By: David Conde
One of the greatest efforts on the part of the Chicano Movement was to explore the reestablishment of identity signposts in a more collective way. Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology together with a revision
of an existing History combined to give our origins a sense of place.
Much went into the notion of roots best expressed in the term of the concept of Aztlan. To youth especially, this mytho-historical manifestation was something to rally around.
In the concept one can find an American indigenous past, a connection with the epic lands of antiquity and a space that people can call their own. However, when it came to the Chicano as a person, as an individual that sought to find a personal identity, there was something lacking.
The notion of a Mestizo born on the American continent was insufficient to individual feelings of belonging. The history of American oppression had seen to it that this character became somewhat place-less and forgotten.
The great wave of Mexican immigrants coming to the United States has gone a long way to reverse that sense of solitude brought on by displacement. The healthy identity immigrants have brought with them has revitalized what was a dilapidated state of Latino individual self-awareness.
However, there is a lot more to do. When Mexicans or other Latin Americans speak about home, it almost always not about the country, but about the village or town they came from. The identity with those small places is precious and cements the notion of coming from somewher personally important. It is that kind of detail that Alex Haley referred to in tracing the family story found in Roots (1976).
When I was a child, I listened to tales told around the table about the journey my grandfather took to join the family that already had members on both sides of the Rio Grande border. The story telling about the journey is exciting.
But I found more important a little known place in the Tuxtla Mountains of southern Veracruz that I have endeavored to find in my travels to the area. I was encouraged to put more focus on that when, years ago, I met someone from the family living in Tres Zapotes, an ancient Olmec site that was our group’s destination on that day of study. The Tuxtlas is a small mountain range with the major towns of Santiago Tuxtla to the northwest, San Andres Tuxtla in the center and Catemaco to the east. What makes it intriguing is that Catemaco is the center of pre-Colombian religion and worship that is still practiced.
From there, the road to the east and then north takes us to the Yucatan Peninsula where the first Mestizo was born on the North American continent after a Spanish ship wreck in 1512. The story of Spanish conquest involves the conception, birth and growth of a Mestizo community that eventually became the dominant group in the Americas.
Yet, it also became important to find that place that marks personal and family beginnings. The spirit calls from that land is quite rewarding when they are answered. The question of identity has been one of the predominant themes of the Latino journey in America. So much has had to be overcome in order to reach a measure of equilibrium in an area so full of thoughts and feelings.
The human condition in our world today offers challenges that only a strong people can face and overcome. We hear the cry of that history and those challenges.
