What is Chicano?

What is Chicano?

What does the term ?Chicano? mean? We should begin with a discussion of the roots of the term, not the etymological ones but the historical and social ones. The original use of the word ?Chicano? referred to a newly arrived, undocumented Mexican worker. 1 The word ?pocho? referred to a Mexican born in the United States or one with a long established residence in the country and therefore more assimilated to American culture and way of life. Thus, the ?Chicano? term carried an inferior, negative connotation because it was usually used to describe a worker who had to move from job to job to be able to survive. Chicanos were the low class Mexican-Americans. In the 1960s, the term ?Chicano? was consciously assumed and popularized by young Mexican-Americans frustrated with the traditional style of politics in their community that marginalized or even ignored them. It was given a militant political and indigenous connotation as a title of pride and new consciousness. According to Texas artist and curator Santos Martinez, Jr., a Chicano was ?a Mexican-American involved in a socio-political struggle to create a relevant, contemporary and revolutionary consciousness as a means of accelerating social change and actualizing an autonomous cultural reality among other Americans of Mexican descent.? 2 To call oneself a Chicano was a blatantly political act and the term served to unify the movement nationally. Today, ?Chicano? is a term of identity sometimes assumed by people of Mexican descent born in the United States. To some, it is interchangeable with ?Mexican-American? and to others it still carries heavy political connotations. 3

The History of Mexicans in the United States: An Overview

The key to understanding the Chicano experience is to realize that the heritage of people of Mexican ancestry in the United States stretches back hundreds of years to include both European and Native American roots. The Chicano movement had two goals: to seek social justice and equality for Mexicans in the US and to reclaim and educate people of their rich heritage.

Conquest

Since the European invasion and conquest of the New World , persons of Mexican descent have suffered political, social, and economic oppression. It can be said that the Chicano movement has been fomenting since the end of the US-Mexican war in 1848, which resulted in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. As provisions of the treaty, Mexico was forced to hand over the territory that now constitutes the Southwest United States, the Texas-Mexico border was moved from the Nueces River to the Rio Grande, and thousands of Mexicans became US citizens overnight and had their property seized. Since that time, Mexicans in the US have confronted discrimination, racism, and exploitation. 4

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/americas/9902/15/us.mexico/story.us.mexico.jpg

A Mexican-American Period: 1910-1965

After the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917), millions of Mexicans migrated north to the United States . This immigration produced a strong sense of xenophobic nativism among white Americans. This mass movement of people, one of the largest in history, occurred in the period beginning during World War I, through the expansion of mining and railroads, until the Great Depression of the 1930s. Mexicans comprised a large army of labor for white employers who wanted low-wage workers. Dehumanized and disrespected, Mexican workers were paid barely enough to survive even though they were working long and endless hours in horrible and inhumane conditions. 5 During the Great Depression, from 1929 to the late 1930s, the United States faced an economic disaster of unparalleled dimensions. Unemployment and inflation rates were extremely high and people wanted to find scapegoats to blame. Mexicans, who worked in the harshest conditions in fields where no white man would dare work, were accused of taking jobs away from ?real' Americans. Mexicans, who had been so desirable as workers in the previous decade, were discharged from their jobs and pressured to return to Mexico by authorities. Between 1929 and 1936, over 600,000 thousand Mexicans, even those born in the United States , were repatriated. 6

By the 1940s, the process of urbanization was transforming the Mexican-American community. Though some entered the skilled labor market, a large majority was kept in poverty through discrimination, racial oppression, and exploitation. 7 During this time period the Pachuco subculture began to emerge. Pachucos were young urban working class people of Mexican descent who adopted linguistic and social behaviors that were neither acceptable to the Mexican or the dominant white community. They wore zoot suits, spoke calo, a slang that mixed English and Spanish, drove hot rod cars, and tattooed their hands and bodies, often mixing Catholic and sexual imagery. Pachucos, like other Mexican-Americans, suffered from poor education, lack of job training and skills, poor housing, segregation, discrimination, and especially, police brutality. In 1943 there occurred the infamous Zoot Suit Riots, during which hordes of police and servicemen invaded the barrios and downtown areas of Los Angeles and stripped and violently beat the zootsuiters in the name of ?Americanism.? 8

http://www.dlh.lahora.com.ec/paginas/infantila/entorno35.htm

Chicano Movement Period: 1965-1981

The Chicano political movement grew out of an alliance formed in the 1960s by exploited farmworkers attempting to create unions against the powerful agricultural and ranching businesses in California and Texas , those attempting to repossess lands taken by Americans after 1848, the urban working classes, and the growing student movement. The movement dealt with economic struggles in rural areas and urban issues such as police brutality, civil rights violations, low wages, inadequate housing and social services, gang warfare, drug abuse, limited education opportunities, and lack of political power. The Vietnam War was also a crucial issue.

Labor Struggles

Labor conflict in the large factory-farms where Mexicans were employed under wretched conditions was nothing new. Strikes had been crushed again and again by repressive laws and threats of deportation and violence. The difference in the 1960s was the movement's ability to challenge the ?green giants' and bring the labor struggle to the attention of the nation and the world. 9 The farmworkers' movement was organized by Cesar Chavez.

