Mexica Movement

Sat Apr 15 18:36:38 UTC 2006

I agree with Frances regarding the important issues she raises.  I have 
been involved in the Danza Azteca movement since its beginning in 1974. 
At that time we young Chicano college students wanted some tie to the 
indigenous cultures of Mexico.  Some of our carnales had deeply immersed 
themselves in the Lakota, Hopi, Chumash, Kumeyaay, and Dine cultures as 
a way to identify with their indigenous roots.  But most of these first 
nations did not have direct links to the indigenous heritage of Mexico 
(at least from A.D. 1325 on).  Also, many Chicanos who  were U.S. born 
and did not speak Spanish, felt a distance from the recent Spanish 
speaking immigrants.

Thus when la Danza Azteca arrived through the work of the danza elders 
Andres Segura and Florencio Yescas, we Chicanos quickly latched on to 
what appeared to be a living link to our indigenous roots as "Aztecas".  
Over time from murals, music, literature, theater, to political 
ideology, the "Azteca" image, and self-identity permeated Chicano 
culture, and spirituality.  Even the Catholic church, for centuries the 
ambivalent exterminator of precolumbian religion, readily accepted the 
"tonantzin"  identification of Guadalupe  (to better bring in the 
Mexican immigrants into the American fold).

 From the 1980's on, young Chicanos,  those that had maintained their 
contact with the sun dance, the  Native American Church, etc. began to 
politicize and take their version of "Aztecaness"  to the logical 
extreme. Using the name of the Culhua-Tenochca-Mexi'ca of Tenochtitlan 
as the ideological Ying for the Spanish Yang of Mexican identity, the 
Mexihca movement was born.

I truly believe that the Mexihca movement is a logical outcome of the 
American culture of  bipolar identity.  That is we against them, black 
against white, Christian against heathen, capitalist against communist 
(or whatever took its place), red state against blue state. Most of the 
followers of these bipolar allegiances leave absolutely no room for the 
vast middle ground (Please turn you AM dial to any talk show station for 
many sad examples).  It is a historic fact that, protestant 
millennialism, apocalyptic  writings, and  messianic  cults have deeply  
influences the  manifest destiny  mindset of the U.S. This is why after 
three decades of dealing with the most rabid of the follows of the MM I 
call them the Mexihca Nazis.  They hate anyone and anything that does 
not look act, or think like them.  If you question their beliefs, and 
you are a Mexican/Chicano/Latino/Hispanic/Mojado/Pollo.....etc. etc., 
you are automatically a sell out a traitor and an wannabe white 
person.... shades of Al-Qaeda!

I believe that the Mexihca movement is a logical continuation of this 
cultural phenomenon.  The inexperience  I have had with traditional 
people in the U.S.  and Mexico has  been one of  acceptance of 
diversity, respect for other value systems, and most importantly of all, 
an understanding that we are living in the modern world, not 1491.  The 
kind people I can call family in Second Mesa, Hopiland, Paguate Pueblo 
in Laguna, Tepecxictla in Veracruz, and many other traditional places, 
have never been as dogmatic, inflexible, and idealistic as the Mexihca 
movement followers I have dealt with these past 32 years.

/..."Doesn't this disenfranchise (yet again) the many other indigenous 
peoples of Mexico?  How can the Mixtec farm workers up and down the west 
coast of the USA and those of various Mayan ethnic groups resident in 
Florida, to cite but two examples,* relate to a Mexica movement?"*.../

The answer is that they do not.  First of all if you ask a 
macehualtlahto if he or she is Mexihca, they will say "no I am a 
macehaulli"  The real Mexihca fades into mestizaje centuries ago.  True 
someone (like myself) who was born in Mexico City could lay claim to be 
a "true Mexihca" by birth.  But culturally,  Mexico-Tenochtitlan became 
a Spanish "city of palaces" by the late 1600's.  The last barrio of 
Mexihca people, that of San Jose de los Naturales, no longer exists.
The modern Nahuatl (as well as Mazahua, Otomi, Mixteco, Zapoteco, etc.) 
speakers of the city are immigrants from the rural states of Mexico.

