By David Magallanes / Guest contributor
In my article last week, the first regarding the search for Aztlán, I mentioned that I first heard about this mysterious place during my college years. Since I was an engineering major, and not a social science or Chicano studies major — as were many of my Chicano brothers and sisters — I did not have a lot of exposure to discussions regarding Aztlán and all its implications. For me, Aztlán was a vague concept that had something to do with the Aztecs, but apparently it was something far more important to the Mechistas (members of the MEChA organization that I introduced last week). I was curious, but not enough to pursue it much further. Now, where’s my math book? At the time, I remained contentedly ignorant of one of the cornerstones of the spiritual foundation of my Mexican heritage.
Upon graduating from Cal Poly University, San Luis Obispo, in 1974, I managed to declare a second major (history — kind of unusual for an engineering major) and participated in an international program to spend a semester in Mexico City as a liberal arts major at the Universidad Iberoamericana. I had never in my life been in Mexican territory, and suddenly I found myself heading into the heartland of the country of my New World ancestors. My Spanish at the time was sufficient (barely — I’m much more fluent now), and now I was forcing myself into university classes taught in Spanish only.
One of my first lessons was about prejudice. It was made very clear to me that the Mexican students there at the time despised U.S. Chicanos as “lower class” and not worthy of their attention or friendship. I never before imagined that I’d be subjected to that kind of prejudice. But it was what it was. The strata in Mexican society were clearly delineated and heeded by all who wanted to live their lives with as few complications as possible.
One of the classes that I chose was Mexican History: “Historia de México.” The Spanish language text was a paperback dense with information, with a table of contents at the back of the book, and no index. The pictures, photos and figures were all black-and-white. But as the class proceeded along for several months, I frequently found my jaw dropping with information that astounded me.
As a result of my lessons in that class, I took it upon myself to visit the archaeological ruins of Tenochtitlán, just north of Mexico City. I was not prepared for what I experienced. It was very similar to the deeply spiritual moment I will always remember depicted in a movie about Malcolm X, an American black activist who hated whites until his spiritual rebirth. The movie shows us that Malcolm X traveled to the Middle East in 1964 to seek understanding and enlightenment. This is what I recall from a scene in the movie: when he was asked his nationality upon arriving in Jeddah, on his way to Mecca, he stunned himself by automatically responding that he was an “American” (obviously of African descent), a term that he had heretofore despised. According to Wikipedia:
Several Sunni Muslims encouraged Malcolm X to learn about Islam. Soon he converted to Sunni Islam, and decided to make his pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj).
Malcolm X had turned a corner in his outlook and would never look back:
After his Hajj, Malcolm X articulated a view of white people and racism that represented a deep change from the philosophy he had supported as a minister of the Nation of Islam. In a famous letter from Mecca, he wrote that his experiences with white people during his pilgrimage convinced him to “rearrange” his thinking about race and “toss aside some of [his] previous conclusions”.
At Tenochtitlán, this born-and-raised American, yours truly, was not about to declare himself a “Mexican.” I’m as American as Malcolm X had declared himself. But I felt as though my Mexican cultural roots had been given water after a lifetime of neglect. Suddenly, the only label for my cultural identity that meant anything was “Chicano” — an American of Mexican descent. At that moment, my Mexican heritage took on dimensions that expanded into a space that I can only describe as cosmic. Whereas the European Spanish part of my soul was rooted in Roman Catholicism, the Mexican component of my soul was suddenly anchored in a past that strove to reach out to the gods and communicate with them.
My trip to this Mexican “Mecca” had much the same effect on me that it had on Malcolm X: it “rearranged” my thinking, leading me to a greater, deeper appreciation of the source of my Mexican blood and heritage.
This, then, set the stage for my journey into the very heart of Aztlán — a journey that convinced me that indeed, I could never “go back home again.”
Join me next week as we continue to assess the role of Aztlán in all of our lives — but particularly in the lives of Hispanos, Chicanos, Latinos, Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, Americans of Mexican descent, Native Americans, or however we of Mexican blood choose to identify ourselves.
— David Magallanes is the creator of his own enterprise, Real World Projects, a business primarily dedicated to building distribution outlets for highly reputable products that offer a healthier life and a more vibrant lifestyle. An emerging branch of Real World Projects is Edifiquemos, a Spanish language enterprise dedicated to teaching the Spanish-speaking how to create a profitable international (U.S./Mexico) enterprise with low investment and high earning potential. David may be available for speaking opportunities. To contact him and for more information, you are invited to visit and explore his web sites at www.realworldprojects.info and at www.edifiquemos.com