Cesar Chavez http://aztlan.net/cesartribute.gif

He began as a voter registration organizer in the 1950s and in 1962 co-founded the National Farm Workers Association with Dolores Huerta, which later became the United Farm Workers of America (UFW). Chavez and Huerta organized movements in California and in the Southwest, with the goals of improving the labor conditions and lives of the migrant farm workers and the recognition of Mexicans as actual human beings worthy of humane treatment. Together, Chavez and Huerta used a nonviolent strategy that included worker strikes, public marches, hunger strikes, and boycotts. 10 During the long struggle, Chavez received help from various sources. He began an alliance with other trade union movements, especially the AFL-CIO, Protestant and Catholic religious organizations, radical student associations, and other civil rights groups. The basic tactic was the huelga, or the strike. Recognizing the limited potential of the strike, Chavez and the UFW came to rely on the boycott, which meant his success would depend on support in urban areas as well as rural ones throughout the country. The first nationwide boycott of any kind against nonunion grapes was extremely successful. Seventeen million people, or 12% of the American adult population, participated and effectively wiped out grower profits. 11

Land Struggles

Reies Lopez Tijerina, an itinerant preacher who had once been a migrant worker, led the movement to reappropriate lands lost by Mexicans after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. He spent years doing research and collecting data on Spanish and Mexican land grants in the Southwest and founded the Alianza Federal de Mercedes, a movement that took on the plight of New Mexico's small farmers left landless as a result of the US-Mexico war. Its goal was to return rightful ownership to Mexican-Americans of the common-use lands seized from Mexicans after the war. Tijerina was not only committed to mobilizing rural Chicanos to take back their lands but also to reinstitute their culture and language to the lands. With the motto ?The Land Is Our Inheritance, Justice Is Our Creed,? Tijerina and the Alianza organized a march from Albuquerque to Santa Fe in 1966. This was an important march because, although it was unsuccessful, it affirmed the identity of Chicanos as a new breed, a new race, ?La Raza.? It established Chicanos as people of the New World Hispanic culture with many influences from Native American sources. In 1967, Tijerina and twenty other Alianza members raided the courthouse at Tierra Amarilla of the Rio Arriba County and achieved national recognition. 12

Urban Agenda

In the urban centers, Rodolfo ?Corky? Gonzales was establishing himself as the leader of the Chicano student and youth movement.

Corky Gonzalez http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol3/chicano/corky.gif

Demands included better education opportunities for their communities and social reforms dealing with police brutality and the prison system. Gonzalez brought Mexican-American students and youth from across the Southwest together for a first time through a series of conferences, the most important in Denver in 1969. Called the ?Crusade for Justice,? Gonzales and his followers stressed the need for students and youth to play a revolutionary role in the movement and forge a new Chicano identity. 13 The new identity would reflect a total rejection of Anglo culture and base itself on symbols of traditional Mexican culture. The resolutions adopted by the conference were put together in a document called El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan. Aztlan, an Aztec term, represented a spiritual return to the Mexican homeland for Chicanos: a homeland that included the Southwest and California. 14

http://www.stoptheinvasion.com/AZTLAN%20MAP.jpg

This represented the beginning of a Chicano-Indian alliance, born from a sense of shared oppression and racism, and was manifested in Chicano art with images of Indian leaders of the past and present. The term ?Chicano? became an expression of an assumed militant political and Indian-oriented consciousness. 15

La Raza Unida: The Chicano Party

One of the major outcomes of the 1969 National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference in Dever, Colorado was the call for a creation of an independent local, regional, and national political party for Chicanos. The Democrats and Republicans had been denounced for not responding to the needs of Mexican Americans. The Mexican American Youth Organization and Jose Angel Gutierrez organized a takeover of the school system in Crystal City, Texas. After a successful student strike at the local high school, Gutierrez, a gifted organizer, lost little time in continuing his efforts for more educational equality. With the help of his wife, he created El Partido de la Raza Unida in January 1970 and in subsequent elections, the party was able to elect its candidates to both the school board and the city council, soon gaining control of them. These victories, interpreted as a Chicano takeover, stimulated interest in La Raza Unida party and chapters sprung up all over Texas and began to emerge in Colorado and California. 16 The party's platform proposed reforms in education, economics, the justice system, and immigration policies and advocated women's rights. The proposed reforms were not at all revolutionary. For example, they asked for hiring of minority counselors in high schools with majority Chicano student populations and elimination of standardized test biases toward Anglo-Americans. 17 Economically, La Raza Unida called for the reduction of regressive taxation and distribution of wealth on a more equitable basis. They proposed the creation of civilian police review boards for better protection against police violence and prison reform. 18 Third parties in the United States have historically found it difficult to survive, let alone make any substantive impact on the two-party system. By 1973, although successful on the local level, La Raza Unida proved to be no different. Its failure was in part due to its inability to secure official ballot status in California and to achieve ideological unity. For example, there were conflicts of interest between Californians and Texans. Also, a clear difference was emerging between a more Marxist sector of the party (who wanted to include other races) and a more nationalist, less radical sector. Also La Raza Unida was closely tied to student movements on campuses. So when student movements declined and attention was turned elsewhere, the party lots its most dynamic component. 19

http://www.mexika.org/PNLRU.gif

The Vietnam War

From 1964 to 1972, the United States was involved in military conflict in Vietnam that eventually spread to Cambodia and Laos. The country experienced the greatest antiwar movement in its history. This movement protested the 50,000 deaths, 250,000 wounded, the massacres, and the brutalities on both sides, and the fact that there seemed to be no end in sight. Mexican-Americans, as well other ethnic minority groups, were the earliest opposition against the war because they felt too many of their own were dying in Vietnam in what many considered a white man's war, while their people lived in poverty and racism in the US. As early as 1967, Chicano leaders like Corky Gonzalez and Reies Lopez Tijerina were speaking out against the war. Several Chicano moratoriums were organized, culminating in the National Moratorium in east L.A. where 20,000 to 30,000 people participated. The demonstration was attacked by sheriffs and police and resulted in the death of one man, Ruben Salazar. 20

This poster, created in 1972 by artist Malaquias Montoya, addresses the political struggles discussed above. Not only were Chicanos suffering discrimination, poverty, and police brutality at home, but they were dying in disproportionate numbers in Vietnam. The author is also making an appeal to solidarity between Chicanos and Vietnamese.

