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Throwback: Chicano Power! · Tales From Aztlantis

0:00
SPEAKER_02: This episode of Tales from Ocelantis is brought to you by Ostlantis Premium.
0:05
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0:12
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0:25
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0:33
SPEAKER_02: And now, on with the show.
0:37
SPEAKER_03: You must excuse me.
0:38
SPEAKER_03: I've grown quite wearing.
0:43
SPEAKER_04: This hasn't been easy, I know.
0:46
SPEAKER_04: But you've learned a lesson.
0:48
SPEAKER_04: A lesson in honesty.
0:51
SPEAKER_04: Honesty to yourself and honesty to others.
0:55
SPEAKER_04: That lesson must end you in good step on your mind.
0:58
SPEAKER_03: I think we've all learned a good lesson.
1:01
SPEAKER_03: I've always heard that honesty is the best honesty.
1:04
SPEAKER_03: Now I'm catching on the why that's on the why that's some why that's so good.
1:08
SPEAKER_02: Greetings, dear listeners, and welcome to Tales from Ostlantis, where we take you on a journey through Chicano, Mexicano, and Mesoamerican history and archaeology, and we help combat the spread of disinformation about these very topics.
1:25
SPEAKER_02: We are your hosts, Curly Tlapoyawa.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: And Ruben Areyono Tlaka Tekat.
1:31
SPEAKER_02: What is going on, Dr.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: Tlaka Tekat?
1:33
SPEAKER_01: Oof, where to begin?
1:36
SPEAKER_01: Right?
1:38
SPEAKER_01: God damn it.
1:39
SPEAKER_01: Here we go again, is what I'm saying.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: Here we go again.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: But you know everything old is new again.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: We we like to suffer as a people, as just human beings like suffering.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: It's our I mean, going back to the Buddha, isn't what that what the Buddha wasn't that what his soul thing was about?
1:57
SPEAKER_01: About suffering.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: Something about suffering.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm not I'm not a something like that.
2:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a I'm not an expert on Buddhism.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a Buddhist, but something about the human condition and suffering, and so yeah.
2:11
SPEAKER_02: Like my I am an expert on Star Wars, though, and C3PO did famously say it is our lot to suffer.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: Ooh.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: So wise words, C3PO.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: Or as my mom always liked to say, like you like to eat shit on a on a taco.
2:32
SPEAKER_02: Yep, well, we're gonna have a big old shit-filled taco over these next four years, that's for sure.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: Uh goddamn.
2:43
SPEAKER_02: And uh it just kind of blows my mind seeing how many individuals who refer to themselves as Chicanos uh online seemed to back this uh this guy.
2:59
SPEAKER_02: And it it really piqued my my interest.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: Like, do these do they even know what a Chicano is?
3:05
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, we there's there's this uh the old Chicano of it that I don't know here in Dallas.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: Uh I haven't seen him in in a while, but like when we used to come to some of our meetings and Kapuli gatherings, and he would crack us up with some of the old school Chicano um you know sayings and stuff.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: One of the sayings that he used to say was, uh, are you a chicano or are you a chicano?
3:27
SPEAKER_01: So maybe these fools are chicanos and not chicanos.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe they're chicanglos.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: Chicanglos?
3:35
SPEAKER_01: I know that's in that's in the uh dictionary of Chicano Spanish, right?
3:40
SPEAKER_01: Chicanglo.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: Let me see.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: I have it rear right here.
3:43
SPEAKER_02: That's so funny that you uh pulled up that word because I was even racking my brain trying to think of a call.
3:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like what do you call other than like vendido or coconut or tío taco or something?
3:55
SPEAKER_02: What's something a little bit more biting and accurate, you know?
3:58
SPEAKER_01: More accurate, right, exactly.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: So this is from the Dictionary of Chicano Spanish, which was published.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: Uh let me see, just to make sure.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: I think it was sometime in the 80s.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: Uh no, 95.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: I think the this I forget what edition that this is that I have, but I know originally it was published sometime in the 80s.
4:14
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, so if you go to the ch section of this dictionary, and and you look up Chicano, Chicaneo, Chicaneria, and then at the bottom of that page, this is page 59 of my edition.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: It says Chicanglo, a cross of Chicano and Anglo.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: Chicano who acts like an Anglo-Saxon.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's a very appropriate term for these so-called Chicanos who call themselves Chicanos but act anti-Chicano.
