Yo Soy Chicano, Ese!
What is being programmed by accepting and using terms like Latin and Hispanic for Chicanismo? Is it a way to subtract Chicanos from their indigenousness roots to AZTLAN? I know that My Chicano past is a part of me. I will forever be bonded to it. I have heard many Latinos and Hispanos say that “There is no way of stopping these terms from defining me.” But the buffalo in me will make every effort to. Thus, there is no way in the world that I am a Hispanic or Latino, because my ancestors did not cross the Atlantic Ocean.
This continent, that Europeans came to over 500 years ago and put a flag of absolute ownership on, and labeled America, to me is still Aztlan. If we go by the laws of preeminence and what comes first, then I am a Chicano from Aztlan. If we go by the laws of the conqueror and imminent domain, then you are hispanic or latino of their America. And if you are Hispanic and/or Latino then you must go one step further, and change every history book that says white Europeans came to America as “explorers,” “pilgrims” and “immigrants” and replace it with fact. Because they were not ”explorers,” or “escapees” from religious persecution, or people looking for a better way of life, but conquerors, invaders and thieves, that came to Aztlan. Otherwise, if you don’t, these terms are just homogenizing terms to make your captor control your identity and feel good about what he did to your ancestors. And this white-washing of our history is Hegemony.
Hispanics and Latinos may even feel happy to accept their masters terms, terms that marginalize them off the page, labels that super-impose a white identity over them. Feeling comfort that they are accepted in this way. BUT I AM CHICANO, and my identity is NOT for sale. It cannot be defined by ANOTHER, IT IS DEFINED BY ME, and that is NOT NEGOTIABLE.
If this rejection of terms makes Latinos and/or Hispanics feel unhappy. I am sorry for you! But my relationship to the web of life on this continent is in my blood because I am from here. Putting a Gringo term around your neck yokes your children’s neck too, and this is wrong. It teaches future the wrong thing.
And as I have said, ”What is taught, and who is teaching it, has a direct relationship to the success of who is learning it.”
Locomon
OUT
Popularity: 32% [?]
Your notion of history is very skewed, here’s why.
First, you define Latin as a Roman experience. Then,
you go and define the Hispanic experience as something
tied to languages spoken in Spain. Further, you generalize
by saying that “we” are all Latinos due to some Latin
implantation that came across the Atlantic Ocean and
miscegenated with all the natives here in America.
I think you’ve been reading too many romance novels. Or
maybe you truly believe this nice and cute package of
history that you’ve managed to make fit for yourself.
But the truth is, it’s not the truth!
The reality is that since contact with whites there have been
over 2,200 First Nations on Aztlan, or what you call America.
Your perspective about them is the same hegemony that resounds
and is fed throughout the walls of academia, and that is,
that First Nations have been abolished and/or transformed into
something white. And why? Because we use the language
of the colonizer? If this is true, then everyone in the USA
should be calling themselves English. I know the Census Bureau
would love that, but racism doesn’t work this way. I will show
you.
When the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in 1848 it ended
(and in many ways began) the US-Mexican war. But President Polk
was angry at Secretary Triste for signing it. They wanted the
whole of Mexico, and that’s why he was called back to Washington
to answer for this transience. But when ratification went
before the floor of congress they decided against the taking of
the whole of Mexico because it meant taking in too many “hostile
savages” into their paradigm of a pure white US of A.
And it is here, Praxidis, that I sincerely believe that you find
it safer and more comfortable to define yourself within a white
European parameter of definition. But then you go further, and you
try to superimpose this circle on Chicanos. Chicanos are not
searching for self nor acceptance from an outsider. We know who
we are, where we’re from and where we’re going. We are from the
red road we call Aztlan and we are damn proud of it, brother. And
maybe you think you are protecting us or something by calling us
through a white way, but in essence, you are not!
I actually feel sorry for you, and not because of your
“wannabe white at any cost” mentality, which is mostly
shared across most layers of “hispanic/latino” leadership,
but because of the legacy that you set by making this
erasure possible. Being an invisible people by tagging
our blood to be Latino/Hispano, defiles and insults my
Chicano ancestors. They fought hard and died by the many
in order to protect this land, before, after and during the white’s
occupation of it, and I will always remember that. And
forgetting it is a curse that I can live without. Think
about it, passing our future generations smog, polluted waters
and lifeless landscapes, that is something a white writes a
law about to prevent, but still does it. First Nation
people feel Aztlan, and will fight to protect it, so don’t
get scared, apologize nor minimize my blood, it is
in my nature to do so.