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Aztlán

Aztlán

For other uses, see Aztlán (disambiguation).

The seven caves of Chicomoztoc, from Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca

Aztlán (/as.'tlan/, from Nahuatl Aztlan /'as.t?a?n/) is the legendary ancestral home of the Nahua peoples, one of the main cultural groups in Mesoamerica. "Azteca" is the Nahuatl word for "people from Aztlan."

The legend

Nahuatl legends relates that seven tribes lived in Chicomoztoc, or "the place of the seven caves." Each cave represented a different Nahua group: the Xochimilca, Tlahuica, Acolhua, Tlaxcalan, Tepaneca, Chalca, and Mexica. Because of a common linguistic origin, those groups also are called "Nahuatlaca" (Nahua people). These tribes subsequently left the caves and settled in Aztlán.

The various descriptions of Aztlán are contradictory. While some legends describe Aztlán as a paradise, the Aubin Codex says that the Aztecs were subject to a tyrant elite called the Azteca Chicomoztoca. Guided by their priest, the Aztec fled, and on the road, their god Huitzilopochtli forbade them to call themselves Azteca, telling them that they should be known as Mexica (pronounced /me?iko/). Ironically, the scholars of the 19th century would name them Aztec.

The role of the homeland of Aztlán is slightly less important to Aztec legendary histories than the migration to Tenochtitlán itself. According to the legend, the southward migration began around 830 CE. Each of the seven groups is credited with founding a different major city-state in Central Mexico. The city-states reputed to have an Aztec foundation were:

• Xochimilco,
• Tlahuica (in the modern-day state of Morelos),
• Acolhua,
• Tlaxcala,
• Huexotzinca (the modern-day city of Puebla, Puebla),
• Tepaneca (now Azcapotzalco, a delegación of the Mexican Federal District), and
• Matlatzinca (whose language was otomian and not of the Uto-Aztecan family).

These city-states formed during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerica (1300-1521 CE).

According to Aztec legends, the Mexica were the last tribe to emigrate and took 302 years to reach their destination. When they arrived at the Anahuac Valley, the present-day Valley of Mexico, all available land had been taken, and they were forced to squat on the edge of Lake Texcoco.

Places identified as Aztlán

While Aztlán has many trappings of myth, similar to Tamoanchán, Chicomoztoc, Tollán and Cibola, archaeologists have nonetheless attempted to identify the geographic place of origin for the Mexica.

Depiction of the departure from Aztlán in the 16th-century Codex Boturini

The name of Aztalan, Wisconsin (a Mississippian site) was proposed by N. F. Hyer in 1837 because he thought it might have been Aztlán, following a suggested etymology of "Aztatlan" by Alexander von Humboldt.</P>

In the mid-19th century, fringe theorist Ignatius L. Donnelly, in his famous book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, sought to establish a connection between Aztlán and the fabled "lost continent" of Atlantis of Greek mythology; Donnelly's views, however, have never been recognised as credible by mainstream scholarship.

In 1887, Mexican anthropologist Alfredo Chavero claimed that Aztlán was located on the Pacific coast in the state of Nayarit. While this was disputed by contemporary scholars, it achieved some popular acceptance. In the early 1980s, Mexican President José López Portillo suggested that Mexcaltitlán, also in Nayarit, was the true location of Aztlán, but this was denounced by Mexican historians as a political move.^[1] Even so, the state of Nayarit incorporated the symbol of Aztlán in its coat of arms with the legend "Nayarit, cradle of Mexicans."

Eduardo Matos Moctezuma presumes Aztlán to be somewhere in the modern-day states of Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Michoacán. ^[2]

It has also been proposed that Lake Powell was originally the site of Aztlán. Part of the migration legend also describes a stay at Culhuacán ('leaning hill' or 'curved hill'). Proponents of the Lake Powell theory equate this Culhuacán with the ancient home of the Anasazi at Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park.^{[citation needed]}

As of today, despite serious efforts of many scholars and activists, there is no evidence of the actual existence of Aztlán, never mind any proof of its specific location. Claims, unsupported by evidence, that Aztlán was situated in (what is currently known as) Arizona, Colorado or Utah seem to contradict a well-established consensus among scholars that these areas were inhabited by North American Indians who, as opposed to Aztecs, left enough artifacts in these areas to document their existence there.

Primary sources

The primary sources for Aztlán are the Boturini Codex, the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, and the History of Tlaxcala (by Diego Muñoz Camargo, a Tlaxcalan mestizo from the 17th century), as well as Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca. It should be noted that all the documents mentioned above were written (in Spanish) after the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

Probable etymology

Aztlán is believed to mean "place of whiteness" or "place of herons," derived from the Nahuatl words "aztatl" (herons or white-plumed birds) and "tlan" ("place among"). The priests of the Aztec religion used esoteric language. In their interpretation, white symbolizes "origin," so Aztlán may be interpreted simply as "The place of origin." (Laurette Sejourne: "Burning water"). This explanation gives Aztlán more of a lengendary and symbolic significance than a definition as a concrete place.

Aztlán [as'tlan] is the Spanish language spelling and pronunciation of Nahuatl Aztlan ['as.t?a?n]. The spelling Aztlán and its matching last-syllable stress cannot be Nahuatl -- words in this language being always stressed in their second-to-last syllable. The accent mark on the second a added in Spanish marks stress shift (from oxytone to paroxytone), typical of several Nahuatl words when loaned into Mexican Spanish.

After the Spanish conquest of Mexico, the story of Aztlán gained importance and was reported by Fray Diego Durán in 1581 and others to be a kind of Eden-like paradise, free of disease and death, which existed somewhere in the far north. These stories helped fuel Spanish expeditions to what is now the Southwestern United States.

