Chicano needs for self-determination have been tumultously propounded by would-be ideologists and sociologically oriented saviours during the past fifty years, yet their ramblings have failed to cast a true, meaningful look at what it is that the Chicano wants, what the Chicano manifests with his every act and word. The latest in a long series of self-proclaimed Chicano experts to study the Chicano is Stan Steiner, who, I feel, crucifies his subjects rather than suffer the stings of arrows himself. Steiner's myopic study of La Raza is more farcical than factual; more projection than observation, and more in keeping with the bland image of the gringo of himself than with the recording of the virile machismo and hembra-ismo of La Raza.

Stan Steiner and all self-proclaimed experts on minorities should go and study the weird habits of the gringo-from the heinous perversity of Manhattan (where people are plastic) to the sordidness of the South; from the infested sores and hunger of Appalachia to the mafiosi hideousness of Chicago; and from the putrid avariciousness of the Texas Tragic Valley to the sophisticated hypocrisy of California . . . therein lie the fertile fields of fermented racism of the gringo for them to study! There and nowhere else.

From the placid valleys that they describe-in reality, valles repletos de orgullo y desmadrazgo-to the urban settings they depict, there survive a people with enough spirit to have been able to thwart the genocidic mania of Amerika.

What is this mass of brown people? Who are they? Where do they come from? What are their goals, objectives, and reasons for seeking a change in the status quo they have been forced into? The Chicano is a product of linguistic and cultural dichotomiesMexicanism, with its fervor, spiciness, piquancy, and humanistic sense of life, and the desmadrazgo of being forced to live under the oppressiveness of the anglo-amerikan system of exploitation. Granted that not all things amerikan are of an exploitative nature-just most of them.

The desolate Southwest, with its sage, cacti, and serene beauty, is largely populated by the Chicano. As to who the Chicano is, he is español merging with naturaleza indigena-a composite of passion, compassion, cariño, and humanness. A pride of being, family, and comradeship becomes a dominant force, and the human dynamic of never forgetting, slighting, nor exploiting one's people takes on the disciplined philosophy of La Raza Cósmica. This sense of self (machismo for the man and hembra-ismo for the woman) takes on the trappings of a beautiful daily life experience-affirmation and confirmation of one's existential reality. Thus Chicanos hold their heads high and proclaim their right to dignity and human decency. This sense of human-hood has been the victim of u.s. suppression, and it is mainly an unvoiced protest/indictment against this alien culture (the gringo system) that Chicanos continue speaking their own language. What is unrealistically considered the amerikan way of life is basically an alien form of cretinism to the Chicano-for how can these foreigners be American, when the Chicano has antecedents in these lands (the Americas) that precede the gringo and his systematized racism by at least 12,000 years.

A people who had once walked this land proudly and with dignity were made to feel less than human by the invaders. The Chicano-whose name comes from Meshicano, the original name of the Aztecs (the spaniard heard about these Indians coming from Aztlán, so he called them Aztecas)-has traditionally been on the receiving end of the exploitative, racist, and imperialistic debauchers of the world. First the gachupin and later the gringo. About the only difference between the gachupin and gringo is that the gringo would never think of merging with different peoples, an hispano/indio confluence-both culturally and physically.

The latest invaders of Aztlán, in their racist onslaughts on the Chicano, managed to dispossess the Chicano. Chicano lands became gringolandia. Under the force of gun and whip. Chicano labor built up the huge agricultural combines of the Southwest for the foreign invader with the blue eyes and quick, silvery tongues that promised much and delivered neo-colonism and slavery.

My people-La Raza Cósmica y Chicana-were thus re-enslaved. It was but another conundraic moment of servitude imposed by the many despots that the Chicano would come to know by many a different name-español, gringo, sistema, etc. At this moment, with all its rhetoric of freedom and mothered-up sentiments of would-be democratic life, now-today-in the 20th Century, Chicanos are still slaving and feeling the brunt and whip of this mad-dog society. Peonage is a reality in much of the migrant stream; disenfranchisement is a tautology in the barrios; and hatred against Chicanos is one of the stronger forces running rampant from one point of Amerika' to the other.

