At certain points in the 1970s, "Chicano" was the preferred term for reference to Mexican Americans, particularly in scholarly literature. "Chicano/a" fell out of favor as a way of referring to the entire population in the 1980s following the decline of the Chicano Movement. This indicated a political shift among Mexican Americans, many of whom shifted to identifying as "Hispanic" in an era of American conservatism. Hispanic itself emerged from an assimilationist politics rooted in anti-Black sentiments. The term was forged out of a collaboration between Mexican American political elites in the emerging Hispanic Caucus and the U.S. government, who wanted to use the term to encourage a shift away from Chicana/o identity in order to appear more 'mainstream' or respectable to white Americans. The Hispanic Caucus also sought to separate themselves from the radical politics of Chicanismo and what they perceived as the 'militancy' of Chicana/o and Black political consciousness. Reies Tijerina, who was a vocal claimant to the rights of Latin Americans and Mexican Americans and a major figure of the early Chicano Movement, wrote: "The Anglo press degradized the word 'Chicano'. They use it to divide us. We use it to unify ourselves with our people and with Latin America."