Occupied Aztlán:
Chicanos/as in America

 

Abstract: Latinos are the second largest ethnic group (after non-Hispanic Caucasians) in the United States, and the country is poised to become in the near future the second largest Spanish speaking country in the world, after Mexico. A recent NY Times article cited the population at 47 million Latinos/as in the USA, and this number does not include the 3.8 million US citizens who are residents of Puerto Rico. These astonishingly high numbers ground arguments like those of Juan Gonzalez when he writes trenchantly, "this demographic shift is so massive it is transforming the ethnic composition of this country and challenging key aspects of its accepted national identity, language, culture, and official history, a seismic social change that caught the power structures and institutions of US society unprepared." This talk will focus on a single thread of this immense field of study - the recuperation and uses of a mythic indigenous past in key texts from the Mexican-American thinkers. I will begin with general demographic comments about Latino/as in the USA, then go back to the formative moments in the l960s, making reference to classic texts like the Chicano Manifesto, El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, and Borderlands/La Frontera. Excerpts from a pair of poems, a clip from the film "Zoot Suit", and discussion of Valdez-Rodriguez's recent bestselling novel will conclude the discussion.