Amidst the hurly-burly clowning of national figureheads-paint them white and exploitative-come statistics attesting that Chicanos earned their rightful place in society during the war (WW II), and they also go so far as to say that out of that war came many Chicanos who took advantage of Amerika's goodies by enrolling in colleges under the G.I. Bill of Rights. True, some Chicanos earned degrees; some even wrote treatises; and others were given highly paid window dressing government jobs. What is precisely true is that all of them only got menial tasks to perform. These (not even vendidos, for no one cared enough to buy them, but regalados, for they gave themselves cheaply to a system only interested in Judas Sheep) did the bidding of society. They returned to set up the G.I. Forum, Good Americans Organization, LULACS, etc. Under these bogus terms came about the impetus for social justice. Returning combat heroes (during and after the 2nd World War) demanded a change of venue. Carnales who had the huevos (courage) to amass the highest concentration of National Medals of Honor awarded to any ethic/racial group (same holds for Korea and maybe Viet Nam), now ate up the resonant rhetoric of their having earned their rights. By blood and gore, they had striven to prove themselves Americans. Amerika, by default and fraud, had proven itself unyielding to the clarion calls for justice-and Amerika proceeded to further enslave, through the jargon of assimilation and integration, a people who had their own culture and language.

For such a long time we had been duped-duped that we had to earn essential human rights. We who had walked this land before there was a Columbus-walked these lands 10,000 years before Christ walked in Galilee. Some of us came back from that miserable war-Guadalcanal had our blood on its beachheads, so did Europe. Some of us were not willing to turn tail nor be relegated to stooging out lackey errands at the whim and call of the gringo hierarchy. Some of us, with medals in our pockets, were killed for wanting service in cafes and restaurants-from Denver to L. A. to el Valle Mágico. Some of us, combat trained and aggravated beyond recall, went back into the barrios, into the turbulent mass movement of the Pachuco: America was not willing-nor prepared-to receive the Chicano. And the Chicano not being too articulate, not yet being a politicized organizer, and not having avenues for meaningful confrontation, asserted his machismo in the garments of el bato loco (hipster): zootsuits, ducktailed haircut, khaki pants, french toed shoes, switchblade, chains, and caló (the language of the barrio). These formed his fighting and all around uniform. The rejecter came about-the kind of Chicano who wound up telling Amerika to go to hell. He was more than merely dispossessed-he was, in short, totally disgusted with Amerika and wanted no part of it. His motto was not "separated on the streets and integrated between the sheets." He was not out to barter his soul for a new car.

Thus the Pachuco became a movements movement that had its genesis in El Paso, Texas. A city that would become known among the carnales as El Chuco (the pachuco city). The Pachuco movement went back many years-to the 1930's in the streets of el Segundo Barrio. It took the war years and heightened hysteria in Amerika for the pachuco to become known. These were the first Chicanos in large numbers to become dedicated to fighting back, dedicated to protecting the community at all costs. These batos locos, with crosses tattooed on their hands, had a deep sense of respect and love for their families. In his low-riding uniform, he cruised the streets-not asking, but demanding and taking what rightfully belonged to him. Though it was not an organized thing, Pachuco groupings popped up everywhere. Every city or hamlet where Chicanos make up part of the population had its clique. Even songs were written about them-Pachuco Hop, La Pachuquilla,etc.

In east el chuco, there by the El Paso Coliseum was an old barrio-El Barrio Del Diablo. Here lived the batos from the X-9 gang. Batos sworn to protect the barrio from gringos. During my youth, I never saw gringos walk through that barrio. It was not until the mass media and the police destroyed us that gringos were able to walk those streets. They destroyed us by lying to our people-by convincing the older Chicanos that pachucos were just a bunch of hop-heads who blasted pot and cooked little children. Vicious portraits were painted of us. Not all gringos hated us-for a lot of them copied us (hairstyles, stomper gangs, etc.), the only difference being that we were trying to keep all gringos out of our lands.