4:49
SPEAKER_02: Oh man, it's uh it it was certainly um an unpleasant surprise to see people who I had I had even directed individuals towards certain, you know, online stores and stuff, like, oh, you should check these guys out.
5:07
SPEAKER_02: And then I comes to find out that the uh people who own these sites uh were Trump supporters.
5:13
SPEAKER_02: So be careful where you spend your money, folks.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: Be careful if it matters to you, uh be careful.
5:20
SPEAKER_02: You know, it always it always helps to check out who uh who you're supporting, who they support.
5:26
SPEAKER_02: You know.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, it it's more it's more um I guess it it's it's it's more prescient when it's coming from your own community, right?
5:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, because you know that large corporations, they usually fund both sides of the equation just to you know cover their bases and and uh yeah, there's some that prefer one side versus the other.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: You're always gonna get that.
5:48
SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of a given.
5:49
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's baked into the geek of what we call the United States of America political system.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: But when it's coming from people who are supposed to be part of your community who identify as you do, and who pretend to share the same values that you do, and then to come to find out that they're completely the opposite and they've bought into this whole notion of individualism as opposed to collectivism, as opposed to uplift of the community, and it's about me, me, me, f you over there.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: It becomes very sad because, like, okay, that's fine, that's your prerogative.
6:23
SPEAKER_01: You can do that if you want, but don't pretend you're a Chicano.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
6:28
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
6:30
SPEAKER_02: I mean, hell, I've even got people in my own family, you know.
6:33
SPEAKER_02: I've got cousins who uh were proudly boasting online after uh that shit had won.
6:42
SPEAKER_02: That uh, you know, what really blew my mind is they were posting shit like Daddy's back.
6:48
SPEAKER_02: It's like, holy smokes, what's going on there?
6:54
SPEAKER_01: Dang.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: You got some issues you need to work through, buddy.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm not I'm not even gonna mess with that one.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: That's that's for the that's for the Discord.
7:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
7:05
SPEAKER_02: And uh I saw one um one of these uh so-called Chicano uh podcasts where they were calling him Uncle Trump.
7:16
SPEAKER_02: And it's funny because you know, in indigenous communities, calling somebody auntie and uncle, like that means something.
7:24
SPEAKER_02: There's that has a very specific meaning to it.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: And so to confer that title onto this piece of shit, this most anti-indigenous of people, is like, wow, what's going on there?
7:41
SPEAKER_01: There's right, there's uh well, I don't know if it's true, but you know, just as there was a a large uh contingent of our community who sided with with uh this fool.
7:53
SPEAKER_01: Apparently, and I'm not sure, I didn't follow up, but someone someone that I know uh uh posted something that came up on my Facebook feed that roughly about 64% of Native American uh people, you know, card-carrying Native Americans voted for for this fool as well.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know if that's true, but if it is, it's like you know, there's there's something in the water.
8:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely something in the water.
8:16
SPEAKER_02: I saw that same uh that same data presented, and I've seen pushback against it saying that the the sample size wasn't large enough, and you know it's it's kind of misrepresenting the actual numbers, but who knows?
8:32
SPEAKER_02: Um I'd like to think that it wasn't true, but at this point, nothing would surprise me.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: Right, yeah.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: It's I mean, say what you will about the election, about the motives between between how people voted over versus you know one candidate over the other.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, you have people that are you know blaming it on racism, misogyny, and which all of that played into obviously the campaigns and obviously with the the individual involved.
9:03
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and we know who he is because he told us back in 2015 when he came down those escalators who he was, and yet people still could voted for him then and then voted for him again this time around.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: So it's not like that's new.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: But I think one of the things that I read, and I think I shared this uh as well on the Discord, uh the Tales from Oslantis Discord, that um that really what it came down to was the economy, the inflation, right?
9:31
SPEAKER_01: Like that the Democrats didn't have a solid answer, they didn't have a solid solution as to why, even though the economy overall is doing better, uh the markets are doing better, I mean, we're like it's shooting through the roof compared to what it's ever been, right, under uh under Biden.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: And so even though the economy overall is doing better, people's I think it it comes down to people's earned wages and salaries, those haven't kept up with everything else.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: And again, because Biden's the one that's in office, he's the one that gets blamed for it.
10:08
SPEAKER_01: But it's not like the president has any control over any of that, right?
