Where are the Totally Rad Narratives?

Xicanx Flowering

There is a Xicanx Renaissance happening, I keep having to tell people. Books, music, art; it’s even overseas with the spread of Cholo subculture in the Philippines, Thailand, and Japan. We are definitely revitalized, though with many Xicanx things, this goes mostly unnoticed, and is underground.

But really, what is our direction, what is our cohesion and what type of voices are we putting forward in the surge of activity over the last few years?

Part of this renaissance comes from new small presses; there are many each day, up from like three presses a decade ago, to something like in the 20s now. These are presses run by Xicanx folks…but what content are they publishing? While many presses might have names harkening to resistance, to el movimiento, to our cultura of survival and resistance, most don't “just” publish Xicanx writers, they publish a variety, and what they publish is not all resistive, much seems to be more about representation than resistance. I'm all for connections and helping other groups, particularly marginalized groups, but what are we doing differently from mainstream indie presses? And, more importantly:

Where are the resistive and radical narratives of our gente?

Trying to Get Deported to Ancient Rome

The study of some founding Xicanx texts taught me not much has changed in our conditions in 50 years: settler-colonialism attacks our identity, our history in education and continues to attempt erasure evident in the euro-centric labels on government forms and demarcation around Hispanic and Latinx. Maybe the Latinxs are hoping to be mistaken for Pedro Pascal and get deported via time machine to ancient Rome and live out Gladiator II as a Latin.

These terms come from Europeans, not in the manner that this language I’m using comes from Europe, but in a concerted effort to control and divide us. (Check out the great Tales From Aztlantis “Episode 9: The Whiteness of ‘Latinx’” about it, if you don’t believe me). And our gente defend their right to this discombobulated Latinx cutlura and we get memes, videos, social media posts like “What happens when you Latinx,” “What Latinx moms say,” or laugh when Rachel Ray fucks up a so called Latinx dish that has been cooked in Turtle Island / Cemanahuac for a millennia.

(And no way can I accurately describe how my stomach turned as my Native Californian ancestors must have done in their grave when I saw a small museum exhibit info-sign on the “Latinx Tribes of California.” I don’t imagine anyone would stand for “British Tribes of New Hampshire.”)

Xicanx and its forms is the only label we chose for ourselves that looks to our Native heritage and resistance to settler-colonialism. Granted, we got problems, is it Chicano, Chicana or Xicanx? I’m using what I’m using to be inclusive and the first x because I’m down with the Brown, with our Native selves. Xicanx doesn’t collaborate with our own oppression.

This problem of what to call ourselves, who we are, comes from not just a lack of Xicanx education, it's the lack of Xicanx narratives (and resistive ones). At best, our stories are drowned out, undercut, decentered in Hispanic and Latinx realms, and publishing reflects that.

Saboteurs

We don't have cohesion or a cohesive voice. In fact, many Raza (a term used almost a century before Vasconcelos got his grubby hands on it) are against spaces for Xicanx people. Every Xicanx space I've built from anthologies, to workshops, to readings, hasn't been countered by a White person voicing up criticism of having these spaces “only” for Xicanx people. White liberals are too terrified of being labeled a racist, and honestly, they don't care what we do. They don't know our leaders, our culture, our writers: they butchered Joaquin Murrieta a hundred and fifty years ago and they still butcher his name and ask, “Who the hell is that?”

It's Brown people undermining our unity, which is more impacting.

Somehow there is an idea that if we come together and strengthen our community and figure out what we want and dream about via stories, arts, etc. it takes away from someone or takes away our ability to support other marginalized groups or writers, when it's the opposite.

A strengthened Xicanx intelligentsia and literati that are connected to their community and, more importantly, of their community, will be better for all, and definitely better than what we have now, which is Raza tripping over themselves to leave our communities and class climb to be the few entertainers, storytellers, or artists selected by Anglos to be “the voice of the Latinx community” as they write narratives that don't threaten the system of their own oppression or their own position as the chosen few.

We don’t seem to be able to talk about our own issues or gente other than as some ersatz displaced Mexican hand wringing over the same boring shit, “Am I Mexican? Am I American?”