The horrors of the Amerikan dream and the awesomeness of racist reality forced the Chicano to seek escape. Drug cultism became an avenue for blotting out the dream-that vicious dream with its multiheaded dis-realities. There were no ideologists or ideationists then to structure out a revolutionary thought pattern or to educate the people. La Raza had only the emotional outbursts of Pachuco spirit to guide it. The danger of drugs, and their subsequent circumvention of the need for a new society, was not taken into account. The Pachuco gave birth (on a large scale) to the Chicano civil rights movement. Regrettably, this mass social protest was aborted, for frustration, hunger, oppression, racism, imperialism, et al, were neither intellectualized by the community nor explained. Society first sought to ignore Pachucos by disregarding the plight of the Chicano masses. Finding that Pachuco activity was disrupting Southwestern economy, the power elite (gringos) had all its resources structure out a campaign to disparage, destroy, and annihilate Pachuquismo before it could influence more Chicanos.

Police officials (los perros) and gentlemen (?) from the Amerikan Press called the Pachucos a menace, a disgrace, hoodlum, criminal, vicious, and horrible offshoot of La Raza. Older Chicanos (striving for acceptance from the gringo) believed in their minds what their hearts rejected, and they too turned against the bato loco. Chicanitos were made to feel even more ashamed of being not only Chicanos, but Pachucos. More and more, repression in the Southwest took on the Hitlerian garments of racist, genocidic madness.

Lack of organizational skills forced the Pachuco to go underground during the late 50's. Submerged, he lay-thinking, plotting, and soaking up organizational skills. The plight of La Raza had to be alleviated, somehow ... and soon!

Education for the Chicano was, and continues to be, a farce. The Amerikan education system has methodically endeavored to destroy the sense of culture and Chicanismo of La Raza. Courses have been oriented solely to the gringo and his whims-thus we find that all school courses come under the label of White Studies. Never have Chicanos been taken into consideration, other than when vocational courses in plumbing, street cleaning, etc., have been in the planning stage or when school districts are about to ask the federal government for more money.

Schools throughout the Chicano Southwest have traditionally punished children for speaking Spanish on the school grounds, unless the child happens to be white, then said child is commended for being precocious. The punishment meted out basically consists of swats, scoldings, or staying after class to write "I WILL NOT SPEAK FILTHY SPANISH" 500 or more times.

A system that hates naturally tanned, other language speaking people, yet preoccupies itself with becoming tanned (via bottles of bronzing emulsions) and strives to learn Spanish, French, etc., is a very sick system. It is a system that bewilders people whose only interest has been to live and let live, to love, share and help.

The disparity between material hedonism and the puritan ethic has caused the Chicano to view society with horror. Not wanting to compete in racing toward total or partial de-humanization, the Chicano has dropped out oftentimes. Society, in not leaving the Chicano alone, has oftentimes forced the Chicano to lash out with blade and anguish. In spite of our constantly telling this damn nation to back off and let us be, we are consistently harrassed and maltreated. Our homes are broken into by cops; our brothers are shot down in bars; our people are brutalized; and even those Chicanos with skills and power are abused (witness the assassination of Rubén Salazar). There will be no Watts for us, but rather a succession of Kern Place in El Paso, River Oaks in Houston, Wilshire and Beverly Hills in L. A., Nob Hill in San Francisco, the Heights in Albuquerque, etc. 140 years of confronting this society has left us with sensitivity to the vitriol of this genocidically manic nation. Our chests now swell with anger, and every gringo-CADA UNO DE ESOS PINCHES GRINGOS- is a target. There can be no escape for anyone for his/her culpability. Just as all Germans are responsible for the frenzied idiocy of Hitler and the Nazis, so are all gringos in Amerika responsible and guilty for the debauching of La Raza! There is no way for them to cop out, they are indicted once and for all in the reality of history.

