Editing Chicano (section)

=== Indigenous identity ===
[[File:Dia de los Muertos is a celebration of life DVIDS782602.jpg|thumb|212x212px|[[Day of the Dead|Día de los Muertos]] in [[El Paso, Texas|Lincoln Park, El Paso]] (2012). A 2011 study found that 85 to 90% of [[maternal]] [[mtDNA]] lineages in Mexican Americans are Indigenous.<ref name="Merriwether-1997" />]]
Chicano identity functions as a way to reclaim one's [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Indigenous American]], and often [[Indigenous Mexican]], ancestry—to form an identity distinct from European identity, despite some Chicanos being of partial European descent—as a way to resist and subvert colonial domination.<ref name="Pérez-Torres 1995 61–62"/> Rather than part of [[European Americans|European American]] culture, [[Alicia Gaspar de Alba|Alicia Gasper de Alba]] referred to ''Chicanismo'' as an "''alter-Native'' culture, an Other American culture Indigenous to the land base now known as the West and Southwest of the United States."<ref name="GasperDeAlba-2002">{{Cite book|last=Gasper De Alba|first=Alicia|title=Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture and Chicana/o Sexualities|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2002|isbn=9781403960979|page=xxi}}</ref> While influenced by [[Settler|settler-imposed systems]] and structures, Alba refers to Chicano culture as "not immigrant but native, not foreign but colonized, not alien but different from the overarching hegemony of [[White Americans|white America]]."<ref name="GasperDeAlba-2002" />

The [[Plan Espiritual de Aztlán]] (1969) drew from [[Frantz Fanon]]'s ''[[The Wretched of the Earth]]'' (1961). In ''Wretched'', Fanon stated: "the past existence of an [[Aztec Civilization|Aztec civilization]] does not change anything very much in the diet of the Mexican peasant today", elaborating that "this passionate search for a national culture which existed before the colonial era finds its legitimate reason in the anxiety shared by native intellectuals to shrink away from that of [[Western culture]] in which they all risk being swamped ... the native intellectuals, since they could not stand wonderstruck before the history of today's barbarity, decided to go back further and to delve deeper down; and, let us make no mistake, it was with the greatest delight that they discovered that there was nothing to be ashamed of in the past, but rather dignity, glory, and solemnity."<ref name="Pérez-Torres 1995 61–62" />
[[File:Aztlan codex boturini.jpg|left|thumb|197x197px|The first page of the likely [[Pre-Columbian era|pre-Columbian]] [[Codex Boturini]], depicting the [[Mexica]]'s migration from [[Aztlán]].]]
The [[Chicano Movement]] adopted this perspective through the notion of [[Aztlán]]—a mythic Aztec homeland which Chicanos used as a way to connect themselves to a precolonial past, before the time of the {{" '}}gringo' invasion of our lands."<ref name="Pérez-Torres 1995 61–62" /> Chicano scholars have described how this functioned as a way for Chicanos to reclaim a diverse or imprecise Indigenous past; while recognizing how Aztlán promoted divisive forms of [[Chicano nationalism]] that "did little to shake the walls and bring down the structures of power as its rhetoric so firmly proclaimed".<ref name="Pérez-Torres 1995 61–62" /> As stated by Chicano historian [[Juan Gómez-Quiñones]], the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán was "stripped of what radical element it possessed by stressing its alleged romantic idealism, reducing the concept of Aztlán to a psychological ploy ... all of which became possible because of the Plan's incomplete analysis which, in turn, allowed it ... to degenerate into [[reformism]]."<ref name="Pérez-Torres 1995 61–62" />