10:12
SPEAKER_01: And then to turn around and say, well, it not only is it his fault for not being able to do anything about it, but this other guy who is responsible for the crash of the economy under the pandemic, he's the guy with the solutions.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: He's the guy that led this country into ruin with millions of people who died from the pandemic that could have been avoided, right?
10:35
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people don't like there they're when you've heard people push back on on this notion that that Trump had anything to do, like like he couldn't have done anything different to have stopped the pandemic and the way that it evolved um and and you know, took hold of communities and devastated the nation.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: And and I think back to the time when Ebola was a big scare in this country and under President Obama.
11:02
SPEAKER_01: And in Dallas, in fact, we had a patient in in one of the hospitals in North Dallas, I think it was the Presbyterian hospital that had Ebola.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: And you know what they did?
11:12
SPEAKER_01: They followed the science, they quarantined these individuals who had entered the country with that disease, and they prevented a pandemic because they followed science and they followed what the doctors were saying needed to be done.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: But no, yeah, it wasn't Trump's fault that millions of people had died.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
11:32
SPEAKER_01: It's not his fault that he blew that entire operation and that he directed not only his people in office but his entire base of supporters to go after the very same people who had the solution at hand, people like Dr.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: Fauci and others who were targeted, who were, you know, had death threats uh against them and such.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: And so, again, here we go again.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: Trump 2.0.
11:57
SPEAKER_01: What's gonna happen?
11:58
SPEAKER_01: Are we gonna have another situation arise where we're gonna need to to have uh uh leadership in place to be able to stop whatever's coming?
12:09
SPEAKER_01: Good luck.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: That's all I can say.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, good luck to all of you out there, especially those of you that voted for him.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: Good luck to you.
12:19
SPEAKER_05: We'll be back after a quick break.
12:22
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so let's say you've got the Mexica calendar for the upcoming year, lodgedly, and you want to know a little bit more about the philosophy and worldview associated with the ancestral calendar system.
12:38
SPEAKER_02: Or maybe you're curious about the individual feasts that are held in connection with each of the months.
12:45
SPEAKER_02: Well, dear listeners, I've got you covered because my new book, Never Will It Be Lost, is now available.
12:53
SPEAKER_02: It features beautiful cover art provided by the amazing artist Mikorazon Mexica, and it's packed with full color images from the codices.
13:05
SPEAKER_02: In it, I go over each of the monthly feasts, and I provide some guidance and suggestions on how these feasts can be celebrated today.
13:16
SPEAKER_02: I also go into the Mexica worldview, cosmovision, and philosophy, and I talk about how we, as modern-day Mesoamerican descendants, can connect with and actualize this philosophy in the modern world.
13:32
SPEAKER_02: I'm super proud of this book.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: Again, it's called Never Will It Be Lost: Ritual, Remembrance, and the Aztec Calendar by yours truly, the curly Blaboya.
13:44
SPEAKER_02: And if you order it using the link in the show notes, you get five dollars off.
13:50
SPEAKER_02: So if you want to support independent, indigenous Chicano media, please consider uh picking it up.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: Las Gamati Moitase.
14:05
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
14:06
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, let's not even forget the fact that he wants to put an extremely anti-science open conspiracy theorist in charge of health in this country.
14:20
SPEAKER_02: Oh man, things are gonna get really, really bad, folks.
14:24
SPEAKER_02: Really, really quick.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: So you better uh better come to peace with Tlaloc now while you can humble yourselves before Tlaloc, my gente.
14:38
SPEAKER_02: We tell you.
14:41
SPEAKER_02: We tilo potli.
14:43
SPEAKER_02: So today we are going to be talking about Chicanos and Chicano identity and and what does it mean?
14:52
SPEAKER_02: You know, who are these these individuals who call themselves Chicanos but yet hold worldviews that are diametrically opposed to Chicanidad and the history of the Chicano movement?
15:05
SPEAKER_02: You know, what do they really have an understanding of where this word comes from and what it means?
15:12
SPEAKER_02: And so I we, dear listeners, your hosts, we thought it would be helpful to just kind of delve into this a little bit in an episode that we are calling Chicano Power.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: Brown and Proud.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: Here we go.
15:29
SPEAKER_01: As a professor of history, I always start my courses by telling students that one of the things we do in history is ask questions.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: Borrowing from the famous line in the playmade movie Glengarry Glen Ross, quote, always be closing.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: I encourage them to always be asking questions all the time, always.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: It's the job of the historian to present critical analysis to the public in general, something that is not always easy because often we must contend with other people's idea of what history is.
