#aztlan

Espiritu Chicano (facebook)

What is Aztlan? And, why does it matter? What is its significance today? Aztlan is the ancestral home of the Mexica (or the Aztecs) and other prominent tribes and peoples, the birthplace of the Mexican, the homeland to the Chicano. It is located in the U.S. Southwest. This land was stolen from Mexico by the United States, although money was exchanged, after the War against Mexico in 1848 - land previously Mexican, now part of the U.S. Chicanos are people of Mexican descent born in the U.S. The term Chicano/a became widely used during the Chicano Movement of the 60's by many Mexican Americans to express a Political stance founded on a pride in a shared cultural, ethnic, and community identity - a shunning of assimilation! But, Aztlan is more than a geographic location, a place. It is a consciousness! It is a RETURN to our roots! Aztlan is having a sense of belonging, of being. Aztlan is now about more than lost land. It is about identity and legitimacy! The re-adopting of our native, indigenous identity helped to build a powerful sense of community among Chicanos. It provided Chicanos with a single identity they could rightfully claim as their own, one which facilitated cultural pride and unity! No longer having to balance existence between Mexican and "American", and no longer with a foot in two different worlds - Chicanos have our own culture, giving us a rightful belonging, a narrative of origin! By returning to, and reconnecting to our Native roots we reject colonialism. We reclaim and we will preserve our cultural practices. They are essential in the combatting of the oppressive and colonizing stance of the tyrant. We refuse to be swallowed up by the oppressor, to be victims of cultural genocide. We will not assimilate. Aztlan remains a very important symbol today in shaping the Chicano identity. The notion of an "ancestral homeland" is critically essential in the developing of an identity because it provides an origin story, an ancient and indigenous culture that all Chicanos can relate to in a multicultural world. It is the concept of reclaiming our independence and identity from an oppressor. Aztlan gives us legitimacy. We are a people, a nation - with our own history, a legendary history! We have our own culture. We belong on this land. In fact, we belong to the land! No matter where each one of us live physically, we are one people. We are not strangers, or illegals, or aliens, or immigrants, or foreigners. We are citizens of Aztlan. It is our Homeland.

El Mapa de Sigüenza (The Sigüenza Map)

When arguing for deportation: These people are not part of western civilization, they are savages unlike us!

A Revolutionary Revival of The Revolutionary Republics

The past five years have proven to be extraordinary. The flames of revolution have burned brighter than ever since the turn of the millennia. With this, the imperial world grips tighter, too. Even still, from Africa to the Middle East, from the Americas to Asia, we see the rejection of the imperial system, especially that of US imperialism. This starkly contrasts the relative 'peace' of the 90's and 2010's. In five years, we have seen wars fought and ended, we've witnessed genocides start, and the world's reaction (and non-reaction) to those genocides ring around the globe. Especially in what we consider the Imperial core. In Europe, we see an unprecedented break in the bloc, with the foreign policy of many of the European powers turning sharply from set US doctrine. France and Britain, both imperialist powers, have an unprecedented change in their policy towards Israel and relations between the Zionist state and France and Britain are turning decidedly colder as they both state they can no longer 'ignore' Israel's crimes. On the other hand, states like Germany and Poland refuse and break and, along with the US, continue to support the Zionist entity even despite pressure from the working class in their countries. 

The apartheid entity's genocide in Gaza has proven to be embers on brush and caused unrest in many countries over the inaction or outward support of their governments for Israel, as well as dividing the Western imperial bloc over the issue. This unrest is also apparent in the occupied Turtle Island (North America). Canada, The United States, and Mexico have all faced unrest over the issue of Israel. Unrest in the latter two countries has only been increased by the growing US reaction. The unrest over the issue of Israel, US economic weakness, exploitation of culture war issues, and broader Imperial losses in the previous years have fueled the reactionary right of the United States to throw the Imperial Boomerang abroad. The Biden administration's failure to maintain dominance in the Sahel, the end of the imperial occupation of Afghanistan, as well as its failure to cripple or destroy Ansrallah in Operation Prosperity Guardian were apparent failures of American Imperial policy abroad—the latter two, which became major talking points of the American reactionary movement. The aforementioned unrest over the inaction of the Democratic party, in particular over the genocide in Gaza, and the growing culture war divide between the reactionary and non-reactionary sections of the Proletariat have left the United States of America grappling with their Imperial, Economic, and Racial, Sexual and Ideological positions. This was the United States's position before the conclusion of the 2024 election. After this, most of these issues expanded, and the embers were set on fire. The Trump Administration launched another operation to counter Yemen's blockade of Israel unsuccessfully.

