Chicano. The word just ain’t what it used to be. Seems like nowadays anybody could call themselves Chicano and nobody would argue, especially if you’re walking around rocking Aztec tattoos. The term has lost its meaning, its vision, its drive, its purpose, and its very intellectual root.
See, being Chicano doesn’t mean that your parents are Mexican and you were here - it is so much deeper and more important than that. Leaving it as a racial term makes the word generic and mediocre, like calling yourself an American. What is that supposed to mean nowadays? If any “Mexican-American” could call themselves Chicano, we only group ourselves with the lower and lesser parts of “our race”.
My brother gave me a good example that I happen to agree with:
I’ve tried to see us all as one blood, raza, and one family. But then you get that guy dressed in his ostrich-skin suit, gold medals of the Virgen de Guadalupe and an even bigger one of an AK-47, and a huge, sparkly weed plant on the back of his jacket - that’s when I say “Nah, it can’t be”.
So now what? Do you include that person as part of your own, well knowing that he stands for everything you fight against? What about gang bangers? What about wife beaters? What about drug dealers, users and drunkards? Do we let them be a part of us and what we aim for in life?
Of course not! They are not Chicanos. They are fuck ups that shouldn’t have a chance at this precious gift we call life. They only add to the pressure, stress, violence, frustrations, and strife. For me to define you by the same identity I define myself and others like myself would only be me shitting on my own being.
Because being Chicano means you are knowledgeable enough to do good for yourself, your family, and your community. Being Chicano means you help those in need; not in “giving a man a fish”, but in “teaching him how to fish”. We are pushers, movers, and shakers, not those that move with whatever is pushing and shaking us.
We are innovators in whatever we do. Our music, our art, our dances, our very culture should be distinctively and crucially one of our own. We should not be sucked in to make our culture one that we must forcibly assimilate into (Americanism). On the other hand, our culture should not be one in which we keep our eyes locked on our past (in my case, a history based on Mexica/Indigenous culture). Neither does us any good: in the first, we are stuck with the present day bullshit in which we live in. In the latter, we only keep bitching about our20past. We keep yelling “We gotta take back Aztlán!” and come out as nothing but a whining, bitchy population that gets nowhere in action. They are both backward steps and they are both mental and intellectual traps.
The key is to make our own, brand-new culture, leaving our own dent in history. We are a people who don’t take shit from anybody. We are a people who will never compromise or sellout our vision. We are a people who fight for what we know is right, rather than what others believe is right.
This being said, Chicano is no longer a racial term, but a mental, spiritual, and intellectual identity. So now when they come and ask “what are you?”, stand tall and proud and still say Chicano, knowing that it has nothing to do with race. What does it matter, right? What does it matter if you are a good person who fights for what is right and is intelligent enough to know what right is?
So now I’m glad the term Chicano isn’t what it used to be as it has grown and matured into a more powerful and intellectual concept. We Chicanos come together as20brown, black, white, and yellow people seeking to destroy the slave mentality taking over our human race. We do not think of ourselves as “free-thinkers” because there is no such thing - all ideas are in one way or another installed into your mind by different ideas and mediums and could never be free-minded in this society of dishonesty, self-loathing and media dominance. But we are intelligent thinkers, we are spiritual warriors, and we are organic intellectuals.
This being said,beginning this day and for all eternities to come -
Forget Chicano as a racial term -
It is an automatic rifle mindset.
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