Mexica Movement [Mario]

[David Becraft]

Thank you also for your comments.

I do agree and commend you on your comments.  I think that within the 
framework of racism and bigotry, your comments are well placed and 
definitely point out the danger of being "single-minded"; something of which 
I hope in the future to avoid.  I do think though that the Indigenous people 
need to come out of the Hispanic and Latino labels and identify as being 
"macehualtin" or "cualli coyomeh"[to use your definitions].  The fact that 
you were labeled as Cualli Coyomeh does not deny your Indigenous heritage 
though, as does the Hispanic / Latino labeling; that in essence is the 
purpose of my paper.  I do hope to use these differing and helpful ideas and 
opinions to further my own personal understanding on this subject.

Thank for you insight,

Pancho Becraft


>From: micc2 <micc2 at COX.NET>
>Reply-To: Nahua language and culture discussion <NAHUAT-L at LISTS.UMN.EDU>
>To: NAHUAT-L at LISTS.UMN.EDU
>Subject: Re: Mexica Movement
>Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 11:36:38 -0700
>
>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/
>>>
>>
>>