Chicanonautica: Scenes from a Manifesto

by Ernest Hogan

Like I've been saying, my Chicanonautica Manifesto was published in the Fall 2015, Volume 40, Number 2 issue of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies. Maybe you're curious as to what I say in it. Maybe you got some money instead of gifts for the Holidaze, and are wondering if you should buy the issue. Maybe you just need to be tempted.

So I've put together this series of quotes from the Manifesto, a sort of trailer, with full-color versions of my art that appears as grayscale in the journal. This includes a higher-resolution version of my “Calacanaut” logo:

Sci-fi came into the barrio through the airwaves, and I saw it as part of my natural environment, my heritage. I'm a proud recombocultural mongrel. When I got around to experimenting with writing about Chicano characters, they came to life, leapt off the page, like monsters from a mad scientist’s lab.

Chicano is a science fiction state of being. Even when I try to write mainstream, or even nonfiction, it’s seen as fantastic.

I seem to be a Chicanonaut – a Chicano who's always going out of bounds, crossing borders, new frontiers, going beyond the barrio. One small step for a Chicano . . . And of course, by my being somewhere else, I bring the barrio with me. And when I come back home from my explorations, the barrio is transformed.

Purity has turned out to be a handicap when dealing with the future, and the unknown.

In 21st century, the publishing world is being transformed by the intertwined developments of technology and society. It’s making the world more Chicano -- by the mid-century it will look like a Chicano planet.

I'm not interested in being puro Mexicano and only reaching the gente in the barrio. My roots embrace the planet, and reach out for the universe – the Intergalactic Barrio.

Okay, so buy it if you're interested. If you're offended, I feel I've still done my job. Oh yeah, Happy New Year!

Ernest Hogan is the author of Cortez on Jupiter, Smoking Mirror Blues, High Aztech, and works that have appear in publications as diverse as Analog and Aztlán. He is also an artist, and a sixty year-old kid who's trying to get his shit together.