okay... i might be totally off with this one, but i always felt that the reason that it seems black/latino relations were better, say, on the east coast than in texas or LA was because (as far as i can see) on the east coast we have mostly caribbean-type latins (puerto ricans, dominicans, etc) who are of african ancestry and shit, a whole lot of them are "negroid" (or have morenos in their family). in texas and california, you have more mexicans. now as far as i know (and i don't know much) mexicans do not have african blood. chicanos are a completely different kind of latino from a boriqua, no?