The Chicano Movement faltered by the mid-1970s as a result of state surveillance, infiltration, and repression by U.S. government agencies, informants, and agent provocateurs, such as through COINTELPRO, a hyper-fixation on masculine pride and machismo which excluded Chicanas and queer Chicanas/os from the movement, and a growing disinterest in Chicano nationalist constructs such as Aztlán. The identity experienced a further decline by the late 1970s and 1980s as assimilation and economic mobility became a goal of many Mexican Americans in an era of conservatism, who instead identified as "Hispanic". "Hispanic" emerged out of a collaboration between the U.S. government and Mexican American political elites in the Hispanic Caucus who wanted to encourage assimilation into 'mainstream' American society by departing from the radical politics of Chicano/a identity and separate themselves from what they saw as the 'militant' Black Caucus.