Latest / Tales From Aztlantis / Episode 70: A Day of Mourning

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Episode 70: A Day of Mourning · Tales From Aztlantis

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: You must excuse me.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've grown quite aware I this hasn't been easy, I know.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: But you've learned a lesson.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: A lesson in honesty.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Honesty to yourself and honesty to others.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: That lesson will stand you in good step all your life.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think we've all learned a good lesson.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: I've always heard that honesty is the best policy.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm catching on to why that's so and why that's so no why that's so why that's the same.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Tales from Atlantes.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Lacatecat, and this is episode 70, Day of Mourning.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: This will be just a quick short episode.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: Curly is busy fortifying the TFA Command Center somewhere in New Mexico, and we should get an update from him soon.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Today's episode centers around the Thanksgiving holiday.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: Or as I've been calling it for over 20 years now, Thankstaking.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: When I first came up with this word on my own, I didn't realize that many others had already been contesting the holiday as far back as the 1970s.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I was pleasantly surprised knowing that I was not the only one.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Once I began looking into it further, I learned that native relatives in the East called this day the National Day of Mourning, a much more appropriate name than the snarky thanks taking that I had come up with.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: This was back in the early 2000s when Curly, me, and a handful of others belonged to the Mexica Eagle Society, or MES for short, a radical Chicano Mexica organization founded by Curly and his wife, which had numerous members nationally with both local community groups and a strong online presence.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: At that time, we started a zine that was short-lived called In Quaut Latoa, Journal of Native Resistance.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: The zine ran from 2001 to about 2005 and was later replaced by the MES blog on Mexica.org, and we view this podcast as its latest manifestation.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: In 2003, I wrote a piece for the zine entitled What Are We Thankful For?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: Where I expressed my thoughts on the holiday and how I filtered it through my young, radical, indigenous lens.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's hard for me to believe that we are now past the 20-year mark since I penned those words.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: As you will hear in a few moments, during that time of my life, I was not celebrating the holiday at all.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, I would fast for four days in honor of our ancestors, but that changed years later when my daughter was born.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's when I rejoined the family dinners for her sake, so she could have memories with her grandparents, aunts and uncles, and her cousins.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: You have to pick and choose your battles, and sometimes it's best to go on hiatus for a while and gather your thoughts and adjust your bearings.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: As a colonized people, the fight is a constant presence, it's always there.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: So don't think that you have to be on quote unquote on 100% of the time.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's okay to take a break.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: Now that she's all grown up, I'm starting to rethink the holiday once more.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: But enough of that.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: Dear listeners, I give you my unfiltered self from 2003.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: While most people throughout occupied Ishachilan celebrated the Thankstaking Hoax holiday, I found myself down in South de Hastlan in a small town just minutes from the border.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: The few days I was there, I took the time to contemplate the beautiful starry night and enjoy the pleasant weather.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: It is truly amazing to look up and see the splendor of the universe and ponder on how our ancestors perceived it.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: The city nights that I'm used to can never compare to what one can experience in a small town.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: I recall my happy childhood years spent in my dad's hometown and I will always remember the beauty of the night sky, covered completely with sparkling dots.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: Funny how it's the simple things that one treasures and misses the most.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: I can honestly say that I miss the simplicity of looking up at the night sky while thinking of the insignificance of our human existence.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: While I sat there surrounded by mesquitas, nopales, and magueyas, I couldn't help but think of my family hundreds of miles away who were at that moment sitting at the dinner table, enjoying a lovely turkey dinner and perhaps missing my company.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's hard when your family doesn't understand the path you've chosen.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: I choose not to celebrate that day in respect of our Ishachilanka brothers who were slaughtered in the name of God.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Some say there is no proof that the so-called Thanksgiving feast ever took place between the pilgrim squatters and our native brothers, but there is factual evidence of the genocidal activities carried out by the savage maniacal pilgrims.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: This is not a day for celebration and festivities, but rather a time for remembrance and mourning.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: As I write, I ask the energy of our ancestors to give me the strength to forgive and move forward with our movement, and to give me courage to continue retracing the ways of our Isashilanka ancestors.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: Just steps from the imposed border on this great land, I found a deep sense of American patriotism displayed by so many Mexican Americans.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: It was quite something to be at the border and see so many American flags waving from the moving cars driven by so many Mexicanos.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: And it was very disappointing to see that many of the immigration and naturalization service agents were also Mexican.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, I saw only one white INS agent the entire trip.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: Wake up, Mexica.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: Why are you participating in the persecution of our people?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: We are the same native nation of Vishilan.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: We are the same people, we are Mexican.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: Tewatsin tea, Mexica.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: We must not allow the illegally placed borders on our ancestral native lands to divide us anymore.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: Chicanos, Mexicanos, Mexica, we are native people and indigenous to this land of Astlan and Anahuac.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: We must reject the narrow-minded Eurocentrist biased version of history that has been carefully and systematically forced on all of us to make us forget the truth of what has transpired in the past.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: Texas history class won't teach you about the lynchings carried out by the Texas Rangers against Mexicans and other native people.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: Nor will world history tell you how Columbus treated native Caribbal and Atawak women to his savage companions as sex slaves.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, my brothers and sisters, we have been colonized, and it is truly sad that our modern existence is the way it is.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: We have been taught to forget the past and enjoy the wonderful material world that the master capitalist has provided for us.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: Just a reminder, quote, a people that forgets their past is doomed to repeat it.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: That is exactly what is going on with us.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Over 500 years ago, the entire continent of Ishachilan, North and South, was invaded, raped, and colonized.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: This was a crime against humanity.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yet we have been told that it was for our own good, because our cultures were inferior to those of Europe.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: We have been given a false sense of freedom while the filthy rich reaped the wealth of our labor on our native lands.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: I suppose now we are free to choose our master.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: Our ancestors told us that we belong to the land, and now we must pay colonizers in order to have a place to live.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: Capitalism is the modern form of colonialism, except now we can be part of the ruling class if we oppress our own.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: This is called assimilation.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: When the gavas call you assimilated, that means you are one of them.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: They mean that you must think, dress, talk, and act like them.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: When you assimilate, you forget who you are and where you come from.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: Mexicans and Chicanos are currently being assimilated at a greater rate than ever, especially now with this heightened patriotic war drama.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: The question is why?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: There are several reasons, but the most obvious is about controlling the masses.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: When you have control of the masses, you have the power to do whatever you want, like frame a country and bomb it.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: This is done in the quote unquote best interest of the people.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: If we really want the best interest for our native people, we must understand that we are a colonized nation and that we are being illegally governed and manipulated by the descendants of the original invaders.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: It is no coincidence that the same people who stole our land and stripped our native rights are the same people that have wealth and are in control.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: It is much deeper than this.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: But there is something we can do within ourselves.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: We must first decolonize our minds.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: Then we must decolonize our spirit.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: Only then can we think about decolonizing our lands.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: So that was how the original text ended.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: But if I were writing this today, I would conclude with the following.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: As we stand at this critical juncture, let us honor the sacrifices of our ancestors and commit ourselves to the liberation of our people.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: By reclaiming our indigenous heritage, we can dismantle the oppressive systems that have sought to erase our identity.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: Let us rise together, unite in purpose, to build a future with indigenous voices, and those voices are amplified, our lands are restored, and our sovereignty is recognized.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: Only then can we truly heal the wounds of the past and create a world that reflects our values of compassion, resilience, and harmony with the earth.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yomanam.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: Alright, well that's it for this one.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: And remember that the truth is like medicine.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't always taste good, but it's always, always good for you.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: Diawe Meshika.