16:02
SPEAKER_01: This is especially true when it comes to interpreting history from a more inclusive perspective.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: When you're trying to discuss this country's history in relation to that of marginalized communities and peoples, those who have been colonized, dispossessed, subjugated, and oppressed, the oppositional cries from the majority establishment are constant.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: These objections have their own history and have certainly changed over time, but the thing that is clear is that if history makes people uncomfortable, then it is subject to harassment and attack.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: This has been the experience of black, brown, Asian, and many other ethnic and racial groups in this country throughout its history.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: Hence, the reason why we even have African American history, Asian American history, and the history of Chicanos and Indigenous people is because of the previous exclusion of our voices.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: In the late 1960s, Chicano educators and academics worked together to establish courses and programs that told our history so that we would not forget who we are and where we come from.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: But of course, over the decades, for a variety of reasons that we won't get into here, those courses and programs have been underfunded and not well maintained.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: But let's not lose sight of what we're here to do, which is to reaffirm our indigenous Chicanidad.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: What I'm about to say might ruffle a few feathers, but I think it must be stated, if only to remind our gente or Masehualme what it means to call yourself a Chicana, a Chicano, or Chicanex.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: We insist on calling ourselves by that name because we know we're not simply another ethnic group in this country.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: We are indigenous.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: This fact is one that might be lost to many today who call themselves Chicanos, but some of the earliest written examples we have of the term dating back to the early 20th century are very explicit about this.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: Take, for example, the following passage from a 1928 piece entitled Las Aventuras de Don Chipote, or Cuando los Pericos Mamen by Daniel Venegas, which was originally published in Spanish as a serialized novel in El Heraldo de Mexico newspaper of Los Angeles.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: The quote picks up in the middle of the work scene where one of the characters, Policarpo, is having a difficult time hauling carts full of cement.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: Ready to die while hanging on the cart, but not wanting to be the laughing stock for the rest of the workers any longer, Policarpo found his nerve and grabbed his little cart loaded with cement, believing in his heart that he was pure Chicano and would not give in.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: As you all know, Chicanos for the most part are full of warm indigenous blood.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: And once someone calls their pride into question, or they call their own hearts into question, that's when they give it all they have until they can't give anymore.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: So Policarpo gathered up all the strength in his scrawny little body and continued pooching P-G-C-H-I-N pooching the little cart.
19:17
SPEAKER_01: So, right there, it's plain to see this is one of the first works of literature written from a Chicano perspective while using the term as a signifier of pride and indigenous identity.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: It is also a critique of American society.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: The novel was translated and published as a book in the year 2000 with the following title, The Adventures of Don Chipote, or When Parrots Breastfeed.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: The novel itself relates the story of Don Chipote, a campesino who leaves behind his family and his wife in Mexico to try his luck as a bracero in the United States.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: Accompanied by his faithful dog Sufre elambre, which means skin and bones, Don Chipote experiences the various hardships that come with the condition of being an undocumented immigrant, such as discrimination, language and communication barriers, trouble finding decent work and shelter, and often going hungry.
20:14
SPEAKER_01: The importance of the novel lies in its sharp criticism of American society for its racism, materialism, and its treatment of the working class.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: Nonetheless, despite its burlesque tone, Venegas intended the novel to serve as a warning for Mexicans who sought their fortunes in the United States, that it comes at the cost of losing one's dignity, family values, and cultural traditions.
20:40
SPEAKER_01: And it seems that a great portion of Mexican Americans today calling themselves Chicanos either don't have that frame of reference or have chosen to abandon it in favor of some assimilationist viewpoint.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: Plain and simple, to call yourself a Chicano from the very beginning was to run counter to the Anglo-American establishment and to offer a critique of the exploitative society that abuses the working class.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: And if you're someone who still identifies as a chicana, chicano, chicanex, then it's incumbent upon you to carry forth those values of resistance against injustice, abuse, and exploitation in whatever form they manifest.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: That's inherent to the identity.
21:23
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't simply mean that you are Mexican American, because that's an entirely different political identity altogether.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: To be Chicano means that you are proud of your indigenous heritage, that you advocate for the improvement of the community as a whole, and that you speak truth to power in all its forms.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: Look, I'm not in the business of telling people how to identify, just as I hate it when people assume my identity as a Latino or a Hispanic.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: But simply calling yourself a Chicano because you are of ethnic Mexican descent and born in the US misses the mark.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: Chicano is not synonymous with another identity.
