Old 10-17-2009, 09:09 AM
ilbegone ilbegone is offline
Enlistee
Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 316
Default
This is in the words of Ernest Vigil, a member of the Crusade for Justice from 1968 to 1981, organizer, activist, and an ethnic and race research associate at the University of Colorado. From his book Crusade for Justice.
Quote:
El Plan Espiritual De Aztlan
The first Denver Youth Conference is best known for a proclamation called El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan, published in English and Spanish and consisting of a preamble and a less well known “program of Action”. The three paragraph preamble read:
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 pour forefathers, reclaiming the land of our birth, and consecrating the determination of our people of the sun, Declare that the call of our blood is our responsibility, and our inevitable destiny.
We are free and sovereign to determine those tasks which are justly called for by our house, our land, the sweat of our brows, and by our hearts. Aztlan belongs to those who plant the seeds and water the fields, and gather the crops, and not to the foreign Europeans. We do not recognize capricious frontiers on the Bronze Continent.
Brotherhood unites us, and love for our brothers makes us a people whose time has come and who struggles against the foreigner “Gabacho”, who exploits our riches and destroys our culture. With our heart in our hands and our hands in the soil, We Declare the Independence of our Mestizo Nation. We are a Bronze People with a Bronze Culture, before all of North America,before all our brothers in the Bronze Continent, We are a Nation, We are a Union of free Pueblos, We are Aztlan – Por La Raza Todo, fuera La Raza Nada. March 1969.
“Aztlan” referred to the origin of the Nahuatl speaking Mexica of Mexico, who are commonly, but incorrectly, referred to a Aztecs. They came from somewhere in Northern Mexico or the present day American southwest. The Mexica, who are not specifically mention in the Plan, arrived nearly one thousand years ago in the Valley of Anahuac, after a long odyssey,and rose to power and splendor until their subjugation by the Spaniards. The location of Aztlan, their homeland, is difficult to ascertain: somewhere between Nayrit, Mexico – 400 miles northwest of Mexico City – and the present day U.S. Southwest. Who could locate, with precision, Aztlan, the ancestral Mexica homeland? Incidentally, no account of Aztlan locates it near Denver, which is 120 miles north of the Arkansas River, Mexico's northern border at the time of the American takeover.
Continued below
|