Angeles hip-hop station. ... It changed the way I, the son of an African-American man from Oakland and a first-generation American from Jalisco, Mexico, self-identified forever.”

From Los Angeles Times

Smallwood-Cuevas is married to a Mexican American from Boyle Heights, and her kids identify as Blaxican.

From Los Angeles Times

More recently, the Afro Latino presence is visible culturally in the works of hip-hop artists such as Kemo the Blaxican, whose songs engage the hybrid African American and Chicano experience in L.A., as well as writer and photographer Walter Thompson-Hernández, whose Instagram account, Blaxicans of L.A., began exploring the intersections of Black and Mexican culture half a dozen years ago.

From Los Angeles Times

In Compton, northwest of Long Beach, Black and Latino residents lived side by side; throughout South Los Angeles, a new, “Blaxican” culture was emerging.

From New York Times