Q: What does the word "Aztlán" mean, and how is it important, both to you, personally, and to the Chicano movement?

A: The term "Aztlán" arose in public consciousness during the Chicano Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's and the 1970's. The Chicano Movement, as a context, is part of the global de-colonial movements of the 1960's and the 1970's. And de-colonial movements mean, usually, shedding the skin of colonization. For de-colonial movements around the globe, de-colonialization has meant a revitalization, a revival and resurgence of indigenous culture. Aztlán is one of those prime terminologies that arise as this revival of a consciousness of Meso-America emerges. And it’s an important concept, as such, and we have to see it as related to a number of different concepts that arise at that time that are related to a rebirth of Native America, within the consciousness of Chicanas and Chicanos. Some of those other terms that emerge along with Aztlán are, for example, "Chicana Nation" "Chicano Nation” as a parallel to terms like “Cherokee Nation” or “Yaqui Nation” “Iriquoi Nation,” and other terms that are related to this revival of indigenous culture, “Anahuac” that references the Americas, this huge land base from the north to the south. Other terms such as “Culiacan” all have something in common, they have a mythical dimension, and they also have a geographic or land-based dimension. So they’re both imaginary terms as well as geographical terms.


Q: Isn't the United States of America a homeland? Why Aztlán and not, simply, the United States?

A: Chicanas and Chicanos are colonized people. Colonization began in the area of Mexico City in 1492, but then spread slowly northward from Mexico, and then eastward from the thirteen colonies in the United States. One common feature for all of the native peoples was dislocation [and] relocation. It had, as an implication, genocide, our physical removal from the land. So the idea of the homeland grew, I think, in proportion to our removal from the land base. The land has always been seen as sacred by the native peoples of the Americas, and Chicanas and Chicanos are native peoples. We are indigenous peoples, and the land is sacred and the land is the root, the base of everything that we receive to maintain life. The concept "Aztlán," therefore, helped to bring us back to this Meso-American homeland, because it is a concept that predates colonization. It tells us that way before the arrival of Europeans, this land base was one without borders and certainly without the border as we know it today between the United States and Mexico. This concept of Aztlán, like the concept of “Anahuac,” served as a window into the Meso-American consciousness, which is the consciousness of Chicanas and Chicanos being in the Americas for somewhere between fifty thousand and seventy thousand years. We did not come to the United States. The United States came to us. And so the concept of Aztlán marks this identity of ours as being indigenous peoples, and as being here since before colonization, since before the establishment of the United States of America, and since before the establishment of the Mexican nation. It has that importance of establishing a symbolic homeland, but also a knowledge of history that predates Plymouth Rock, the Boston Tea Party, and all of that. It predates the arrival of Europeans and that is part of the importance of this concept, of Aztlán.


Q: There are several maps that indicate sites of the original Mexica people. If we were to find the actual location of Aztlán, what significance would this have?

A: I think the recent uncovering of these important maps--for example, the map attached to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo--is so important because it pinpoints the original homeland of the Mexica people, now called the Aztecs. It pinpoints that place known as Aztlán. And the importance of that is that it uses existing documents that are valid in the eyes of the United States government to prove the existence of this homeland of the of the Mexica or Aztec people. Now, as Chicanas and Chicanos who have been studying with indigenous elders now for quite some time, we have always known that there is a place in the far north from which the Mexica, the early Mexicans, migrated. We have known from the elders that we migrated from the United States eight hundred years ago. We migrated from the north to the south, from Utah to what is now Mexico City. Although we know that, we also know that the words and the teachings, the knowledge that is transmitted through the memory system, through the oral tradition, is not necessarily valid in the eyes of the powers that be, of the U.S. government, of the Mexican government. And so the beauty of finding these maps is that it gives additional credence, if you will, within the written culture. Aztlán is a real place, a geographical location that is in the present state of Utah.


Q: This map from the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo has been around for a hundred and fifty years. Why do you suppose no one noticed the reference to Aztlán on these maps before?

A: I think these maps, these documents, had not surfaced before because I think [knowledge has] momentum that grows over time. The Chicano civil rights movement opened the door [for] retrieval of indigenous knowledge, and it’s taken twenty years or thirty years for that knowledge to grow. One of the marvelous ways in which it's growing is that we are able to prove now, by different documentary means, the existence of this place of migration that is now in the state of Utah. Research takes time. It also isn’t in the interests of the U.S. government to even disclose to us, say forty years ago, that we had this treaty that protected our rights, that protected our culture, The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It’s interesting that this map, this very important map, is attached to that very important treaty. And the resurgence of that treaty happened as part of the Chicano civil rights movement. And now these maps that had been attached to that treaty are now being studied. I’m very optimistic about other kinds of knowledge that is emerging, because Aztlán is not an isolated tidbit. It’s part of a larger system of native knowledge that is unfolding as time passes. Aztlán is tied into the whole indigenous memory system. There is currently a vast revival of this knowledge of the Americas, of this indigenous knowledge, through Chicanos and Chicanas and other tribal peoples, the Dene, the Yaqui, the Chumash. There is a revival and a strengthening of that knowledge through different means. For example, the cultural practice of danza, of the ceremonial dances that is currently happening throughout the United States, that is something that is connected to this concept of Aztlán, to the idea of our being in the homeland and having a right to exercise our cultural identities, our cultural sovereignty. All of this is coming together and is growing now at the end of the twentieth century. And I think that part of the reason that [this knowledge] is growing and thriving is because of the freedom of religion act that I believe was not signed until 1978. Prior to that freedom of religion act, your basic Native American cultural practices were outlawed cultural practices. Our ceremonial dances were outlawed in this country until very recently. And so there’s a whole movement that this concept of Aztlán and the maps are linked to.