21:59
SPEAKER_01: How do I?
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Know this because a lot of Mexican Americans they tell me that they hate the term Chicano.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: And many people who identify, at least here in Texas, as Tejanos, also don't like the term Chicano.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: And that's also true for those who still call themselves Hispanic, and especially for those who prefer the Latina, Latino, Latinx identity.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: And we've noted, as we've noted here before, there's a war against Chiganos.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: And the last thing that we need right now is to be at war with ourselves.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: These struggles aren't new, but it's disappointing that they're still with us.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: Many years ago, the preeminent Chigano playwright Luis Vales wrote an introduction to a collection entitled Astlan, an anthology of Mexican American Literature, in 1972.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: In it he addressed the very same issue, and it is with his words that I'd like to close out today.
22:54
SPEAKER_02: Curly, will you do us honors?
22:56
SPEAKER_02: Our insistence on calling ourselves Chicanos stems from a realization that we are not just one more minority group in the United States.
23:06
SPEAKER_02: We reject the semantic games of sociologists and whitewashed Mexicans who frantically identify us as Mexican Americans, Spanish Americans, Latin Americans, Spanish speaking, Spanish surname, Americans of Mexican descent, etc.
23:26
SPEAKER_02: We further reject efforts to make us disappear into the white melting pot, only to be hauled out when it is convenient or profitable for gabacho gringo politicians.
23:38
SPEAKER_02: Some of us are as dark as sapote, but we are casually labeled Caucasian.
23:44
SPEAKER_02: The presence of the Indio in La Rasa is as real as the barrio.
23:50
SPEAKER_02: Tortillas, Tamales, Chile, La Curandera, El Empancho, El Mocahete, Atole, these are hardcore realities for our people.
24:01
SPEAKER_02: These and thousands of other little human customs and traditions are interwoven into the fiber of our daily life.
24:09
SPEAKER_02: America indígena is not ancient history.
24:14
SPEAKER_02: It exists today in Navarrio, having survived even the subversive onslaught of the 20th century neo-gawacho commercialism that passes for American culture.
24:27
SPEAKER_02: Navarrio came into being with the birth of the first mestizo.
24:31
SPEAKER_02: Before we imitated the gringo, we imitated the hacendado.
24:35
SPEAKER_02: Before the hacendado, the gachupin.
24:38
SPEAKER_02: Before we lived in the west side, Chinatown, the Flats, Dogtown, Salcipuedes in El Hoyo, we lived in Camargo, Reynosa, Guamuchil, Cuautla, Tepoztlan.
24:51
SPEAKER_02: Before the Southwest, there was Mexico.
24:54
SPEAKER_02: Before Mexico, Nueva España.
24:57
SPEAKER_02: Navarrio goes all the way back to 1521 and the conquest.
25:03
SPEAKER_02: We are Indian blood and soul.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: All this is to say that we have been here before.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: Our people's history is filled with many instances of peril and uncertainty, and we're here to offer a message of hope and unity.
25:18
SPEAKER_01: While we can't predict the future nor sugarcoat it, we want our brothers and sisters and our extended indigenous family to know that despite our critical analysis that frames this podcast, we have not lost sight of what matters.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: We will continue to call out any and all misinformation that pertains to our communities, but we will also stand tall with you in the old Chicano tradition of defying and resisting.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: Finally, interpret this as you will.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: But anyone calling themselves a Chicana, Chicano, or Chicanex who is not actively rallying to the cause of justice, I urge you to reconsider your position and stand with your spiritual ancestors who struggled and fought oppressive systems of power.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, it might be useful to stop identifying with the term that is rooted in indigenity and in the criticism of exploitation and racism, because that's what the term Chicano is all about.
26:14
SPEAKER_01: Chicano power is about resistance and the betterment of the community, not the selfishness of the individual.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you very much, sir.
26:27
SPEAKER_01: Now I believe you have a few things to say yourself.
26:30
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
26:30
SPEAKER_02: So when we were planning this episode, we figured we would each take uh a moment to write our own perspectives on you know Chicano and Chicanidad and what it means to us.
26:42
SPEAKER_02: So I thought I would uh do my little part by talking about where does the word Chicano come from and what does it mean?
26:52
SPEAKER_02: So where does the word chicano come from?
