This document discusses decolonialism and Chicanx identity. It begins by explaining that decolonialism in Chicanx Studies aims to regain indigenous knowledge and history in a non-violent way. It then lists different aspects of coloniality that will be examined, including knowledge, being, politics, religion, gender, ethnicity, and food. The document provides background on prominent decolonial thinkers like Fanon and Perez. It summarizes the histories of indigenous groups in Mexico like the Olmecs, Zapotecs, Toltecs, Aztecs, and concludes with discussions of terms like Mestizx, Chicanx, Latinx, and debates around identity labels.

1. CHICAN@
STUDIES
WHO ARE YOU? THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY AND
A DECOLONIAL SHIFT
DR. IRIS D. RUIZ

2. DECOLONIALISM
In learning Chican@ Studies, one is learning a type of
decolonial knowledge that should be uplifting and positive
while remaining true to historical events that brought
unfortunate consequences to many indigenous and African
people.
Decolonialism should be a process of peacemaking and
regaining that which was lost: in this case knowledge and
history. Some would argue that decolonial knowledge can be
empowering while helping to regain a sense of dignity. It is
non-violent, non-threatening and non-combative.

3. DECOLONIALISM
CONT.
Now we will enter into an conscious decolonial mindset. We
will question, critique, learn and unlearn. We will explore
 The Coloniality of Knowledge
 The Coloniality of Being
 The Coloniality of Politics and Economics
 The Coloniality of Religion trapping Spirituality
 The Coloniality of Gender and Sexuality
 The Coloniality of Ethnicity (from which race sprung)
 The Coloniality of Food (the tortilla example)

4. “DECOLONIAL"
DEFINED
Franz Fanon: Afro-French psychiatrist,
philosopher, revolutionary…(1925-1961)
 was the most influential figure in introducing and adding
to the theory of decolonization.
 First used it as a literal representaion of physical and
geographical decolonization
 Then used it to emphasize and create: a theory of
decolonization that was more figural (i.e. Decolonization of
the mind).

5. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
A commitment to the individual human dignity of each
member in populations typically dismissed as “the masses”
Emma Perez: Currently an Ethnic Studies professor at U of
Colorado, Boulder
 Wrote The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas in
History
 Her goal is to decolonize race and sexuality
 She uses it as a tool to uncover hidden voices of
Chican@s that have been relegated to silences, to
passivity, to a third space where agency can be gained.

6. INDIGENOUS PRIDE

7. ANAHUAC
The ancient Aztec term
Anahuac (Land Between
the Waters) and the
phrase Basin of Mexico
are both used at times to
refer to the Valley of
Mexico. The Basin of
Mexico became a well
known site that
epitomized the scene of
early Classic
Mesoamerican cultural
development as well.

8. MAP FOR LOCATION
map

9. OLMECS
1500 BCE TO ABOUT 400 BCE
Known for their Colossal Heads
The name "Olmec" means "rubber
people" in Nahuatl, the language of
the Aztec, and was the Aztec name
for the people who lived in the Gulf
Lowlands in the 15th and 16th
centuries, some 2000 years after
the Olmec culture died out. The
term "rubber people" refers to the
ancient practice, spanning from
ancient Olmecs to Aztecs, of
extracting latex from Castilla
elastica, a rubber tree in the area.
The juice of a local vine, Ipomoea
alba, was then mixed with this latex
to create rubber as early as 1600
BCE.[97]

10. ZAPOTECS
Continuation of the Olmec culture…The first
Zapotecs came to Oaxaca from the north,
probably in about 1000 BCE. While never
displacing other peoples entirely, they became
the predominant ethnic group. They built many
important cities, the most renowned of which are
Monte Albán and Mitla.
The name Zapotec is an exonym coming from
Nahuatl tzapotēcah (singular tzapotēcatl), which
means "inhabitants of the place of sapote." The
Zapotecs call themselves Be'ena'a, which
means "The People."
The earliest inscriptions in an American script
are those of the Zapotecs, from about this
period. (150 BC)