/As for the million or so Nahuatl-speaking people of today, isn't 
appropriating their name and aspects of their language-and-culture 
complex also an act of cultural imperialism imposed on them by people 
they don't recognize as fellow macehualtin/nahuatlatohqueh? /

Second of all, poetic, revisionist ideology aside, the modern indigenous 
people (yes including the Nahuatl speaking people of Michoacan, Hidalgo, 
Puebla, Veracruz, Guerrero, Jalisco, etc. etc.)  were the enemies and 
the victims of Mexihca imperialism.  So we do a double insult to these 
people by trying to cram them into the Mexihca movement's bipolar 
identity and political world view.

 Through my study of the Azteca dance tradition of which I have been a 
part of for its first 30 formative years, since its arrival in 1974 to 
today when we have the third generation of danzantes being born, I have 
come to realize that the "Azteca Dance tradition" is NOT Aztec at all!  
It is a beautiful evolution of Chichimeca, Otomi, Puhrepecha, 
Tlaxcalteca, Jonaz, and yes Nahua (not Meixihca) precolumbian traditions 
AND Spanish Catholicism, and African animism. That is why the 
traditional name for "la Danza Azteca" is more in keeping with reality:  
La danza Conchera, La danza Chichimeca, la danza de la conquista.  Of 
course there will be many MNs who will find offense with my epiphany of 
la danza./

While the movement you describe has obvious appeal to many people of 
Mexican heritage in both the USA and Mexico,* I have wondered about the 
single-minded focus on the Uto-Aztecan peoples and in particular the 
Aztecs.  */
/
/About 1989,  as part of my work with the Early Academic outreach 
Program at UCSD,  I went and gave a presentation to some Mixteco high 
school students in Fallbrook, CA.  There, they and their parents wrked 
in the avocado groves that have overrun the dry semi-desert moutnains of 
the area.  There was at that time  three prong ethinc strife at the 
local high school  Native Ameridcans from the local reservations against 
the Chicano/Mexicano students, and both these groups against the recent 
Mixteco immigrants who the Chicano students disparagingly called 
"Oaxacas".  A young Mexihca Nazi type was wroking with them, and I sat 
and listend to his presentation where he brow beat the Mixteco students 
for not following their "ancient Mexihca ways!"  He put down their 
language because it was not Nahuatl, and he told them that they need to 
follwo the teachings of s "traditonal Azteca Elder" who lived in L.A. 
and who knwe the secret and ancient wisdom that had been handed down 
from Cuautemoc. His cultural imerpialsim, lack of sensitivity to the 
immigrant youths struggles and their pride in the Mixteco culture was 
offensive.  He was more imperialistic and racist thatn the white 
studentss and staff of the high school that tormented the Mixteco kids 
on a daily basis./
/
One of the sad experiences I had in the summer Nahuatl Institute in 
Zacatecas ( an incredible learning experience I might add: 
www.idiez.org.mx ) was when I sat in to listen to the Macehual students 
from Veracruz, San Luis Potosi, and Hidalgo discuss their definitions 
for the upcoming Nahuatl dictionary for Nahuatl speakers.
When the definition of Macehual came up there was a discussion of who 
was a macehual (an indigenous person) and who was a coyomeh (non 
indigenous people)
one person said that a Macehual was a person born in Mexico who had 
indigenous blood. John Sullivan pointed to me and said I was born in "el 
D.F." and I obviously had indigenous blood, so way I a macehual?  The 
answer was a unanimous "axcana" ...no.  I and all Chicanos are Coyomeh,  
like whites, and blacks, and Asians,  because I did not speak an 
indigenous language from birth, did not live an indigenous life, and did 
not understand the indigenous world view that permeates the daily lives 
of the Macehualmeh.  I was devastated! I had been an "Azteca" dancer for 
32 years, studied Nahuatl language, thought, culture, medicine, food, 
music..... and yet I was not better than the man selling T-shirts 
outside the Super bowl... But the students went on to say that John and 
I, as well as the other students who where their for the summer course 
were "cualli coyomeh"  good outsiders.... and that was the key.  Coyomeh 
does not mean "white" or "hated evil white devil" as I have heard some 
Mexihca Nazis claim.  it simply means an outsider, one who does not 
belong to the local world view. Even an indigenous person can be a 
coyomeh.  as an example, a Maya from Palenque  is a coyomeh in 
Chicontepec, Veracruz. 