26:55
SPEAKER_02: Well, the short and sweet answer is that it's simply a diminutive form of the word mexicano.
27:02
SPEAKER_02: You see, in Mexican Spanish, we really like to mess with proper names, often shortening and rearranging them in an affectionate way.
27:11
SPEAKER_02: Linguistically, this is known as hypochorism.
27:14
SPEAKER_02: So for example, Ignacio becomes nacho, Vicente becomes gente, Graciela becomes chella, mexicano becomes chicano.
27:25
SPEAKER_02: But if we wanted to dig a little deeper, it gets even more interesting.
27:30
SPEAKER_02: The word mexicano itself is a hybrid word.
27:34
SPEAKER_02: That is, it's a word created by combining other words from two or more different languages.
27:41
SPEAKER_02: In this case, we are combining the Nahuatl word mexico and the Spanish or Latin suffix ano or an o.
27:52
SPEAKER_02: Mexico or Mexico as it is known today, was the city-state capital of the Mexica people.
27:59
SPEAKER_02: And the Latin ano is a suffix used to identify a native citizen or inhabitant of a particular place.
28:08
SPEAKER_02: For example, people from Italia are Italianos, people from Africa are Africanos, people from America are Americanos, and so on.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: So when the Spaniards first encountered the Mexica people of Mexico, they called them Mexicanos, the inhabitants of Mexico.
28:28
SPEAKER_02: This pronunciation, mexicano, eventually changed to the one we are all familiar with today, Mexicano.
28:37
SPEAKER_02: This happened when the Spanish language underwent a change called a consonant shift, and the sh sound of the letter X transformed into an aspirated H sound.
28:49
SPEAKER_02: So, from Mexico we got mexicano.
28:52
SPEAKER_02: Mexicano then changes to mexicano, and then from mexicano, we get chicano, a diminutive form of a hybrid word.
29:03
SPEAKER_02: And as a side note, the earliest use that I have found in print during all of my research of the word chicano, or more specifically chicana in this case, related to identity, comes to us from the October 10th, 1903 issue of the Socoro Chieftain.
29:23
SPEAKER_02: So Chicano identity in this way is at least 121 years old.
29:30
SPEAKER_02: It's pretty fascinating stuff.
29:32
SPEAKER_02: So what does Chicano even mean?
29:36
SPEAKER_02: It's funny because there's a saying that if you asked a room full of 10 Chicanos what Chicano means, you're probably going to get 10 different answers.
29:44
SPEAKER_02: So what I'm going to offer you, dear listener, is just what I know from my own lived experience, along with the historical record regarding Chicano ethnogenesis.
29:55
SPEAKER_02: Now, as my colleague, Dr.
29:58
SPEAKER_02: Tlacatecat has already said, some people mistakenly assume that a Chicano is simply someone of Mexican descent who was born and raised in the United States.
30:10
SPEAKER_02: Or even a mexicano who arrived in the US at a very young age and grew up here.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: But those things just make you a Mexican American, and not necessarily a Chicano.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: Chicano identity has a far deeper meaning than Mexican American.
30:27
SPEAKER_02: For the most part, and this is my use, Chicanos are a displaced, highly urbanized, mixed-blood, indigenous people, whose self-declared identities are rooted in indigeneity and the struggle for self-determination and decolonization.
30:46
SPEAKER_02: Chicano identity, it's as politically charged as it is culturally assertive.
30:52
SPEAKER_02: We represent a cross-section of the Mesoamerican diaspora that has coalesced under a shared cultural and political identity.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: And it should be noted, ours is a uniquely American experience.
31:08
SPEAKER_02: You see, some in Mexico don't really recognize us as real Mexicans, and some in the United States don't recognize us as real Indians.
31:17
SPEAKER_02: So in response, we claimed our own space for ourselves.
31:22
SPEAKER_02: We staked out our own identity by drawing from our collective cultural inheritance as indigenous people.
31:30
SPEAKER_02: Chicano, Chicana, Chicanex, beautiful, empowering declarations of indigenous identity forged in the crucible of a struggle for civil rights and self-determination.
31:46
SPEAKER_02: Interestingly, we seem to get a lot of non-Ciganos trying to tell us what a Chicano is or isn't.
31:53
SPEAKER_02: And if you know any Chicanos, then you should already know we've never needed anyone's permission to be who we are.
