Abstract
This is a book review of Insurgent Aztlán: The Liberating Power of Cultural Resistance, written by Ernesto Todd Mireles and published in 2020 by Somos en escrito Literary Foundation Press in Berkeley, California. As the subtitle indicates, this book is about the liberating power of cultural resistance, and in this case the subjects of cultural resistance are Mexican Americans in the South West of the United States of America (USA) who identify themselves as Xicanos. The author, who is a Xicano scholar and organizer, reconstructs the relationship between social and political insurgent theory and Xicano literature, films and myths. Based on decades of organizing experience and a scholarly review of the writings of recognized observers and leaders of national liberation movements, the author provides a remarkable work of scholarship that incorporates not only the essence of earlier resistance writing but also provides a new paradigm of liberation for the particular situation of Mexican Americans in the USA.
Introduction
The author of Insurgent Aztlán, Ernesto Todd Mireles, provides the reader with a remarkable work of scholarship that incorporates not only the essence of earlier cultural resistance writing but also provides a new paradigm of liberation for the particular situation of Mexican Americans in the United States of America (USA). Insurgent Aztlán must be read by students from high school to graduate studies, their professors, organizers in the fields and factories, union shops, and urban community organizations, and wherever Mexican Americans sense the need to re-evaluate their goals and aspirations for themselves and their families.
The author of this book identifies himself as a Xicano. To identify oneself as a Xicano/a is in many ways a personal decision. Most Latino or Hispanic people in the USA and Canada describe their identity in terms of their family’s geographic origins: Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, and so on (see Pew Research Center, 2013). Others use pan-ethnic terms such as “Hispanic” or “Latino” to describe their identity. Those who identify as Xicanos/as put forth a cultural and political identity that emphasizes decolonization, cultural resistance, and activism. Insurgent Aztlán is about all these important subjects.
The origin of the term “Chicano” (masculine) and “Chicana” (feminine), now most often written as “Xicano” and “Xicana” is generally thought to be the shortened form of the word “Mexicano”, meaning some one of the indigenous Mexica people (Simmen & Bauerle, 1969, p. 225). The Mexica were the rulers of the Aztec empire that existed during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries before the Spanish conquest and colonization of what is now Mexico. Over time the “x” in the original Nahuatl (indigenous language of the Mexica), which was pronounced with a soft “sh” sound, has been replaced in Spanish by the harder “ch” sound. The usage of Xicano emphasizes the historical indigenous roots of most people of Mexican descent and the rejection of the many centuries of colonization, which has historically been a cause for both pride and disrespect.
The title ‘Insurgent Aztlán’ refers to the insurgence of the Xicano people today in the USA and to the legendary homeland of the Mexica, the ruling indigenous people who founded the famous Azteca Empire in the fourteenth century Mexico. The name of their legendary birth place is Aztlán. In Nahuatl, the language of the Mexica, Aztecah is the Nahuatl word for “people from Aztlán.” Historians have speculated about the possible location of Aztlán and tend to place it either in north-western Mexico or the south-west USA. The concept of Aztlán as the place of origin of the pre-conquest Mexican civilization has been a symbol for various Mexican nationalist and indigenous movements since the 1960s; and, for example, Aztlán is mentioned prominently in the beginning of Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987).
About Insurgent Aztlán
Mireles makes a solid case for addressing the decades-long decline of Mexican American identity within itself and broadly among sectors of the American society by asserting the powerful role of culture and history, which are unable to exist without each other, in the preservation and political advancement of people. In the case of Mexican Americans, Mireles argues they represent an estimated 40 million people with the highest birth rate in the USA, and they constitute “a nation within a nation.”
The intellectual challenge, Mireles asserts, is connecting insurgent social political theory with the existing body of Xicano literature, film, and myth. The organizing challenge is how to build an insurgent identity that fosters a “return to history” to build a consensus among Mexican Americans, who are a complex collective of culturally, educationally, politically, and economically diverse people, to reclaim their historical presence in the Americas and the world.
Insurgent Aztlán is a must-read for students from high school to graduate studies, their professors, organizers in the fields and factories, union shops, and every kind of community organizations, wherever Mexican Americans sense the need to re-evaluate their goals and aspirations for themselves and their families.
About the Author
The author teaches Xicano Studies and Organizing at Prescott College in Prescott, Arizona. Dr Ernesto Todd Mireles was born and raised in the 1970s–1980s in Michigan, USA—the northern reaches of the Xicano diaspora on la otra frontera (the Canadian border), which is geographically embedded in the territory of the indigenous Niswi Skoden Three Fires People. Mireles witnessed firsthand how devastating the loss of jobs can be to a region that has depended on a single industry such as automaking. In 1992, Mireles entered Michigan State University and began a decade-long involvement with the youth group, Movimiento Estudiantil Xicano de Aztlán. Since then, Mireles has worked as an organizer for the United Farm Workers, United Steel Workers and the American Federation of Teachers. During these years, his ideas about organizing and anti-colonial struggle sharpened with the creation of the Xicano Development Center in Southwest Detroit. Mireles returned to Michigan State University where he earned his doctorate and inadvertently became a college professor.
About the Publisher
Insurgent Aztlán is the premier publication of Somos en escrito Literary Foundation Press, which publishes Somos en escrito Magazine and seeks “to inspire a whole new generation of indigenous-Hispanic writers by providing consideration, guidance and a chance to publish works which other entities might reject” (Somos en escrito, 2020). According to the publisher, the term “indigenous-Hispanic” distinguishes the several ethnicities which make up a nationality that dates back to the early 1500s, which others have labeled “Hispanic” or “Latino”, (but) confuse our true historical and cultural origins, undermine our ability to preserve and evolve our mestizo identity and attack the centuries-long union between Hispanic and native peoples; thus, indigenous-Hispanic encompasses Americans of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central and South American origin.
Conclusion
Insurgent Aztlán is a must-read for all who are interested in the libera- ting power of cultural resistance, the Xicanos and the Xicano movement, indigenous-Hispanic peoples, and contemporary culture and politics in the USA. It is of interest to scholars, students and readers who are interested in indigenous people’s movements, coloniality, decoloniality, decolonization and national liberation movements—both in the Global South and the Global North.