Y'all ain’t Mexipolo.

That hand wringing has been going on for 179 years and more than 50 years ago we landed on “Chicano.” Though, today, we cannot talk about Xicanx without hearing “What about Brazilians?” “What about Salvadorians?” “What about Zuni?” The list goes on, but…what about them? Xicanx, as big of an identity as it is, can't be everything to everyone, like any group identity. Their criticism about our group is that we are grouping.

Personally, I’ve had it with these haters…no, better call them what they are: saboteurs.

Representation Ain’t Shit

There’s another thing we need to talk about, that if it doesn't lie at the center of the problem, it sleeps right next to it: representation ain’t shit.

Do we need another Xicanx filtered classic Western narrative with borderlands slapped on it, begging for humanity, as we have done for 500 years and to Anglos in particular since 1846? Do we need Chola Wuthering Heights, Vato Loco Hamlet, or Borderlands Pride and Prejudice? Label them as hot and spicy as you like, but they aren’t our stories, they are filtered Western narratives meant for us to buy into the settler-colonial nation.

It’s our writers adjusting themselves to the narrative of the empire and not resisting the empire’s narrative. If you don’t think that is what is going on, then why don’t we have Three Aztlan Kingdoms, Javelina King, or The Tale of Chuy, or any tales based on classic Asian literature?

Representation is more than not enough, it’s also dangerous because not only is it collaboration with our own occupation and oppression and buying into the status quo, it gives the illusion of progress. And often these “representational narratives” offer nothing more than the bootstraps myth, that is collaboration with our own exploitation.

The need for radical visions and imaginations where we can dream about ourselves and our togetherness is necessary, not celebrating our attempts to fit our circles into square holes and hoping we don’t get hammered, even if some head patting comes with that hammering.

Poetry is Rad, But

We do have hope: much of Xicanx poetry is totally radical, it gets published by the Raza presses, at times even larger ones not run by our own people. I could make a longish list of great resistive poetry collections by Xicanx writers, even upcoming ones as I’m a connected vato. While poetry is great, it’s not the totality of what is read and what is needed, and honestly, even to a community that loves poetry more than others, there is a problem of reach. As it is, if you got a hot decolonial poetry collection, I’d say the Xicanx Renaissance presses got you covered and gringos might even publish you, maybe. Why? If I’d take a guess, I’d say that there are traditions of poetry being radical (particularly for Raza), and there’s a bit more of abstraction, i.e. poetry is more open to interpretation, perhaps the gringos don’t think, “it’s me they are talking about” when they hear about the oppressor in stanzas.

Prosaic Wasteland

Prose is another matter. A grave one, and I’m including literature and genre fiction. Our community reads mainstream White authors, generally, and not fiction from us. Much of the fiction, novels, story collections, we have is often self published or in the hands of Latinxs or Hispanics and while there are cool exceptions, they often water things down to be “accessible” to a larger audience, which means Anglos, which means borderlands onanism and onerism, that is, weird almost sexual fixation and foggy hallucinations. This supports the status quo of useless hand wringing over American vs. Mexican ID, the idea we don’t belong to this continent, migrants finding “the American Dream” (a dream built on genocidal land theft and exploitation of Xicanx and other people domestically and globally), or plain old, and I do mean old, Social Realist Slum narratives, straight out of the 19th century, no matter how well written, they are tales that prove we are backwards, deserve our lesser status, and warn against mixing with us, other than brief exploitative encounters, such as scary walks through the barrio for drugs, sex, or tacos.

Again, if they label our writers Latinx, they, the publishers or editors, might just forgo our Xicanx narrative and tell our writers, “We got a Colombian! We got one of you already.” Or insert any person that originates from the Indigenous South aka “Latin America,” I’m not picking on Colombian-Americans. Despite our growing Xicanx numbers and our specific issues and the many long talks we need to have with each other…we would be one out of ten because “You have to include everybody!” which I’ve been commanded by people who wouldn't dare say that to anyone organizing for any other group, or include me in their projects for ethnicities I’m not a part of.

The writing workshop I direct for Xicanx writers, does take writers that aren’t Xicanx, so what it seems they are complaining about isn’t the lack of inclusion, but that the workshop is Xicanx centered, the fact that we exist and attempt to come together.

