Representing various scholarly interests and ideologies, 7 of the 12 essays discuss ethnographers frequent misrepresentation of Chicano culture because they are unaware of the "performance" element of Chicano behavior; "agringado joking", a tactic used by Texas Chicanos to mark ethnic boundaries and to protect their cultural identity; the strengths and deficiencies of such critical approaches as formalist and culturalist; the strong political consciousness shown by contemporary Chicano poetry; Felipe Maximiliano Chacon, a prominent literary figure of the 1920's; the political favor of much Chicano poetry and their limitations; and 19th-century American responses to Mexican character and culture as determined largely by Anglo-American traditions of anti-Catholicism,"Hispanophobia", and a legacy of distorted images of the Mexican aborigines. Two essays discuss the Chicano occupation experience and their movement into American cities from 1900 to 1930. "Chicano Bilingualism" presents an overview of Chicano bilingualism, attributing the widespread retention of Spanish to the persistence of many Chicanos at the lower level of the economic structure where acculturation is minimized. "The Social Implications of Intra-Sentential Code-Switching" rejects the notion that Chicano code-switching occurs randomly and describes the particular social situations in which various forms of this activity take place. Focusing on a recently published "cancionero" by Americo Paredes, the last essay explains how various musical forms illuminate regional varieties of Chicano culture. (NQ)