Use by the Chicano Movement

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The unofficial flag of Aztlán, used by Chicano nationalists in San Diego and Denver during the Chicano Movement.

Due to the association of Aztlán with growing Mexican nationalism among residents of Mexican ancestry in the United States and its allegedly northern location, the name Aztlán was taken up by some radical Chicano movement activists of the 1960s and 1970s to refer to the area of the Southwestern United States that Mexico ceded to the United States after the Mexican-American War and that they claimed rightfully belonged to Mexico. Aztlán appears in the title of the 1968 manifesto issued by the radical Chicano youth movement that called for the "liberation" of that area from jurisdiction of the United States, the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, as well as the names of several organizations, such as MEChA, (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, "Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán"), an organization that gained notoriety for making territorial claims against the United States on behalf of Mexico. Many in the Chicano Movement attribute poet Alurista for popularizing the term Aztlán in a poem presented during the Chicano Youth Liberation Conference in Denver, Colorado, March 1969.

In fiction

"Aztlán" has been used as the name of speculative fictional future-states that emerge in the southwest US and/or Mexico after the central US government suffers collapse or major setback; examples appear in such works as the novels Warday, The House of the Scorpion, and World War Z, and the role-playing game Shadowrun. In Michael Flynn's alternate history story "The Forest of Time," Colorado is part of a nation-state called Nuevo Aztlán. Thomas Pynchon refers to Aztlan as the "mythic ancestral home of the Mexican people" in his latest novel "Against the Day": "'Hallucinatory country and cruel, not hard to understand that Mormons might have found it congenial enough to want to settle, but this is much older--thirteenth century anyway. There were perhaps tens of thousands of people back then, living all through that region, prosperous and creative, when suddenly, within one generation--overnight as these things go--they fled, in every appearance of panic terror, went up to the steepest cliffsides they could find and built as securely as they knew how defenses against...well, something.'" (277)

See also

• Chicomoztoc

Notes

1. ^ Jáuregui (2004).
2. ^ Matos Moctezuma (1988), p.38.

References

• Jáuregui, Jesús (2004). "Mexcaltitán-Aztlán: un nuevo mito" (abstract). Arqueología Mexicana XII (67). (Spanish)

• Matos Moctezuma, Eduardo (1988). The Great Temple of the Aztecs: Treasures of Tenochtitlan (New Aspects of Antiquity), Doris Heyden (trans.), New York: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-39024-X. 

External links

• "Aztlan and the Origin of the Aztecs" Laputan Logic, December 3, 2004
• Sanderson, Susana, "Tenotchtitlan and Templo Mayor", California State University, Chico.

Chicano and Mexican-American topics

Terms
Chicano · La Raza · Latino · Mexican-American · Hispanic

Pre-Chicano Movement
Mexican-American history · Mexican-American War · Sleepy Lagoon trial · Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo · Zoot Suit Riots

Chicano Movement
Aztlán · Católicos por La Raza · Chicanismo · Chicano Blowouts · Chicano Moratorium · Plan Espiritual de Aztlán · Plan de Santa Barbara · Farm workers rights campaign · Land grant struggle · Colegio César Chávez

Supreme Court cases
Hernandez v. Texas  ·  Plyler v. Doe  ·  Mendez v. Westminster

Culture
Chicano Park · Chicano rap · Chicano rock · Cholo · Estrada Courts murals · Lowrider · Pachuco · Teatro Campesino · Tortilla art · Zoot suit

Lists and categories
List of Caló words and expressions · List of Chicano poets · U.S. communities with a Hispanic majority · List of notable Chicanos · Notable Hispanics
Category:Mexican Americans · Category:Mexican-American organizations

 

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Segundo de Febrero

Segundo de Febrero

Do you know what today is? I'll give you a hint, it has nothing to do with Punxsutawney Phil.

February 2nd, or Segundo de Febrero en español, marks the day when the Xicano (Mexican American) community in the southwest United States was created. As a bi-cultural people, we have the unique honor to celebrate our roots that transcend man-made borders and barriers.

From today's event synopsis provided by my place of employement:

Segundo de Febrero refers to the signing and writing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848. The signing of this treaty ended the war between the United States and Mexico and created the U. S. Mexican border. More than 80,000 families saw their citizenship changed from Mexican to U. S. virtually overnight. Under that treaty, signed while U. S. forces occupied Mexico City, the United States paid Mexico $15 million dollars to acquire California, Nevada, Utah, much of Arizona and New Mexico, and portions of Colorado and Wyoming. Texas had already been annexed by the United States in 1845.

Why should the community recognize and commemorate February 2? February 2, 1848 marks the beginning of the Mexican American community in this country. Dr. Arnoldo de León, a Chicano historian at San Angelo State University, said in a speech 20 years ago, "there is actually nothing shameful about el Segundo de Febrero. We are proud of being American. The Mexican American War took place and the American Southwest became part of the United States. It is a reality – a fact of life. It is something that is part of us, of our history."

Chicano families traditionally observe and celebrate American holidays. For example, we celebrate the Fourth of July, without question, when the United States declared independence from England in 1776. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo has its own connection to Fourth of July. Did you know that even though the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed on February 2, 1848, it was not ratified until July 4, 1848?

The Chicano community also recognizes and celebrates Mexican holidays like Diez y Seis de Septiembre and Cinco de Mayo. These are Mexican holidays we have inherited from our motherland. Because most Chicanos are bicultural, we have embraced Mexican and U. S. holidays. Yet even though we have lived in this country for 158 years as U. S. citizens, we as Chicanos have never really had a day we could call our very own. Segundo de Febrero allows us to continue to educate ourselves as a community because many of us do not know enough about this part of our history.

