XICANXFUTURIST SUMMER AND MY OWN PERSONAL AZTLÁN
It’s almost over, thisXicanxfuturist summer, and it’s another different world. I expect to hear aboutan invasion of Antarctica any day now. Is it martial law yet? Fascism?
I’m so sick ofcomplaining about it. You can only sing the dystopia/apocalyptic homesick blues for so long.
You can also only sitholed up in an air-conditioned environment for so long.(Phoenix is like a Mars colony, onlyon Mars it would be cold, but who knows, once the anthropogenic side-effectsstart kicking in . . .) My wife and I have our wild imaginations,and we also have been able to manage some overnight, out-of-town getaways tocooler climes that aren’t as far away as you’d imagine.
Sedona, Flagstaff,Cottonwood, Jerome. All very different from the Phoenix Metro area.
Different worlds. They'reall over, if you have the right kind of eyes hooked to the right kind of brain.
I don’t see “theSouthwest” as the creature the Eastern-oriented dominant culture tries to enforce. I seeAztlán.
I don’t mean any kind ofseparatist/secessionist fantasy that scared the racists into building walls andsending in troops. They shouldn’t worry—when I set my sci-fi worldbuilding mindcontemplating plausible scenarios they all collapse under the pesky details.Like the zombie apocalypse, it ain’t gonna happen.
My Aztlán is an alternatereality conjured up when I see through a glorious rasquache scramble into theWild West mythology, down to its pre-Columbian roots.
My imagination takes off.I want to rearrange it all into locations, props, and concepts for thesurrealistic spaghetti western of my dreams. No, I haven’t even begun workingon a screenplay. I’m too busy being the Father of Chicano Science Fiction.Besides, who’s going give me the money for such an insane project? I’m going tohave to settle for living it.
And what a life it is!
When I look through the photosI take on these trips, I’m delighted. Did it all really happen?
Sometimes we don’thave to go that far. There’s a lot of great places in Downtown Glendale, not farfrom Hacienda Hogan.
All over Metro Phoenix,and metastasizing into the surrounding deserts, every available lot is beingfilled with apartment buildings that look like dystopian backdrops. Theredoesn’t seem to be any thought to where the people will work. Yeah, there’ssome talk about tech industries, but I don’t see any sign of them. Maybe theflying saucers full of middle managers will arrive tomorrow. Hopefully they won't be from South Korea.
Worse yet, there’s nothought of where these people will live, as in have FUN.
The Aztlán I dream of isa human environment, full of places like the towns Emily and I like to visit. Notquite utopia, but something to work towards.
Meanwhile, at work, Ilook out the window and see excavators chewing up the remains of one of lastof the malls. We are told that a “walkable village” will be built there. Meanwhile, they're on the verge of declaring martial law in Washington DC.
The celebrations of Mexican Independence Day in Chicago has been canceled due to the arrival of the National Guard. No grito there, but on 16 de septiembre, Xicanxfuturism: Gritos for Tomorrow is launching as scheduled. Let the cultural revolution begin . . .
