Aztlan Quotes

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We don’t need the gospels, we need the fiery men who wrote them!
Rudolfo Anaya (Heart of Aztlan)
Bah! Do you think the poor people of the barrio pay for the upkeep of the Church? No! Wealth flows from wealth! And sources of wealth need stability to exist! And the Church provides stability! We teach the poor how to bear their burden; they are promised the kingdom of heaven, which is far more important than the little gains your strike would make …
Rudolfo Anaya (Heart of Aztlan)
The Declaration of Independence states that we the people have the right to revolution, the right to overthrow a government that has committed abuses and seeks complete control over the people. This is in order to clean out the corrupted, rotten officials that develop out of any type of capitalistic systems.
Rodolpho Gonzales (Message to Aztlan: Selected Writings)
Wikipedia: Plan of San Diego The Plan of San Diego (Spanish: Plan de San Diego) was drafted in San Diego, Texas, in 1915 by a group of unidentified Mexican and Tejano rebels who hoped to secede Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Texas from the United States and create a racial utopia for Native Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, and African Americans. The plan called for the execution of all white men over the age of sixteen. The goal of the plan is debated. The plan stated a supposed "attempt to overthrow the government in the Southern United States." However, some theories state that the true goal of the plan was to create the conditions to force the US to support one of the factions of the Mexican Revolution, as eventually occurred. The plan called for the killing of all adult white American men in the Southwestern states and the "return of land to Mexicans." It was, however, exposed before it could be fully executed. Although there was no uprising, there were raids into Texas that began in July 1915. The raids were countered by Texas Rangers, the U.S. Army and local self-defense groups. In total, 30 raids into Texas destroyed large amounts of property and killed 21 Americans. It is not known who was responsible for drafting the Plan of San Diego, but there are theories that Mexican revolutionary leaders helped to sponsor it.
Wikipedia Contributors
Wikipedia: Reconquista (Mexico) A prominent advocate of Reconquista was the Chicano activist and adjunct professor Charles Truxillo (1953–2015) of the University of New Mexico (UNM). He envisioned a sovereign Hispanic nation, the República del Norte (Republic of the North), which would encompass Northern Mexico, Baja California, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. He supported the secession of US Southwest to form an independent Chicano nation and argued that the Articles of Confederation gave individual states full sovereignty, uncluding the legal right to secede. Truxillo, who taught at UNM's Chicano Studies Program on a yearly contract, suggested in an interview, "Native-born American Hispanics feel like strangers in their own land." He said, "We remain subordinated. We have a negative image of our own culture, created by the media. Self-loathing is a terrible form of oppression. The long history of oppression and subordination has to end" and that on both sides of the US–Mexico border "there is a growing fusion, a reviving of connections.... Southwest Chicanos and Norteño Mexicanos are becoming one people again." Truxillo stated that Hispanics who achieved positions of power or otherwise were "enjoying the benefits of assimilation" are most likely to oppose a new nation and explained: There will be the negative reaction, the tortured response of someone who thinks, "Give me a break. I just want to go to Wal-Mart." But the idea will seep into their consciousness, and cause an internal crisis, a pain of conscience, an internal dialogue as they ask themselves: "Who am I in this system?" Truxillo believed that the República del Norte would be brought into existence by "any means necessary" but that it would be formed by probably not civil war but the electoral pressure of the region's future majority Hispanic population. Truxillo added that he believed it was his duty to help develop a "cadre of intellectuals" to think about how the new state could become a reality.
Charles Truxillo
The advancing tribes who may have pressured Cahokia or exploited the chaos were peoples speaking Uto-Nahuatl or Uto-Aztecan languages moving eastwards from California. Some stayed in the north – later they became the Comanche and Shoshane peoples – but many others, gradually over centuries, were drawn to the rich cities and fecund land of the Valley of Mexico and migrated south. They all came from a semi-mythical land they called Aztlan – origin of the word Aztec. In around 1300, one of the poorest and latest to arrive were the Mexica (pronounced me-sheek-a), who were treated as outcasts and driven on to the least desirable land.
Simon Sebag Montefiore (The World: A Family History of Humanity)
known as Aztlan was to obtain gold and to enrich cultures and races that preceded the Mayas, [and] the forefathers of Aztecs were the people of Aztlan and that the great floods drove them from their original, ancestral homeland.” The aliens needed gold—and later silver—exclusively as part of their craft’s propulsion system.
Timothy Good (Earth: An Alien Enterprise)
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Rudolfo Anaya (Heart of Aztlan: A Novel)
I cannot let things remain as they are, because then I would not be free. If I cease to act because I fear the future, then I create a worse enslavement for myself. That much I know. While my people are not free, I am not free. If the freedom and justice I seek loose destruction upon the earth, then I accept that responsibility, but it seems to me that the real responsibility must be borne by those who keep me from my freedom. I must act!
Rudolfo Anaya (Heart of Aztlan)
Those sons of bitches up there are to blame!' Another worker shouted and jumped forward. He shook an angry fist at the blank faces that looked down on the death scene from the offices atop the yard administration. 'Sánchez’s work crew had been cut back twice! It’s unsafe to work with so few men! You all know that! Yes, someone’s to blame, and the blame lies with those bastards that treat us like animals and our rotten union that won’t protect us!
Rudolfo Anaya (Heart of Aztlan)
He started from nothing, I hear say, and now he’s got the only supermarket in the barrio. He has a big Cadillac car, and a lot of political connections at City Hall. They say he delivers the barrio’s votes every election, for the right price. Some of the people call him el patrón. Of course he takes his mordida from everyone—Do you know he charges the people on welfare a dime to cash their checks. He gets a man a job, and he takes a bite. He gets someone out of jail, or helps someone apply for welfare or social security, and he gets a small cut. He charges a fee for everything, and all those small fees have made him rich—' 'It doesn’t seem fair,' Jason reflected. 'No,' Clemente agreed, 'but it’s the way we’re learning to live, like the americano, there is a fee for everything
Rudolfo Anaya (Heart of Aztlan)
That’s what the welfare people want,' Tranquilino gritted his teeth, 'to have us on welfare and to have our women working. Then they can point to our broken families and say the mexicano is a lazy, no good son-of-a-bitch!
Rudolfo Anaya (Heart of Aztlan)
What greater good could there be in a man’s life than to lift the oppression that destroys them, what greater honor is there?
Rudolfo Anaya (Heart of Aztlan)
Look, I control a large part of this barrio because I control one thing, credit. That’s right, it’s that simple. Credit is the lifeline, the blood that turns the wheels. In Barelas I control it, but out there, well, out there are bigger animals, and they in turn control my credit. It doesn’t matter how good a businessman I am, if they cut off my credit I am dead, the barrio’s dead, nothing grows without the green blood of the dollar. Now, how long do you think it would take the banks to cut off my credit if I joined a group of communists like you? They’d do it like this!
Rudolfo Anaya (Heart of Aztlan)
Each clash of swords and cymbals. Each strike of the shields and drums. Each pluck of the hearts and the violins. Each collision of flesh burst with bloody melody. The battle crescendoed mirthlessly raising all the little tingling hairs on the body in its cry. Then Aztlan began to shudder and wane...
Talis Jones (Crooked Raven)