It's important that this day be remembered for its significance to the Chicano community, and not as another opportunity to have a party. Alcohol vendors have become "sponsors" of Mexican celebrations, offering money to help create events where liquor can be sold. Substance abuse is already a major health problem in the Chicano community, and negatively affects the quality of "la familia" in our culture. Therefore, activities surrounding Segundo de Febrero will not involve alcohol. In fact, Segundo de Febrero should be a time for all community leaders interested in prevention to work to increase awareness about the consequences of substance abuse in the community.

El Segundo de Febrero has become our day to honor our own people for their positive contributions in this country. El Segundo de Febrero honors great leaders like César Chavéz , who struggled to bring justice, equality, and self-determination for our families and communities. This tradition of honoring our past, by recognizing our current leaders and achievements has christened el Segundo de Febrero as a true Chicano holiday, upholding the values of our community and memories of our past.

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Bajitos

Lowrider Bicycle History

Lowrider bicycles were a result of the lowrider movement during the 1960's. The "custom" king George Barris first began this movement by lowering automobiles. Because of the expense of lowrider cars, kids could not afford to be a part of the lowrider car movement. Instead they began fixing up their own bicycles. Then Schwinn came out with a revolutionary new cruiser, the 1963 Sting-Ray. It was built to resemble a dragster, one of the top motor trends of the era. It took cycling from transportation to being fun to ride. In 1964 George Barris caught a glimpse of the new Schwinn and was inspired to create a museum quality custom. These were created specifically for The Munsters, "Monster Koach" and "Dragula". Joining these was Eddie Munster's wildly modified '64 Sting-Ray.Every self-respecting kid in America wanted a Schwinn Sting-Ray like Eddie Munster's.

For a group of young East Los Angeles Chicanos, however this was not enough The first modifications was filling in the frame, adding streamers and mirrors, and pretty soon started lowering them. Bending the fork was the most common way of lowering them. The Schwinn bikes seemed to fit the Latin spirit because they had a lot of chrome and so were similar to lowrider cars. It never really reached beyond East Los Angeles in this early phase. These groups were not considered very serious at the time. Soon BMX bikes came in and lowrider bicycles took a siesta.

During the 1970's lowrider bicycles began making a come back. This was partly to do with the Mexican-American movement. In the 60's it was considered a bad thing to be Mexican. Then with the Chicano movement of the 70's, it became a good thing to have Mexican heritage, which was good for everyone. All of a sudden Mexican-Americans were making gains in this society. That's when lowrider bikes came back on the streets.

Lowrider's as bikes are a different concept of bike riding. The options are endless in designing your own fashion statement style for the streets. The hole lowrider bike movement started from the 1960's. and the "custom" king George Barris,and in 1964 the Schwinn Sting-Ray was born. With the help of Eddie Munstor ever kid in the USA wanted one. Find out more and out the history have a look at the links below

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a lil aztec history

Aztecs

Territory

The Aztecs were a warring people who came to the central valley of Mexico around 1200 AD from what is now the southwestern United States. For years they had been nomads. According to legend, a special sign from the gods would show them the site for their new settlement. This would be an eagle with a serpent in its mouth, perched on a large cactus. Sometime around 1325, they saw such an eagle on an island in the middle of a lake and settled there. This site, where Mexico City is located today, became the center of the Aztec world. There, they built a magnificent city that they called Tenochtitlán.

Tenochtitlán was a beautiful, well-run city with a ceremonial plaza paved with stone. The Aztecs used building techniques from other cultures to construct Tenochtitlán. They built extravagant temples which were designed like the Mayan pyramids with terraced steps. Two of the temples in Tenochtitlán were dedicated to their most important gods - the sun god, who was the god of war, and the rain god. The city itself was built in the middle of a shallow lake called Texcoco. It was built on five islands that were connected to the mainland by three causeways, or raised roads. Instead of streets there were canals, and people went from place to place by canoe. When the Spanish conquerors saw Tenochtitlán they called it "The Venice of the New World". At the height of Aztec civilization, around 1300-1500 AD, more than 200,000 people lived in Tenochtitlán. It was bigger than any city in Europe at the time.

Agriculture and Trade

Good farming practices helped to support the large population of Tenochtitlán. For example, the Aztecs built irrigation systems, constructed terraces on nearby hillsides, and enriched the soil with fertilizer. They developed a completely new agricultural technique for making more farmland out of the swampy land around the city by creating artificial islands, called chinampas, or "floating gardens". The chinampas were made by piling rich earth from the bottom of Lake Texcoco onto rafts made of weeds. After awhile, the roots of plants and trees grew down to the lake bottom, anchoring the rafts. These island gardens covered most of the southern part of the lake and were planted with crops that produced large amounts of food. Their crops included corn, which was their principal crop, various kinds of vegetables (such as beans, squash, tomatoes, and peppers), and flowers. The Aztecs also planted corn and other crops in the irrigated fields around Lake Texcoco. They raised ducks, geese and turkeys, which were eaten by the rich nobles and merchants. They had dogs, but did not use work animals or plows. Instead, they used pointed sticks to poke holes for planting seeds in the soft soil.

The Aztecs produced a variety of goods, some for the ruler and his noblemen, and some that were sold in markets. Gold ornaments, brightly colored woven cloth and salt harvested from the lake bed were luxury items that were traded with distant peoples to the south. They were traded for other luxury items, such as tropical bird feathers and jaguar skins (used for ceremonial garments), cotton, rubber, and cacao beans (for making chocolate). Trading goods were carried by canoe and by long caravans of porters, since the Aztecs had no wheeled vehicles or pack animals. Aztec warriors traveled with the caravans and the merchants who led them to protect them in dangerous areas.

Aztec Lifestyle and Beliefs

The Aztecs carried on constant wars with neighboring peoples. They fought with wooden swords that had sharp stone blades. They also used bows and arrows as well as spears. Their armor was padded cotton made into suits fitted to the body. The Aztecs warred in part because they believed the gods had given them all Mexican lands. They also warred to obtain more goods and land to meet the needs of their growing population. And they warred in order to have victims to sacrifice to the gods.