To fantasize that all indigenous people like and love each other, and 
live in a uotpoia, is to negate the human natuer of indigenous poeple 
and to put them on that same tired old bipolar  pedestal of  "noble savage"

Thus the new indigenous immigrant cannot  be  expected to jump in head 
first into a political and idealogical movement that  does not  reflect  
their culture back home,  claims to be the ONLY  TRUE path to 
self-determination, AND preaches hatred and imperialism.  On the 
contrary,  My experience has been that many recent immigrants look to 
the Catholic church, and and the ever growing Latino evangelical 
churches, for community, support and economic stability.

/"...The term "Meso-America"--while literally meaning the same 
thing--has been used for a long time to refer to the well-defined 
culture area ranging from northern Mexico through El Salvador and 
Nicaragua.  //Within this ancient area, into which the Nahuah were late 
arrivals, there are many unrelated indigenous languages but many shared 
cultural features./..."

I know several persons of Peruvian, Salvadoran, Guatemalteco, and 
Costarican heritage that call themselves Chicano. Some even practice the 
Azteca dance tradition can call it their "ancient heritage"  I believe 
that the many shared cultural features of modern Latin America, as 
evolving within the U.S. have created a modern "mesoamerica" identity.  
At the far left extreme are the Mexihca Nazis, who want to "take back 
their land" (never mind that it was not the white Mexican elite's land 
to give away, sell or lose in the first place.... it belonged to the 
indigenous nations that first Spain, then Mexico, and last the U.S. 
plundered and exterminated...).  They sit in the same penalty box that 
Al-Qaeda, the fundamentalist Jews, Christians, Hindus White/black/brown 
supremicists, etc. sit in.  Then on the extreme far right are the 
Hispanics.  They are the people who have "made it"  by their own 
"individual effort " (never mind the racism, and cultural genocide, and 
identity theft they had to endure).  They have arrived at the holy grail 
of "the American dream"... the middle class, that speaks without any 
"foreign accent"  They see "Hispanic" culture as something to roll out 
on cinco de Mayo, or Hispanic heritage month. They are not interested in 
indigenous thought, culture, identity or politics, because they (at 
least in their mind) have overcome, surpassed or left behind this rather 
frightening (due to its dark brown skin and black hair) identity in 
favor of the eminently marketable blond Shikira, J.L0 and Paulina Rubio.

It is in the great middle ground, where people of all colors, 
ethnicities, religions sexual preferences, and languages, create and 
evolve the dynamic realities of 21st century culture.  As poeple who are 
deeply interested in the legacy, development and survival of the 
"mesoamerican" indigenous people,  AND their cultural, spiritual and 
genetic link to the modern world,  we must keep in  mind that any 
extremist ideology, on the left or the right, ultimately leads to nihilism.

mario
www.mexicayotl.org
/I live for reasoned, enlightened spirituality./

Frances Karttunen wrote:
> I certainly agree with many points in your paper, but I also think 
> your bibliography needs expansion, and the place to start would be 
> with James Lockhart's big book, The Nahuas After the Conquest.
>
> While the movement you describe has obvious appeal to many people of 
> Mexican heritage in both the USA and Mexico, I have wondered about the 
> single-minded focus on the Uto-Aztecan peoples and in particular the 
> Aztecs.  Doesn't this disenfranchise (yet again) the many other 
> indigenous peoples of Mexico?  How can the Mixtec farm workers up and 
> down the west coast of the USA and those of various Mayan ethnic 
> groups resident in Florida, to cite but two examples, relate to a 
> Mexica movement?
>
> As for the million or so Nahuatl-speaking people of today, isn't 
> appropriating their name and aspects of their language-and-culture 
> complex also an act of cultural imperialism imposed on them by people 
> they don't recognize as fellow macehualtin/nahuatlatohqueh?
>
> Also, it seems that you are equating "Mexican" and "Central American" 
> in your paper, but most people use "Central America" to refer to the 
> countries south of Mexico through Panama. The term 
> "Meso-America"--while literally meaning the same thing--has been used 
> for a long time to refer to the well-defined culture area ranging from 
> northern Mexico through El Salvador and Nicaragua.  Within this 
> ancient area, into which the Nahuah were late arrivals, there are many 
> unrelated indigenous languages but many shared cultural features.
>
> Frances Karttunen
>
>
> On Apr 14, 2006, at 7:15 PM, David Becraft wrote:
>
>> I just finished a research paper for my Anthropology 301 class with 
>> Dr. Anne Chambers of Southern Oregon University.  Please review it 
>> and critique it at:
>> http://panchobecraft.blogspot.com/
>>
>
>
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