11. ZAPOTECS CONT.
Their highly developed writing system that was logographic
in nature, wherein each symbol represented a word.
According to one theory, the Zapotec system of writing was
the precursor to all the later systems that developed in
Mesoamerica.
Read more at Buzzle: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/zapotec-civilization-
facts.html
Meanwhile…..
The Maya introduce a calendar which has a cycle of fifty-two
years, known as the Calendar Round. (50 BC)

12. TOTONACS
http://totonac
The term "totonaca" refers to the people living in
Totonacapan, some authors had translated the
term "totonaco" as a Nahuatl word meaning
"People of Hot Land". The translation for this word
according to the Totonaca Language is "tutunacu"
meaning "Three Hearts" signifying their three cities
or cultural centers; Cempoala, Tajin and Teayo. The
Totonac /ˌtoʊtoʊˈnɑːk/ people resided in the
eastern coastal and mountainous regions of Mexico
at the time of the Spanish arrival in 1519. Today
they reside in the states of Veracruz, Puebla, and
Hidalgo. They are one of the possible builders of
the Pre-Columbian city of El Tajín, and further
maintained quarters in Teotihuacán (a city which
they claim to have built). Until the mid-19th century
they were the world's main producers of vanilla.

14. WHERE ARE WE???

15. TOLTECS
The Toltec culture is an archaeological
Mesoamerican culture that dominated a
state centered in Tula, in the early post-classic
period of Mesoamerican
chronology (ca 800–1000 CE).
The later Aztec culture saw the Toltecs as
their intellectual and cultural predecessors
and described Toltec culture emanating
from Tōllān /ˈtoːlːaːn/ (Nahuatl for Tula) as
the epitome of civilization; indeed in the
Nahuatl language the word "Tōltēcatl"
/toːlˈteːka͡tɬ/ (singular) or "Tōltēcah"
/toːlˈteːkaʔ/ (plural) came to take on the
meaning "artisan".
The Aztec oral and pictographic tradition
also described the history of the Toltec
Empire, giving lists of rulers and their
exploits.

16. TULA

17. MIXTEC
The major Mixtec polity was Tututepec
which rose to prominence in the 11th
century under the leadership of Eight
Deer Jaguar Claw - the only Mixtec king
to ever unite the Highland and Lowland
polities into a single state.
Like the rest of the indigenous peoples
of Mexico, the Mixtec were conquered by
the Spanish invaders and their
indigenous allies in the 16th century.
Pre-Columbia their numbered 1.5 million
Mixtecs.[3]
Today there are approximately 800,000
Mixtec people in Mexico, and there are
also large populations in the United
States.

18. AZTECS
The Aztec /ˈæztɛk/[1] people were certain
ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly
those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language
and who dominated large parts of
Mesoamerica from the 14th to 16th centuries.
The Nahuatl words aztecatl /asˈteka͡tɬ/
(singular)[2] and aztecah /asˈtekaʔ/ (plural)[2]
mean "people from Aztlan",[3] a mythological
place for the Nahuatl-speaking culture of the
time, and later adopted as the word to define
the Mexica people.
Often the term "Aztec" refers exclusively to the
Mexica people of Tenochtitlan (now the
location of Mexico City), situated on an island
in Lake Texcoco, who referred to themselves
as Mēxihcah Tenochcah /meːˈʃiʔkaʔ teˈno͡tʃkaʔ/
or Cōlhuah Mexihcah /ˈkoːlwaʔ meːˈʃiʔkaʔ/.
The Aztecs settled on an
uninhabited island in a lake,
which they name
Tenochtitlan — the site of
the modern Mexico City.
1345

19. AZTEC EMPIRE
aztec fire dance

20. TENOCHITITLAN
aztec music

21. TENOCHITITLAN

22. THE CONQUEST
1519: The Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes lands on the
coast of Mexico with 600 men, 16 horses and about 20 guns.
Cortes and his tiny force capture Montezuma, ruler of the mighty
Aztec empire, in his palace at Tenochtitlan.
1520: Cortes loses control of Tenochtitlan and has to escape in
haste with his men during 'the Sorrowful Night‘
1521: After a little more than a year Cortes recaptures
Tenochtitlan and finally establishes Spanish control over Mexico
1525:The conquistadors, settling on land granted to them after
the conquest, begin the long process of European emigration to
America
Conquistadors