Discontent, lethargy, hate, turbulent twinges of revenge, a driving energy to fire at the world, a million drives and furies: these make up the new zoot suit of the revolutionary. Thinking has jelled. Now there is structure and organization. The ancient cry of the Meshica (Ni Tlaca-Aztlán/I too am human-my bronze lands) has taken on a new lustre. The Brown Berets, MAYO, MAYA, MAPA, CRUSADE FOR JUSTICE, and other organizations have started on the road to taking reparations and following through with planned out strategies. The Chicano, in the main, never did-and still does not-want assimilation; there is no sexualized compulsion for making love to a blue-eyed, blonde gringa. The Chicano has ever been calling for that which is his by rights-moral rights. Ours is indeed a question of morality versus the anti-human stance of the Nixons of the world and all their jive about law and order. Their laws and their orders-things which legalize the persecution and manic genocide of the peoples of the world. WE DEMAND THE RIGHT TO DIGNITY, THE MANIFESTATION OF DIGNITY IN ALL THAT WE DO; WE DEMAND AND SHALL TAKE THE POWER TO DETERMINE OUR OWN DESTINIES AT WHATEVER THE COST; WE DEMAND FREEDOM!

All the citadels of the Bronze People-El Paso, San Anto, Denver, Alburque, Los, Tierra Amarilia (where Tijerina attacked and fired a meaningful salvo for the freedom of La Raza)-have become haunted by the spectre of Chicano voices angrily demanding, and Chicano actions bringing about revolución. We no longer ask-now we take, and shall continue taking our reparations.

No longer will La Raza allow itself to be exploited. The Del Rio, Texas, Manifesto to the Nation demanded freedom and justice for the Chicano. Denver's Crusade for Justice came out with the "Plan Espiritual de Aztlán," a declaration informing the world that Aztlán belongs to the people, that Chicanos are sovereign. The creation of Colegio Jacinto Treviño in the Valle is but a step toward the fulfillment of our liberation. We shall create our own Chicano society-y si no le gusta al gringo, pues-que el bofo chingue su madre y en abonos pa'que le duela!

There is talk of a 3rd world coalition. Such a coalition is an important factor in the coming changes that shall transform Amerika's barbarity-and-people-chewing into a just society built on love, trust, freedom, justice, and truth-all of which must be weighed humanistically.

Chicanos are now realizing that there is nothing to lose for they have nothing, so therefore there is everything to be gained. That is why more and more Chicanos are prepared to fight, regardless of the consequences, in order to change this heinous social structure that makes slaves and things out of humankind.

Machistic chicanismo with its strong sense of carnalismo has been resurrected. There is more than wishful thinking in our minds and flighty misty hope in our hearts. We have the beauty of our selfawareness (and he who does not love himself does not in fact love anyone else!) which affirms our bronze humanity. We, los mestizos del mundo tercero, are aware that we are not alone in our struggle against the desmadrazgo of the Useless States of Amerika. We affirm that justice, dignity, freedom, and humanness are more than worth fighting for-they are the main reasons for being. We realize that (like our old carnales pachucos) we must prepare to fight our war here in the barrios, campos, y valles-not in Asia. This then is where we shall either bring about change or die fighting for an ideal-an ideal worthy of Cuauhtemoc's blood, Zapata's soul, and the trials and tribulations of La Raza. We must, and shall, do away with el desmadrazgo de ésta sociedad (o-es suciedad?) tan cruel ...

bronze is beautiful 
y al demonio con el gringo, 
ser chicano es vivir 
realidades como humano

ser gavacho es vender 
alma y cuerpo por dinero, 
consumido por racismo 
el gavacho es gringo seco . . .

un canto por la naturaleza chicana y que viva la hermandad, que viva la humanidad . . . viva la revolución!.

EL AÑO CHICANO!