How can we have discussions, cultural movement, when we are sidelined in our own spaces?

Where are our radical narratives?

Additionally, Latinx editors or editors of the Latinx often tell our writers to change their voice to attract East Coast White readers, or the same old bullshit of, “You don’t have an audience, your people don’t read.” Even if you might be selling out and writing about Brown people, not to them, the fact is that our people do read, they just don’t read Raza literature (why would they, it’s about them, not to or for them).

We Don’t Have Our Own Literature

The conversations, the literature, you, yes you, thought you were a part of, that you think was yours as a Xicanx person: you weren’t addressed, you at best are barely tolerated to be in the same room, no matter how brown the writer or how hot and spicy the title is of the book you read. We got a writing to White people problem and a literary culture spinning its wheels problem. We got a much of our written culture isn’t for us problem.

“Our” so called literature is filled with markers that show that we, Xicanx, are not the first audience, not the intended audience, not even counting that many of the narratives support the status quo and the erroneous idea of bootstraps (and the slumming narratives I mentioned above). There’s italics for our Spanglish, glossaries, footnotes on cultural aspects, sentences that are muy raro, ese, very weird, my friend.

Speculative fiction is a genre ripe for our evolution, though it suffers greatly from the same written to others problem. What sets it off is having the potential to escape the same old narratives and status quo supporting stories that much of our literature has become. Speculative means questioning, projecting our imagination for change, as our conditions haven’t changed. There is a chance for change in that, to be imagined, first.

Fuck history, Liberate the Future

We need stories, our stories, otherwise this Renaissance, this surge, will do nothing for our stagnated culture resulting from our lack of cohesion and stagnated condition and trauma and oppression reactions on repeat. We all need to do something about it. I and other creators are bringing forth a creative press dedicated to decolonial resistance narratives that look to spread our culture and galvanize the imagination of our gente: Maíz Poppin’ Press. We are cooking up many projects and are in development and we intend to be examples of how to operate as decentered and equitable and publish and connect with our community and evolve past the need of using a system that wants us to fail. We are creating a new one.

We are also looking to create a new breed of editors, artists, authors, with different relationships to each other. What does that mean? We are figuring it out, but we want an emboldened artists-wordsmiths-publishers-organizers that can carry fire and pop off anywhere needed and make cultura happen.

I am a day away from being an elder as I write this, passing a half century in the Xicano Nightmare. I have been inspired by elders and failed by many; often inspired and failed by the same person. There is another aspect of building different relationships amongst creatives and communities. We need new kinds of elders willing to break toxic traditions, listen to and believe the young when they speak and stop the bullshit hagiography that any of us were any better. If the youth are on the wrong path, it’s on us. A new kind of elder should use influence, finances, and organizing experience to build institutions that arm and grow younger people into the people we should have been, not make retirement circles, mausoleums, or find excuses for our faults and hate the young for seeing them plainly. In other words, fuck history, liberate the future.

Nepantla of Nowhere

This isn’t an ad, marketing, or notice to see what Scott Russell Duncan is doing (the shameless plug for my book above is that). This is a call and challenge for revolutionary prose, wherever it may land. I and the others at Maiz Poppin' Press happen to be building vehicles to deliver such narratives. Of course, that takes time. If you have an idea for a revolutionary novel, short story collection, get writing. If you are a writer, published or still knocking your head against the door of mainstream publishing, or are tired of writing to entertain our oppressors, or getting told you don't have an audience, get writing. We want to connect with many audiences, but we will be looking to connect our books with our Xicanx community primarily because nothing has changed for 50, 150, and 500 years, but for change to happen, we need to imagine it first.

….is this the solution? It’s a solution, an attempt at one. Xicanx people who truly inhabit the inherent notion of liberation in the word know it’s not just about us, we need our solutions to help out other people. But, for fuck’s sake, we deserve our own way and being an odd disjointed rabble telling the same stories, living by the settler’s terms and always joining others’ causes before we help ourselves will help nobody in the long run and we will be forever stuck in the nepantla of nowhere.