Cultural war issues were put at the forefront of politics, and the US made several financial mistakes that caused economic unrest worldwide that we still do not know the consequences of. The US weakened its foreign policy even further by alienating its disjointed bloc and pulling away from the world stage. The implementation of far-reaching reactionary policies further fanned the flames of the volatile and uncertain situation in the US. In the summer of 2025, these flames are only growing. The reactionary government of the United States is using the Department of Homeland Security and its subordinate agency, ICE, as secret police to launch mass deportations across the country and targeting primarily Chicanos, Latin Migrants from all over the Americas and Indigenous people. These mass deportations have culminated in riots and action against the forces of the reactionary ICE, DHS and local police that support them. In Houston, San Antonio and Los Angeles, protests have been significant and fierce against ICE and the Reactionary government, with the largest protests in AL turning into clashes against DHS agents, local law enforcement and the National Guard against the mass deportations. 

The recent events leave high tensions at a boiling point and an uncertain future. Leaving many asking a simple question. What is to be done? I set out to look to the historic Revolutionary Republics for a solution to the US national question and the place of the historic Revolutionary Republics in current revolutionary politics. Let's begin by discussing what I mean by the "Revolutionary Republics". This is quite simple, referring to the historic proposals of revolutionary independent republics based on the self-determination of peoples and decolonisation of the occupied lands of the US and including but not limited to the general Land Back movement, the proposal of the Republic of New Afrika and Aztlan. These movements share basic goals of decolonisation, self-determination, anti-racism, and usually some revolutionary tendency of Marxism or Socialism. These movements found their basis in the revolutionary movements of the 60s and 70s. Although not as prominent today, these movements and the framework give us lessons to learn from and a political line to move towards for the decolonisation of the United States. We must move towards the Revolutionary Republics.  

The reactionary violence perpetrated by The imperial bourgeois class in America, both in its occupied territories and abroad, with the support of the white proletarian labour aristocracy in recent years, has led to the current head of the dire need to solve the fundamental questions of the matter of decolonisation of the United States (and the Americas more broadly). The African, Chicano, and Indigenous Americans make up around 45% of the American working class, not accounting for the imported labour and exported US industry. In the day of their original conception, the working class was far more dominated by white workers than it is now. Yet still, both the Black Working class and Chicano Working class strove for their rights as human beings for self-determination and the decolonisation of the Imperial US State. In our modern day, with mass deportation and a further fascist and reactionary movement in the US pushing towards the reality of an even harsher modern Jim Crow and the framework for genocidal removal of Chicanos and Native Americans from their occupied lands has made this political line a necessity. For the defence of Chicano, African and Indigenous communities, the rightful self-determination of these peoples, and to right the wrongs of the settler colonial United States before the settler movement gets even worse. 

First, let us look at the Republik of New Afrika. The Republik of New Afrika was first conceptualised at the Black Government Congress in 1968 after the fallout of the Detroit Riots in 1967. The Malcolm X Society and the Group on Advanced Leadership proposed the idea. At the conference, they set out and drafted a constitution and a declaration of independence and agreed on the Republic's borders. They also established a provisional governmental body, appointing Robert F. Williams as its first president. Robert was living in exile in China at the time of appointment, where he worked with Chairman Mao and educated the Chinese on the Black Liberation Movement. Well, he kept cultivating it with the lessons he learned there. In 1968, a delegation of The Republik of New Africa travelled to China, where Robert accepted his position. In this form, the Republik of New Africa was a significant component in the Black Power movement, with major parties like the BPP, BLA, and more supporting it and making liberation a primary goal. 

Today, the Republic still plays a massive part in Black Culture and revolutionary thought. The Republic of New Afrika must be established to represent the Africans who were kidnapped to the continent and their right of self-determination alongside the indigenous peoples that once called the occupied land of the Republic home. 

Aztlan was founded as an idea in very similar circumstances. The racism and oppression that Chicanos and Mexicans faced in the '60s were very similar to the plight of their African brothers fighting Jim Crow with very identical enemies. The white terrorist group the KKK hunted for Mexicans and 'guarded' the border in Texas, California, and other states, giving them free rein to lynch Chicanos and Mexican migrant workers.