32:01
SPEAKER_02: And so I would like to end this episode with a quote from the book The Adventures of Don Chipote by Daniel Venegas, a quote that unknown to me, uh my colleague already used, but I think it's worth repeating because it's a hell of a quote.
32:16
SPEAKER_02: It was originally published in 1928, and it reads in part, I quote, as you all know, Chicanos for the most part are full of warm indigenous blood.
32:26
SPEAKER_02: And once someone calls their pride into question, or they call their own hearts into question, that's when they give it their all until they can't give any more.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: Unquote.
32:37
SPEAKER_02: And this, dear listener, is why every day I wake up and I give thanks to the Laloc that I am the Chicano.
32:48
SPEAKER_02: You're here.
32:52
SPEAKER_02: Right on.
32:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it just it really grinds my ears to see these uh these people online saying calling themselves Chicanos without any idea of where that word comes from or what if it what it even means.
33:08
SPEAKER_02: You know, you you're claiming this identity and uh you're not living up to the principles of that identity.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's pretty sad.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you might even say that some of these people are maybe if you want to be uh generous and and uh and look at it from an from a perspective that's favorable to them, you might even say that they're in in a sense, they're they're um I guess they're they're working the system in such a way where they're they're trying to you know mix things up a little bit, jostle the system a little bit.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what do you think about that?
33:46
SPEAKER_01: That because I've I've heard people kind of hint at that that um idea that perhaps some of these people who are Chiganos who call themselves Chiganos and and uh who voted for oppression and who voted for, you know, hopefully not fascism, but you know we'll see about that.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: That that they're just following the Chigano tradition of uh you know playing the system against itself.
34:12
SPEAKER_01: What do you think about that idea?
34:13
SPEAKER_02: I think that's a little um I think that's giving them too much credit.
34:17
SPEAKER_02: Too much credit, yeah.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: And uh it just sounds like anybody claiming that is just they just want to be contrarian, you know, or they're trying to, you know, maybe they were upset about Palestine, which I get, I totally understand, or maybe they were upset about just, you know, the general arrogance of the Democratic Party, assuming that they deserve their vote, you know, no matter what.
34:42
SPEAKER_02: But ultimately, they weren't being very pragmatic.
34:45
SPEAKER_02: They I don't think they were they were looking at the big picture and being like, okay, well, what are the repercussions gonna be, you know, of me voting like this or refusing to vote or whatever?
34:56
SPEAKER_02: And you know, whatever.
34:57
SPEAKER_02: It's over now.
34:58
SPEAKER_02: So all we gotta do now is just live with the consequences of the actions of these people.
35:06
SPEAKER_02: The United States of Assholes is what we become.
35:10
SPEAKER_02: You know, every now and then I I go back and I'll I'll re-watch idiocracy, and it's amazing how much how more and more closely this country is resembling what happens in there.
35:25
SPEAKER_02: Like the first time you watch it when it first comes out, it's like, oh, that'd be crazy if we wound up like that.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: And now literally Hulk Hogan is ripping off his shirt at the Republican National Convention.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: Oh that was something for real.
35:42
SPEAKER_01: Imagine being a kid in the 80s growing up, and like Hulk Hogan was your your you know, he was someone you looked up to, yeah, and then seeing them do this stuff now 40 years later, like what is happening?
35:57
SPEAKER_01: Is this even real life?
35:58
SPEAKER_01: Like the kids say.
36:00
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm uh well, we said this before we started recording, but when all these people calling themselves chicanos that don't really, you know, resemble what chicanidad, it uh reminds me of that line from uh Princess Bride where uh right where he says you know that word you keep using.
36:18
SPEAKER_02: I don't think it means what you think it means.
36:21
SPEAKER_02: I don't think it means what you think it means, Bob.
36:24
SPEAKER_02: It's it's been kinda it's been a hell of a week.
36:27
SPEAKER_02: You know?
36:28
SPEAKER_02: And uh we we dear listeners, we just wanted to shed some light on this identity and uh you know and how it serves as something empowering, you know, because now more than ever we're gonna need our community, we're gonna need each other.
36:45
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna need to unite and stand together and support each other in in different ways.
36:53
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
36:54
SPEAKER_01: And I think this come up this came up in in the Discord channel.
36:57
SPEAKER_01: Someone was asking, how do I get involved uh with you know things?
37:02
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that that I I tell people is you have to start local.
37:06
SPEAKER_01: Like that's where it begins.
37:08
SPEAKER_01: I mean it's good to think about national issues and to think about international issues, but you have to start somewhere.