23. AND COLONIALISM TO
21ST CENTURY
DECOLONIALISM
FILL IN THE GAPS FROM
1500-1800

24. MESTIZO/A
Mestizo (/mɛˈstizoʊ/;[1] Peninsular Spanish: [mesˈtiθo],
American Spanish: [mesˈtiso]) is a term traditionally
used in Spain and Spanish-speaking America to mean a
person of combined European and Native American
descent. The term was used as a racial category in the
casta system that was in use during the Spanish
Empire's control of their American colonies. In the United
States, Canada and other English-speaking countries
and cultures, mestizo, as a loanword from Spanish, is
used to mean a non-white of mixed European and
Amerindian descent exclusively, generally with
connection to a Latin American culture and/or of Latin
American descent, a concept much stricter than that
found in Romance languages (especially Portuguese,
possessing terms that are not cognate with mestizo for
such admixture, and thus in which the concept of
mestiço is not seen as particularly connected with
Amerindian ancestry at all). It is related to the particular
racial identity of historical non-white Amerindian-descended
Hispanic and Latino American communities
in an American context.

25. CHICAN@ PRIDE

26. CHICAN@ CONT.
The terms Chicano or Chicana (also spelled Xicano or
Xicana) is a chosen identity of Mexican-Americans in the
United States. The term "Chicano" is interchangeable with
Mexican-American. Both names are chosen identities within
the Mexican-American community in the United States.
However, these terms have a wide range of meanings in
various parts of the Southwest. The term became widely
used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among
Mexicans-Americans who wanted to express an identity, of
cultural, ethnic and community pride.

27. CHICAN@ CONT.
Chicana And Chicano Etymology (history of the word)
Chicana and Chicano comes from the word Mexica (Meh-shee-kah).
In Spanish if you are a Mexica you become a Mechicano.
Mechicanos was the original way that the Spaniards called our
people of the city of Tenochtitlan, which in turn became a way to
refer to all of the people of Anahuac, which at that time and for
four thousand years had culturally included what is called
“Central America” and Aztlan-Chicomoztoc (the rest of what is
called “North America”).
In the late 16th century the pronunciation was of Mechicano was
changed to Mejicano due to a change in the pronunciation of the
letter “x” in Spain.
Chicana and Chicano are just a shortened version of Mexica.

28. CHICAN@S TODAY
http://Sandra Soto on Chicanao/
My queer performative “Chican@” signals a
conscientious departure from certainty, mastery,
and wholeness, while still announcing a
politicized collectivity. Certainly when people
handwrite or keystroke the symbol for “at” as the
final character in Chican@, they are expressing
a certain fatigue with the clunky post-1980s
gender inclusive formulations: “Chicana or
Chicano,” “Chicana and Chicano,” or
“Chicana/o.”

29. CHICAN@ CONT.
The ethnic signifiers “Chicana,” “Chicano,” and “Chicana/o”
when they are used as nouns and not adjectives announce a
politicized identity embraced by a man or a woman of
Mexican decent who lives in the United States and who wants
to forge a connection to a collective identity politics. I like the
way the nonalphabetic symbol for “at” disrupts our desire for
intelligibility, our desire for a quick and certain visual register
of a gendered body the split second we see or hear the term.
“Chican@” flies under or over the radar of what Monique
Wittig calls “the mark of gender”
-Sandra Soto from “Disidentifications”

30. LATIN@S
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa
Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El
Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti,
Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay,
Peru, Puerto Rico, Saint Barthélemy, Collectivity of
Saint Martin, Uruguay, Venezuela

31. HISPANICS
This term is controversial because it really only
acknowledges the Spanish language as an identifying trait
for people who are colonial products of Spanish colonization
or from Spain. It, thus, denies any particular ethicity from all
of the Latin American countries and, as a result, grossly
overgeneralizes the experiences of individual Latin American
communities. For example, what does a Mexican and a
Guatemalan have in common? A Mexican and a Spaniard? A
Totonac and a Mexican-American? Why is this last question
problematic? What does Hispanic mean, really?

32. HISPANICS CONT.
Calling ourselves Hispanic is like African-Americans calling
themselves British because the speak English, have British
surnames, and have some white blood in them.
Mexica Movement

33. FRIDA KHALO