Captives were brought to Tenochtitlán. There they were led up the steps of a great pyramid on the top of which stood a temple. In front of the temple stood the sacrificial altar. While drums boomed, each unlucky captive was held down on the altar. The sharp knife of an Aztec priest flashed in the sun, and in an instant the victim's chest was opened. The priest then reached in, grabbed the heart, and held it aloft for all to see. In this manner, the Aztecs sacrificed thousands of people each year.

What was the reason for all these sacrifices? The Aztecs thought their gods would turn against them if they were not given human sacrifices. For example, they believed that if the sun god were not fed human hearts and blood, the sun would not rise and the world would end in disaster. The Aztecs believed that their special purpose in life was to delay that destruction. They sacrificed to the gods to avoid destruction for as long as possible. The number of victims to the gods was enormous. During one famine, the Aztecs sacrificed over 10,000 people. Most of them had been captured in war.

Like most agricultural people, the Aztecs worshipped gods whom they believed controlled the forces of nature. In addition to the all-powerful sun god, they worshipped the god of rain and the plumed serpent, Quetzalcoatl, who was the god of wind and resurrection.

Artistic and Scientific Contributions

Archaeologists have learned about the Aztec gods and religious ceremonies from the artwork found in the ruins of their cities. The images of the gods are represented in stone sculptures and carved wall sculptures on the walls of the temples. The inside walls of the buildings have remains of brilliantly colored paintings showing ceremonial events, such as the human sacrifices. An especially famous Aztec sculpture is the enormous calendar stone, a carved stone circle 12 ft. in diameter. The calendar represents the Aztec universe with the face of the sun god in the center. He is surrounded by designs that symbolize the days and months and the locations of heavenly bodies at different times of the year.

The Aztecs developed a writing and counting system based on pictographs in which each picture represented an object or the sound of a syllable. Their counting system was based on the number 20, in which one picture represented 20 items, another 20 x 20 (=400) items and so on. Archaeologists have learned to decode some of their writings, which talk about historical events and provide records of supplies and items for trade.

The Spanish Conquest

In 1521 Hernando Cortés, a Spanish Conquistador, or conqueror, defeated the Aztecs. With just 500 soldiers and a few cannons, he overthrew thousands of mighty Aztec warriors. How was it possible?

There were two main reasons. One, the Spanish had firearms. No Aztec weapon made from stone or bone could compete with cannon and gun. The second reason was that Cortés received help from thousands of Aztec enemies. For many years, the fierce Aztecs had been warring. They forced conquered nations to pay high taxes. They made slaves of many. Worst of all, they sacrificed thousands to the gods. Conquered tribes were vengeful indeed. Willingly, they joined the Spanish to destroy their captors. With 500 Spanish soldiers and 10,000 Indian allies behind him, Cortés charged the Aztec capital. The Spanish cannons and guns proved too much for the Aztecs and in the summer of 1521 they were defeated and their last king was executed.

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Pancho Villa

SYNOPSIS

When Orozco rebelled against Madero, Villa returned to the field of battle. In 1916, he raided Columbus, New Mexico. Villa continued to fight until 1920 when he surrendered his troops to Adolfo de la Huerta. Retired to Hacienda Canutillo until 1923. He was ambushed and killed on July 23, 1923 in Parral.

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"Tierra y Libertad."

1879 - 1919

  SYNOPSIS

Born August 8, 1879, in Anenecuilco, Morelos. Was a mediero (sharecropper) and horse trainer. Conscripted into the army for seven years attaining the rank of sergeant. As president of the village council, he campaigned for the restoration of village lands confiscated by hacendados. His slogan was "Tierra y Libertad." Zapata sided with Madero.

Between 1910 and 1919, Zapata continued his fight for land and liberty, rebelling against anyone who interfered with his Plan of Ayala which called for the seizure of all foreign owned land, all land taken from villages, confiscation of one-third of all land held by "friendly" hacendados and full confiscation of land owned by persons opposed to the Plan of Ayala.

On April 10, 1919, Zapata was tricked into a meeting with one of Carranza's generals who wanted to "switch sides." The meeting was a trap, and Zapata was killed as he arrived at the meeting.

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THE QUETZALCOATL "TRINITY"

It is entirely correct to think of the Aztec legend Quetzalcoatl in three contexts -- as historical personality, as divinity and as literary subject. In the first incarnation he is a 10th century priest-king; in the second a deity associated with progress and humanity; in the third an object of intense interest to both ancient Aztec and more contemporary European scholars.

The historical Quetzalcoatl was probably born around AD 947. His father, Mixcoatl, was ruler of the Toltecs. He was originally named Ce Acatl Topitzin, meaning "Our Prince Born on Ce Acatl," the latter being an important Toltec holiday. His birth was immediately preceded by a horrendous family tragedy, the father having been deposed and murdered by a jealous brother named Ihuitmal. The unborn child's pregnant mother, Chimalma, fled to Tepoztlan. Before dying in childbirth, Chimalma declared that her infant son was divinely conceived because she had swallowed a piece of blue-green jade.

Reared by his grandparents, Ce Acatl Topitzin was sent to the religious school at Xochicalco. There he so impressed teachers with his wisdom and piety that they conferred on him the name of Quetzalcoatl. Meaning "plumed serpent," this was a prestigious title given to persons whose behavior shows signs of an exalted state such as that attained by a saint or a sage. Returning to Tula, Quetzalcoatl defied his usurping uncle by burying the remains of his father with the ceremony to which he was entitled. He then took over as new leader of the Toltecs by pushing the unpopular Ihuitmal into a sacrificial fire.