While acknowledging its romanticized and exclusionary foundations, Chicano scholars like Rafael Pérez-Torres state that Aztlán opened a [[subjectivity]] which stressed a connection to Indigenous peoples and cultures at a critical historical moment in which ''Mexican-Americans'' and Mexicans were "under pressure to [[Cultural assimilation|assimilate]] particular standards—of beauty, of identity, of aspiration. In a Mexican context, the pressure was to urbanize and Europeanize ... "Mexican-Americans" were expected to accept anti-indigenous discourses as their own."<ref name="Pérez-Torres 1995 61–62" /> As Pérez-Torres concludes, Aztlán allowed "for another way of aligning one's interests and concerns with community and with history ... though hazy as to the precise means in which agency would emerge, Aztlán valorized a [[Chicanismo]] that rewove into the present previously devalued lines of descent."<ref name="Pérez-Torres 1995 61–62" /> Romanticized notions of ''Aztlán'' have declined among some Chicanos, who argue for a need to reconstruct the place of Indigeneity in relation to Chicano identity.<ref>{{Cite web|date=9 June 2019|title='Chicano' and the fight for identity|url=https://www.sfexaminer.com/national-news/chicano-and-the-fight-for-identity/|access-date=1 August 2019|website=San Francisco Examiner|archive-date=1 August 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190801100809/https://www.sfexaminer.com/national-news/chicano-and-the-fight-for-identity/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=3 April 2019|title=At L.A. Meeting, Mexican American Student Group MEChA Considers Name Change Amid Generational Divisions|url=https://ktla.com/2019/04/03/at-l-a-meeting-mexican-american-student-group-mecha-considers-name-change-amid-generational-divisions/|access-date=1 August 2019|website=KTLA 5|archive-date=1 August 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190801100806/https://ktla.com/2019/04/03/at-l-a-meeting-mexican-american-student-group-mecha-considers-name-change-amid-generational-divisions/|url-status=dead}}</ref>
[[File:2019 San Francisco Carnaval Grand Parade 131 (49490820491).jpg|thumb|197x197px|Xiuhcoatl Danza Azteca at the [[San Francisco]] Carnaval Grand Parade in [[Mission District, San Francisco|Mission District]]]]
[[Danza Azteca]] grew popular in the U.S. with the rise of the Chicano Movement, which inspired some "Latinos to embrace their ethnic heritage and question the Eurocentric norms forced upon them."<ref>{{Cite web|last=Nittle|first=Nadra|date=25 August 2020|title=For Danza Azteca Groups, Dancing is Prayer and Protest in Motion|url=https://www.kcet.org/shows/southland-sessions/for-danza-azteca-groups-dancing-is-prayer-and-protest-in-motion|website=KCET|access-date=10 November 2020|archive-date=10 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201110141521/https://www.kcet.org/shows/southland-sessions/for-danza-azteca-groups-dancing-is-prayer-and-protest-in-motion|url-status=live}}</ref> The use of pre-contact Aztec cultural elements has been critiqued by some Chicanos who stress a need to represent the diversity of Indigenous ancestry among Chicanos.<ref name="Arteaga-1997" /><ref>{{Cite book|last=Beltran|first=Cristina|title=The Trouble with Unity: Latino Politics and the Creation of Identity|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2010|isbn=9780195375916|pages=26–27}}</ref> [[Patrisia Gonzales]] portrays Chicanos as descendants of the [[Indigenous peoples of Mexico]] who have been displaced by colonial violence, positioning them as "[[Detribalization|detribalized]] Indigenous peoples and communities."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Red Medicine: Traditional Indigenous Rites of Birthing and Healing|last=Gonzales|first=Patrisia|publisher=University of Arizona Press|year=2012|isbn=9780816529568|page=xxv}}</ref> [[Roberto Cintli Rodríguez]] describes Chicanos as "[[De-Indigenization|de-Indigenized]]," which he remarks occurred "in part due to religious indoctrination and a violent uprooting from the land", detaching millions of people from [[Maize|maíz]]-based cultures throughout the greater [[Mesoamerica]]n region.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Our Sacred Maíz Is Our Mother : Indigeneity and Belonging in the Americas|last=Rodríguez|first=Roberto Cintli|publisher=University of Arizona Press|year=2014|isbn=9780816530618|page=202}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Our Sacred Maíz Is Our Mother: Indigeneity and Belonging in the Americas|last=Rodríguez|first=Roberto Cintli|publisher=University of Arizona Press|year=2014|isbn=9780816530618|pages=8–9}}</ref> Rodríguez asks how and why "peoples who are clearly red or brown and undeniably Indigenous to this continent have allowed ourselves, historically, to be framed by bureaucrats and the courts, by politicians, scholars, and the media as alien, illegal, and less than human."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Our Sacred Maíz Is Our Mother: Indigeneity and Belonging in the Americas|last=Rodríguez|first=Roberto Cintli|publisher=University of Arizona Press|year=2014|isbn=9780816530618|pages=xx-xxi}}</ref>
[[File:NVTV - Roberto Tinoco Duran -The Jaguar Poet- (Purépecha-Chícaño).webm|thumb|212x212px|Roberto Tinoco Durán, a [[Purépecha]]-Chícaño poet, interviewed on Native Voice TV (2017).]]
[[Gloria E. Anzaldúa]] has addressed Chicano's [[detribalization]]: "In the case of Chicanos, being 'Mexican' is not a tribe. So in a sense Chicanos and Mexicans are 'detribalized'. We don't have tribal affiliations but neither do we have to carry ID cards establishing tribal affiliation."<ref name="Anzaldúa-2009" /> Anzaldúa recognized that "Chicanos, [[Person of color|people of color]], and 'whites{{'"}} have often chosen "to ignore the struggles of Native people even when it's right in our ''caras'' (faces)," expressing disdain for this "willful ignorance".<ref name="Anzaldúa-2009" /> She concluded that "though both "detribalized urban mixed bloods" and Chicanos are recovering and reclaiming, this society is killing off urban mixed bloods through [[cultural genocide]], by not allowing them equal opportunities for better jobs, schooling, and health care."<ref name="Anzaldúa-2009">{{Cite book|title=The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader|url=https://archive.org/details/gloriaanzaldarea00glor|url-access=limited|last=Anzaldúa|first=Gloria|publisher=Duke University Press Books|year=2009|isbn=9780822345640|pages=[https://archive.org/details/gloriaanzaldarea00glor/page/n300 289]–290}}</ref> Inés Hernández-Ávila argued that Chicanos should recognize and reconnect with their roots "respectfully and humbly" while also validating "those peoples who still maintain their identity as original peoples of this continent" in order to create radical change capable of "transforming our world, our universe, and our lives".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture and Chicana/o Sexualities|last=Estrada|first=Gabriel E.|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2002|isbn=9781403960979|page=55|chapter=The "Macho" Body as Social Malinche}}</ref>