| Plan Espiritual De Aztlan |
Shopping Espiritual |
Website Links For Plan |
Information AboutPlan Espiritual De Aztlan |
|
BACKGROUND The Chicano Movement was one of many movements of the late 1960s and 1970s, like the Black Power movement of the United States or the Black Consciousness Movement of South Africa, in which people of colour in white-ruled societies adopted the ideas of Nationalist liberation movements that had successfully overthrown Colonial regimes in Africa and Asia. In an area of the United States that had been taken over from Mexico by the United States in the Mexican American War , where Mexican American history was neglected in education, and where discrimination against and segregation of Mexican Americans was common, the idea of a program of Decolonization had special resonance for young Mexican American activists, who called themselves "Chicanos" as a mark of pride. The reconfiguration of the mythic idea of Aztlán was an important part of this movement, and ''El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán'' was an extension of that idea. ORIGIN AND ADOPTION During the conference, a young Poet named Alurista , born in Mexico but raised in San Diego , took the stage. To a captive audience, he read the words, In the spirit of a new people that is conscious not only of its proud historical heritage but also of the brutal " Gringo " invasion of our territories, we, the Chicano inhabitants and civilizers of the northern land of Aztlan from whence came our forefathers, reclaiming the land of their birth and consecrating the determination of our people of the sun, declare that the call of our blood is our power, our responsibility, and our inevitable destiny. The poem, ''El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán'', became the title of the manifesto, and the poem became its preamble. Alurista went on to become the "poet laureate of Aztlán". CRITICISM ''El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán'' contains several controversial statements which have led some civil rights more narrowly within the framework of US citizenship and its market-based economic system, but oppose nationalist rhetoric they view as Separatist , Radical or Anti-capitalist . Statements that have generated controversy include:
RESPONSE TO CRITICISM The ideas of the document can also be seen through the lens of the ideas of thinkers like Franz Fanon , who wrote about the psychological effects of colonization on the colonized, and understood the process of achieving self-determination not only as a process of gaining political power but of attaining pride in one's national and cultural identity. In this analysis, the identity which had been the target of colonization or racism (for instance, being an Algerian under French rule, or a black person under South African Apartheid ) would have to be built up not simply by attaining legal rights but through a process of psychological reclamation of pride. That is, if people did not believe in the legitimacy of their own claim to power, they would not take power even when they could. Whether from the direct influence of Fanon and other intellectuals, the examples of those who adopted these ideas like Che Guevara , or simply through their own convergent analysis of their local situations, a wide range of movements struck similar stances in the same historical period. Thus, a more nuanced criticism of ''El Plan'' might see this document and the movement it represented as an example of the promise and peril of a widely-employed political and cultural strategy. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS |
|
|