Quetzalcoatl proved to be a wise and progressive ruler. In an action that demonstrated both sensitivity and enlightened self-interest, he imported a group of talented deaf-mutes known as nonoalcos to work as artisans in his kingdom. The nonoalcos were descendants of the highly skilled artisans of Teotihuacan and it was they who produced the distinctive designs for which Tula is noted -- serpent columns, square pillars ornamented with friezes and giant-sized statues of warriors.

Quetzalcoatl also abolished human sacrifice and decreed that henceforth sacrificial objects be limited to snakes, flowers and small birds. It's at this point that the line becomes blurred between the historical and the legendary Quetzalcoatl. Though the priests were undoubtedly annoyed by his outlawing of human sacrifice, accounts of the actions attributed to them are obviously the work of myth makers rather than of responsible historians. According to this version, the priests summoned an ancient god named Texcatlipoca to help them get rid of Quetzalcoatl. Texcatlipoca was an evil god, and he and the pro-human sacrifice priests obviously looked on Quetzalcoatl as some sort of bleeding-heart liberal. (The only bleeding hearts they wanted to see were the ones torn out of victims and laid on altars.)

Deciding on a ruse, Texcatlipoca crept into Quetzalcoatl's sanctuary with two minor gods, also evil, and frightened him by demonstrating a new invention: the mirror. Feigning friendliness, they disguised him by covering his body with red paint, feathers and a mask. They served him a delicious meal and Texcatlipoca persuaded Quetzalcoatl to drink a beverage of pulque mixed with honey. The concoction made him drunk and the conspirators then slipped a beautiful dancing girl into his room. He awoke the next morning with a hangover and the horrible realization that he had broken his priestly vow of chastity.

Tormented with remorse, Quetzalcoatl wandered in self-imposed exile for twenty years and then ended up near what is today the Gulf port of Coatzocoalcos. There he said goodbye to a loyal band of weeping disciples, promising to return at some future time. He sailed for Yucatan, where he became equally admired by the Maya, who called him Kulkulcan. Finally, some thirty years later, he died by immolating himself on a self-made funeral pyre.

It's at this point that legend gives way to literature. If Quetzalcoatl had a "literary agent," at least as far as the West is concerned, he was a Franciscan friar named Bernardino de Sahagun. Sahagun, who came to Mexico in 1529, learned Nahuatl, the Aztec language, and became a teacher in the mission schools then being established for the sons of Mexican nobility.

For over fifty years Sahagun devoted himself to collecting data for a history of Mexico. He finished his vast work and sent it to the Council of the Indies in Madrid. There it gathered dust for two centuries until it was finally published in 1829 with the title Historia General de las Cosas de la Nueva Españia ("General History of the Things of New Spain.")

Sahagun has been criticized for being more a collector of Aztec literature than an original and creative writer. Be that as it may, he rendered a valuable service by focusing on an inspiring poem called The Song of Quetzalcoatl. A court poem written by some ancient Aztec or Texcocan bard, it goes in part:

Puzzling to some is how Quetzalcoatl apparently evolved into a white man. When Cortes's small force landed in Mexico, the Aztecs could surely have crushed it by sheer weight of numbers. But Moctezuma II fatally hesitated: Quetzalcoatl, like Douglas MacArthur, had promised to return and it would be an act of extreme impiety to take arms against beings who might be revenants of their ancestral dieties. Yet how could the copper-skinned Meso-Americans possibly believe that these hairy, white-skinned invaders were in any way connected with them either on the human or divine level?

"The consensus of opinion among anthropologists," writes Native American scholar Todd Downing, "is that Quetzalcoatl is the embodiment of a solar myth, hence his association with the east coast or the Atlantic. Yellow was the sacred color of the sun, so as its messenger he was given a beard like the rays of the sun." This theory points up one of the cruelest ironies of the Conquest. Where most of the Spaniards were dark-haired Mediterranean types, one obviously descended from blond Visigoths was Cortes's second in command, the fair-skinned, yellow-bearded Pedro de Alvarado. If the Aztecs saw Alvarado as an embodiment of their lost god, they selected the conquistador who was by far the most notorious for his cruelty toward Mexico's Indian population.

