Chicanonautica: Beyond the Borders of the Latinoid Continuum

 

by Ernest Hogan

Okay, I admit it, I’m a visionary. I don’t like to use the word when I describe myself because it gives people the wrong idea about me. Why do so many people think a visionary is a starry-eyed mystic who keeps getting glimpses of better worlds?

Some of us just keep coming up with weird shit.

It’s another side effect of my monstrous nonstop imagination. My brain keeps scrambling things and I look at them and say, “Wow! Things could be different!”

I don’ t necessarily want things to be like my visions, but enjoy imagining what it would be like if they were.

My near-crippling dyslexia is probably to blame, but that’s another ramble . . .

 

It keeps me mentally hopping into other worlds, crossing borders if you will.

I’ve never been one of those Chicanos who want to live their entire lives in the barrio and culture of their birth. I actually think it’s impossible. A Chicano, by definition, lives between cultures. We are new life and new civilizations, a science fiction state of being.

I think it’s always better to color out of the lines and go where you’ve never been before.

What I call the Latinoid Continuum has sketchy borders. 

The Americas have a Latinoid majority. “Latin” America was coined by the French, envisioning a hemispheric empire with a francophone elite–yeah, Cinco de Mayo . . . I have appreciated what Latinx students from the East bring to the class. Why are we so limited by the borders of the U.S. of A?

Yeah,  crossing borders.

We need communication, alliances, and collaboration not only with our non-Mexican, “Latin” hermanxs beyond Aztlan territory—but the rest of the planet. 

Why not turn it all upside down and claim Spain as part of the Global Barrio? Scott Russell Duncan took Xicanxfuturism to Spain—a good start. We need a beachhead in Europe . . . A gateway to Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

And why not adopt the Philippines while we’re at it?

Does it get a little closer to a Galactic Barrio? 

Maybe then the WorldCon/World Science Fiction Society and SFWA will finally recognize that Mexico, and all of Latin America, exist.  Will we ever see a convention on the border? Could such a thing happen without causing diplomatic or even military chaos?

We seem to be hurtling into the multiversal crossroads . . .

Does bullfighting have a future? It is alive and well and living online. Gotta be careful where I mention it, though. Some of these animalistas get crazy when confronted with certain realities. I’m going to write my novel about it anyway.

I’m remembering the Zimmerman Telegram, 1917, World War I, German offering Aztlán back to Mexico if they conquered the U.S.A. That would have spawned an interesting alternative universe.

Meanwhile, there’s Sergio Gaut Vel Hartman in Buenos Aires, Argentina publishing fiction by authors from all over the Earth in Spanish and English on his blog, Microficciones y Cuentos. Can it bring us together?

Don’t ask me, I’m just another member in the international conspiracy of mad dreamers, having wackadoodle visions.

Ernest Hogan, Father of Chicano Science Fiction, is getting ready to teach his “Gonzo Science Fiction,Chicano Style” class again.