At the same time, many of the same ways the white system disenfranchised and took away the rights of black people, both historically and today, also affect Chicanos and Latin migrants.  With this background, the manifesto of Aztlan was published in 1969 titled Plan Espiritual de Aztlán. Which set out a seven-part manifesto for the foundation of Aztlan and the protection of the rights of the Chicano people. 1. Unity, 2. Economy, 3. Education, 4. Self-Defense, 5. Institutions 6. Cultural 7. Political Liberation. These were the main points set out in the Plan Espiritual de Aztlan. Unity calls for the unity of Chicanos, the working class, and the middle class (and other groups) to be united in the liberation of Aztlan, setting out a similar unity principle as set out by Mao and Lin Biao in the doctrine of People's War. Economy calls for economic independence so that the Chicano working class should own their means of production for a more equal economic system based on the distribution of the economic resources. Education called for teaching Chicano history from a Chicano perspective. Self-defence calls for the right of the Chicano community to protect their communities and families from the outside threats of white hate groups, the fascist police and the military and calls for the formation of principled revolutionary defensive bodies. Institutions state that the Republic should serve the necessary means for all people in the Republic to live a full life and for the welfare of the people. And the restitution for past economic slavery. Culture calls for the rights and respect of Chicano culture and its right to exist. Political liberation calls for the Chicano to form revolutionary parties and bodies to liberate themselves. Recognising that the two white supremacist parties will never care for the rights and self-determination of the Chicano, it states the Chicano must follow the struggle for political liberation separately from the mainstream white supremacist capitalist politic. 

Many critics of Aztlan and Chicano nationalism exist both without and with valid points. One of the valid criticisms of the Chicano movement came from the Indigenous peoples. In the foundation of New Africa and Aztlan, the Indigenous peoples' will was not addressed appropriately, and we in the modern day must listen to and address them. The indigenous peoples must be allowed to pursue their rights as humans and workers to create their nations and have separate paths in the decolonisation of America! Indigenous peoples must have a voice and be listened to. Their rights must be respected, and the reparations in both the land that they were exterminated from and the economic, sexual and political slavery they have been forced under for the last 500 years be faced. Reparations for these horrid crimes must be made. The decolonisation and the whole writing of this paper means nothing if Aztlan and New Afrika do not listen to the indigenous peoples who were here first. Chicano culture specifically must be decolonised, and the role their ancestors played in the settler colonialism in the continent must be realised. The road ahead is long, and we must listen to our indigenous comrades lest this be for nothing at all. The decolonisation of America can only be achieved when the settler culture and settler systems are destroyed and a cultural revolution of decolonisation and cultural revival has occurred. 

So then, what is to be done? The answer is simple. Modern revolutionary bodies set forward and set in stone the political line of decolonisation, self-determination, economic liberation, and cultural revolution through the revolutionary tactics of people's war. The establishment of revolutionary provisional bodies led by the people for the self-defence and determination of the people and to set forward political education against settlers and reactionism. Whether the decolonisation of the Americas will follow the line I have put forward here is hard to say. I also do not know whether the historic republics will face a revival or be left to the past. However, I see them, at least in their goals and frameworks, as the guiding light we need to set forth for the liberation of the Americas. We must stand as educated and principled revolutionaries to liberate the Americas, and to do this, we should look toward the Republics. 

We must set forward and either change the current parties, i.e. turn the non-revolutionary bodies (PSL, DSA, CPUSA) into revolutionary bodies headed by our political line set here for the total decolonisation of the United States and have it set that our revolutionary bodies are set in the total economic liberation of all oppressed people in the Americas and that our revolutionary organisation are firmly set to the destruction of the settler culture and systems of the Americas. We also need to find our revolutionary bodies to safeguard the political line set forward here and provide self-defence and revolutionary education to the oppressed peoples of the non-revolutionary bodies that do not embrace the correct and revolutionary political line.  

The reactionary forces in America are stronger than ever, and fascism is here; it is the duty of all workers to combat this and protect their communities, and this revolutionary political line should be that framework. This framework is brief and relies on some teachings from the revolutionaries in Asia, mainly Chairman Mao, Ho Chi Minh, and others. We must look to the victories of their political line and their failures as both revolutions fell into reactionism and capitalist degeneration after their deaths and in the case of China becoming an imperialist superpower like the Soviet Union. We must secure the decolonial revolution and safeguard it afterwards because a new era of capitalism and settlerism must not take root in the Americas once the revolution is victorious. 

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