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Time Line Overview

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	MEXICO	EUROPE	USA & THE WORLD
3500 B.C. - 300 A.D.	The Pre Classical Period Map of the Preclassic Era 2500 B.C. to 250 A.D. The Olmeca Culture	The Classic Greek Culture (1200 B.C. to 323 B.C. the year in which Alexander the Great dies) The Roman Empire is founded (753 B.C.) The Roman Republic and Empire	Egyptian Pyramids (2613 - 2494 B.C.) Mesopotamia: Hammurabi's Code (1700B.C) The Birth of Buddha (563 B.C.) The Great Wall of China (221 B.C.) The Birth of Christ
300 - 900 A.D.	The Classical Period Map of the Classic Era 250 B.C. - 900 A.D. Teotihuacan Monte Albán and the Zapoteca Culture The Maya Culture MAYA INDEX	Attila the Hun invades various regions in Europe (375 - 425) The Fall of the Roman Empire (476) The beginning of the Middle Ages and Feudalism (476 - 1453) The Arabs defeat the Visigoths in Spain (711) Charles the Great is crowned Emperor (800)	Justinian builds Santa Sofia in Cosntantinople (532 - 237) The Chinese invent Porcelain (650 approx.) Mahommed marches from Mecca to Medina (622), beginning of the Muslim era
900-1521	The Post Classical Period Map of the Postclassic Era 900 A.D. - 1521 A.D. The Pre-Hispanic Era in Oaxaca The Tolteca and Chichimeca Cultures The Quetzalcoatl Trinity Tarasco Culture & Empire (1100 - 1522)  The Aztecs and the Founding of Tenochtitlan (1325 - 1521) Are You Related to the Aztecs? An Analysis of The Uto-Aztecan Family Texcoco - Nezahualcoyotl: The Philospher King (1403-1473) Star Snake (Citlalcoatl - Aztec) Moctezuma I (The Other Moctezuma) Jeronimo de Aguilar Hernan Cortés Cortés lands in America and founds Veracruz (1519) Chauhtemoc: Winner in Defeat	The first Crusade (1096) The University of Cambridge is founded (1209) Magna Carta (1215) The height of the Rennaisance (1500) Leonardo Da Vinci's "La Gioconda" (1503 - 05) Charles I of Spain is elected emperor of the Holy Roman and Germanic Empires as Charles V (1519)	The Bizantine church breaks with Rome (1054) The Inca Empire (1100) Marco Polo travels to China (1271 - 1295) Constantinople falls to the Turks Columbus arrives in what is later called the Americas (1492)
1521 - 1810	The Spanish Conquest Moctezuma II 1480? - 1520 Cortés and the Conquest (1519 - 1521) The Aztecs Speak - An Aztec account of the Conquest of Mexico In Search of Malinche - the Mexican Mata Hari "La Malinche" La Malinche - Unrecognized Heroine The Colonial Period The Settlement of New Spain Religion & Society in New Spain The Economy of New Spain Slavery a la Mexicana Afro-Mexicans: Black Immigration & the Costa Chica African Roots Stretch Deep into Mexico Bartolome de las Casas: Father of Liberation Theology The Apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe  (1531) Founding of The University of Mexico, Mexico City. The first University on the North or South American Continents. (1551) The First Viceroy of Mexico (1530 - 1550): Antonio de Mendoza The Casa de Moneda is founded (1535) and the first printing press on the Continent (1549) Nuño Beltran de Guzmán "Bloody Guzman" & the Founding of Guadalajara Vasco de Quiroga: Practical Utopia (1537 - 1565) The Jesuit Father Kino (1644-1711) Innauguration of the first Cathedral in Mexico (1656) Juana Inés de la Cruz (Sor Juana) 1651-1695 Miguel Hidalgo 1753 - 1811 José Morelos y Pavón 1765 - 1815 Expulsion of the Jesuits (1767) Nicolas Bravo 1786 - 1854 Churches are constructed in the Churriguerresque, Baroque, Plateresque and other styles Ignacio de Allende 1779 - 1811 Antonio López de Santa Anna 1794 - 1876	The Protestant Reform (1521) Michael Angelo paints the Last Supper in the Sisteen Chapel (1536 - 1541) Copernicus publishes his theory that the Sun is the center of the Universe, and that the Earth revolves around it (1543) The first Encyclopedia is published (Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, d'Alembert) (1751) The French Revolution Napoleon overthrows the King of Spain Fernando VII and places his brother Joseph on the throne (1808) The Industrial Revolution in England (1760 - 1851)	Sir Walter Raleigh founds the first English Colony in North America (North Carolina) (1587) The Taj Mahal is built in India (1631 - 1653) The French founded New Orleans in Louisiana (1718) Benjamin Franklin invents the lightning Rod (1752) The North American colonists protest high taxes, The Boston Tea Party (1773) The 13 English colonies declare their independence (4th of July 1776) USA buys Louisiana from the French - The Louisiana Purchase (1803)
1810 - 1910	Mexico's Independence from Spain (1810-1821) The Colonial Government - Successful Failure The Cry of Independence: September 15, 1810 "El Grito" - September 15 or September 16? Miguel Hidalgo The Battle of Calderón, 1811 Los Niños Heroes: Reality or Myth? Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez (1768-1829) Javier Mina Lucas Alamán (1792-1853) Melchor Ocampo (1814-1861) Emperor Augustín Iturbide 1822 - 1823 Agustín Itúrbide, Unappreciated Unknown Guadalupe Victoria - The First President - 1824-1828 Vincente Guerrero - President - 1829 Antonio López de Santa Anna 1833 Cholera epidemic in Guadalajara The Pastry War. France - Mexico, 1838 Cinco de Mayo - The Battle of Puebla (May 5, 1862) Maximilian's Empire (1864 - 1867) Maximilian & Carlota - the Emperor and Empress of Mexico The Republic The Porfiriato (1877 - 1910) Porfirio Díaz - An Enigma	The Holy Alliance is created to defend Absolutism (Austria, Russina and Prussia) (1815) England's Victorian Period (1837 - 1901) The Suez Canal is opened (1869) The Curies discover radiation (1898)	Independence of: Colombia (1810), Venezuela (1811), Argentina (1816), Chile (1818), Peru (1821), Brazil (1822) and Uruguay (1825) American Civil War (1861 - 1865) USA purchases Alaska from Russia for $7 million dollars (1867)
1910-1989	Chinese Immigration in Mexico 1910 - Founding of the Cruz Roja - Mexico's Red Cross The Mexican Revolution Mexican Revolution (1910) - A Summary The Revolution 1910 - 1920: Venustiano Carranza Victoriano Huerta Francisco Madero Alvaro Obregón Vicente Lombardo Toledano Aquiles Serdán Emiliano Zapata The Zapatista Movement (1911 - 1919) A Nation in Flux Part 1 A Nation in Flux Part 2 The Revolution 1920 - 1940: Consolidation Part 1 Consolidation Part 2 Consolidation Part 3 Plutarco Elias Calles President 1924 - 1928 Cristero Wars (1927 - 1929) Part 1: Toward the Abyss Part 2: The Combat Phase Part 3: Behind the Scenes Institutional Single Party system (1926 - 1993) Lazaro Cardenas Diego Rivera José Clemente Orozco Porfirian style social peace (1926 - 1993) Octavio Paz Agustin Yañez