37:14
SPEAKER_01: And if you have never been involved in with anything prior to this, or you've been minimally involved, uh, but you've been disconnected for a while, the best thing to do is to start locally, to look for people who are like-minded, who share in your values, and begin to form, you know, a group of like-minded people that are, you know, um trying to address a certain issue or you know, a certain cause, and then that leads to coalitions with other groups that might be, you know, doing fighting something else, addressing a different issue, but you have similar shared values, and that's how you begin to grow exactly uh with coalition building.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: And so if anyone's wondering how do I get involved personally, you know, look look at what's going on in your community, find people who think like you who are concerned about the direction, the dark turn.
38:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, let's call it what it is.
38:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean, um I'm not here to be an alarmist because, like I said, this is basically true uh Trump 2.0.
38:15
SPEAKER_01: We we know who he was back then, and he's gonna be the same, and hopefully he's not worse.
38:21
SPEAKER_01: But we we are prepared and we know that the nation took a dark turn the first time around.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: To pretend that it didn't is like you're just fooling yourself.
38:30
SPEAKER_01: No matter what party you belong to, no matter what your political inclination happens to be, like if you think that that the first time that we had Trump, everything was great, then I don't know what universe you live in.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: And this is either gonna be a repeat or worse.
38:47
SPEAKER_02: And and it can seem overwhelming, you know, to people out there that want to get active and and do things, but don't feel like you have to reinvent the will, right?
38:55
SPEAKER_02: There's probably people in your community who are already organizing, who've already got something that you can be a part of.
39:03
SPEAKER_02: Don't feel like, you know, I gotta start from the ground up and create it all from bottom up, you know.
39:09
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
39:09
SPEAKER_02: There's already people out there doing stuff, so just find those like-minded in your in your community who are doing stuff and and get involved, you know, because that's what we need.
39:19
SPEAKER_02: We need we need to support each other right now, and uh, we need to come together as uh as a community because without that, we got nothing.
39:29
SPEAKER_01: And hopefully the Chicano community will survive survive this because I mean if all it takes is someone like Trump to come in and divide our community in the way that he has, I mean, I don't know.
39:39
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't it doesn't look good for us.
39:42
SPEAKER_01: So we also need to be able to sustain our our continued identity as Chicano people.
39:48
SPEAKER_01: Um we can't let other people who are trying to redefine it in in in different ways, you know, tell us who we are.
39:56
SPEAKER_01: I I've already had some people push back, you know.
39:58
SPEAKER_01: I posted on my Facebook feed that patch, that old Chicano patch is a Chicano power.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: And I've had people that I've known for a very long time, you know, come in and comment and and you know, say snarky things and be all cynical.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, I'm all about the snark and the cynicism.
40:12
SPEAKER_01: I mean, believe me, that's we can go toe to toe on that.
40:15
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes you gotta get serious.
40:18
SPEAKER_01: You gotta be serious about what's going on around you.
40:20
SPEAKER_01: Everything can't be snark and cynicism all the time.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: So just keep that in mind, folks.
40:25
SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean to be preachy and I'm not here to tell anyone what to do.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: We're just voicing our opinion.
40:29
SPEAKER_01: You can take it or leave it.
40:31
SPEAKER_01: You know, do what you will.
40:32
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
40:34
SPEAKER_01: Do what thou wilt.
40:36
SPEAKER_02: Yep, shall be the whole of the law.
40:39
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
40:40
SPEAKER_02: And remember, the truth, well, it's like medicine.
40:46
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't always taste good, but it is always good for you.
40:52
SPEAKER_01: Chicano power.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: You keep using the whore.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it means what you think it means.
42:45
SPEAKER_06: This teeth still means rape.
42:47
SPEAKER_06: Now we've set it all to stage.
44:12
SPEAKER_05: We have to wait to fall on the water.
44:15
SPEAKER_05: This is the cloud, that's the start.
45:14
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for listening to Tales from Ostlantis, a project of the Chimalli Institute of Mesoamerican Arts.
45:21
SPEAKER_02: If you enjoy the show, please consider becoming a Patreon supporter.
45:26
SPEAKER_02: You can do this by visiting TalesFromOstlantis.com and clicking support the podcast.
45:33
SPEAKER_02: Your continued support will help keep the podcast ad free and independent.
45:38
SPEAKER_02: Until next time, Timo Itase.