Chicanonautica: HighAztechization

by Ernest Hogan

I was not trying to predict the future when I wrote High Aztech. I was just trying to make sense out of the insane developments I saw in the world around me. Now, over thirty years later, I keep seeing news items that show how the world is becoming more and more like my novel:

In a recent poll, 54% of Mexico City residents said they were in favor of changing the city’s name back to Tenochtitlán, “to better embrace its indigenous identity.” It was a non-binding resolution, but still, that’s a majority.

 

 

Across the Border, in California, Aztlán Development, “a group based in Palm Springs made up of architects and developers specializing in theme parks,” announced their plans for Return to Aztlán, a 48-acre theme park with concert plaza, a beach amphitheater, and “a 16-screen movie theatre in the shape of a Mayan temple.” (Er, Mayan?) There will also be a 200-foot-tall pyramid based on Tenochtitán’s Templo Mayor where visitors will be able to take glass elevators to an observation deck giving panoramic views of the Coachella Valley. Then they can ride down the water slides.

Kinda boggles the mind, though a follow up story says it ain’t gonna happen, and “The ‘news’ came as news to the developers themselves — as well as local tribes and Coachella city officials.”

Looks like Tezcatlipoca is up to his tricksterizations again.

I am reminded of Jesús Salvador Treviño’s “The Great Pyramid of Aztlán” where a pyramid is built in Arizona as the result of Chicano nationalism and capitalism that creates a world much saner and preferable to my dystopian vision. You can read Treviño’s story in The Fabulous Sinkhole and Other Stories.

If that wasn’t strange enough, there’s a controversy about reviving Aztec religion in California. Some folks are objecting to the California Department of Education’s  Ethnic Studies Curriculum accusing Christians of “theocide” (apparently they don’t know about what happened to native religions in America in the last 500 years), and objecting to the study of Aztec beliefs, including chants to Aztec gods. An article in City Journal expressed fear that this will result in “the displacement of the Christian god, which is said to be an extension of white supremacist oppression, and the restoration of the indigenous gods to their rightful place in the social justice cosmology.” National Review goes even further, comparing the curriculum to “the stone altar that once stood at the top of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan”; “many of our children will be sacrificed on it if we accord the cult it serves more respect and more tolerance than it rightly deserves.” 

So, no freedom of religion for Aztecs? I don’t recall a Christians Only clause in the Constitution . . .

Both articles use sensationalistic descriptions of gory sacrifices to scare their presumably Christian readers. Be sure to listen to the audio of the National Review piece; the attempts to pronounce the Nahuatl names are hilarious.

I wonder if these folks have heard of High Aztech?

Meanwhile, my social media feeds are full of posts from people who are doing their part to revive Aztec and other PreColumbian cultures, including the religions. No reports or images of bloody sacrifices. Mostly art and poetry. Flower and song. The parts of our ancient cultures the haters never mention.

Guess I was right to title my upcoming story, “Those Rumors of Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice have Been GreatlyExaggerated.”

Ernest Hogan is the Father of Chicano Science Fiction and has a close personal relationship with Tezcatlipoca.