Hope you all have a good next week
Remember no crackers
this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
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Ethnic Minorities and People of Color
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I want to preface this by saying that I welcome any corrections if I use wrong terminology or offensive language. Please feel free to roast me if I say some reactionary shit.
Hello comrades, I'm looking for some info on chicanismo, primarily our indigenous brother's and sister’s view on it, after watching a video featuring Rick Tabenunaka from Decolonized Buffalo Podcast and his views on chicanismo. His primary thesis is that chicanismo is a settler colonialist project intended to erase the indigenous communities that lived and Live in the area that chicanos call Aztlán. Most of his evidence comes from the fact that early Chicano leaders appropriated the concepts of "La Raza" and "mestizaje" from José Vasconcelos’s book "La raza cósmica" or The Cosmic Race. Things get a little weird when you look into who José Vasconcelos was.
Vasconcelos was a Mexican philosopher and a thought leader of the Mexican revolution who went on to become secretary of education in the new government. In his most famous work, "La raza cósmica", he put forward the theory that since the people of Latin America were a mix of all the world's races they were the prime candidates for the creation of a "fifth race". Things get really bad when you read about his newspaper El Timón. El Timón mostly featured pro Nazi articles, news from the German frontlines, and showcased photos of the "heroic actions" of German, Japanese, and Italian troops. So yeah this dude was a Nazi piece of trash.
This is starting to sound like a hit piece on chicanismo which was not my intention but this new info has given me a little "crisis of faith" surrounding my Mexican identity. I guess I'm just looking for something to help me process this and figure out whether it's a legitimate argument and critique of chicanismo. Thank you for your time and I hope you all have a good day!
I couldn't find the original video I saw so I will post some other ones where Rick also speaks about chicanismo. I will also leave my source on Vasconcelos’s Nazi ties.
This does read like a hit piece against chicanismo, and it should be! Yeah the whole aztlan shit is very settler colonial and appropriates a lot of stuff from pueblos originarios. Like the danza azteca stuff that’s just new age religion and spirituality co opting dances from pueblos originarios.
I luckily never fell into that stuff because for whatever reason I felt iffy about it when i first heard about it and ignored it but i understand the crisis it causes in your mexican identity. It’s important to remember though that there is an incredibly rich mexican identity both in the “standard” mexican culture and more importantly the culture and identity of pueblo originarios. I also felt kind of lost or stranded in where exactly my identity lied but a big thing for me is realizing i don’t have to box myself into one identity, we are who we are based off of our lived experiences.
As far as actually feeling like you belong the biggest thing that helped me is immersion. even just joining online communities based out of mexico is great, also i feel like mexicans from mexico tend to be much less reactionary and usian brain coded so that’s always nice lol. sorry for the word slop, i just got off work and have been reading the naked lunch so my brain is fried.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply comrade and sorry for the late reply.
Yes, chicanismo always seemed kind of usian coded to me and even from a young age I never identified with American culture at all. I guess that's why I was a baby anti-imperialist since my teens lol. Oddly enough danza Azteca and the festivities surrounding La virgen de Guadalupe also helped me begin my decolonization journey. I remember sitting in church on a December 12th when I was like 13 and the priest is telling us the story of how "la virgencita appeared to Juan Diego". He then starts talking about how few indigenous converts they were able to get before the apparitions but with the help of this miracle thousands of indigenous people started to come worship Tonatzin. I couldn't believe how they were openly bragging about how they tricked the holdout indigenous peoples into converting!
Another thing that kept me from engaging with chicanismo in any deep or meaningful way was that I can speak Spanish somewhat competently so I was able to engage with Mexican culture more easily instead. You're right when you say that Mexico has a rich culture and I'm very grateful to be a part of it which did help to ease the heartbreak from learning that chicanismo is kind of whack. Like you say there is no need to put ourselves in any one box. I'll have to work on learning more about los pueblos originarios though. I'm learning a few words in Nahuatl from TikTok to start. I also found a really cool artist who sings in Nahuatl among the sea of Ojitos mentirosos videos! They're called Azalea Báalam and more people should check them out.
I have also noticed the average Mexicans are less reactionary than Americans but just ignore the whitexicans ha ha ha
Thank you for taking your time to reply, it really did help me. I'm glad to know that someone else has experienced something similar to me and gotten through it. It makes me feel less isolated in a way. And no need to apologize for your "word slop" I think I have you beat lol
You're very right. Chicanismo is whack indigenous erasure and appropriation. It seems it was an important initial stage to build cultural and racial movement for Mexican diaspora but it's now being rightfully dismantled as the colonizer fantasy it is, which opens the space for even better internationalism within and beyond Latin America.
That's wild that dude was a Nazi. That makes so much sense.
Yeah I always got a weird vibe from people heavily invested in chicano culture. Some seemed to have an unfavorable view of newly arrived undocumented migrants and that always rubbed me the wrong way. Thankfully I never really identified or got into chicanismo and always considered myself Mexican which saved me a lot of "heartbreak" when I came across this new info.
Deculturation talked about the concept a little bit with Dr. Jared Ball here sadly it's mixed with a bunch of other topics and I don't remember the exact timestamp.
Oh nice thank you for this! I am currently on a decolonization theory binge so more sources are very welcome.
Decolonial Buffalo actually used to collab with Deculturation but they had a falling out.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2: