Chicanonautica: 2025: A Road Odyssey: The Mexica Return to Mormonland

With certain archeological discoveries in recent years, the idea that Aztlán is located in Utah is getting more popular. Mexican-looking people are everywhere, mostly working, building, making a new home for themselves and the "native" Mormons. Even in Kanab, that was once where Hollywood crews would stay while making westerns because Monument Valley is prettier than Texas.

At the office of the Days Inn, a huge screen showed Fox News’ alternate universe, a world that was begging for Trump to save it.

If people just looked around, they would see all the Mexica/Aztec faces. The New Pilgrims. Future Thanksgiving feasts will become more and more . . . Mexican? . . . Native? . . . American?

Kanab doesn’t serve breakfast until 11AM. We were up way early. Luckily, Mike was raving about a restaurant in St. George. It was a bit of a drive, through towns scattered in what I call psychedelic geology. We got coffee in Hurricane.

 

The restaurant was First Watch—a chain that I hadn’t noticed because of the name. Mike had the steel-cut oatmeal. Emily had the Chile Chorizo omelette. I had the Farm Stand Breakfast Tacos. The non-traditional Mexicoid fare was delicious. We ate there several times on this trip.

After we cruised some thrift stores, I saw books by my editor/mentor/friend Ben Bova. A message from the great beyond, from a deeply materialistic hard science writer . . .

Then we hit Snow Canyon. The landscape in its fantastic glory, shining through the fading Uto/Mexica memories and crumbling Mormon/Hollywood visions. Rocks churning up cosmic truths from the center of the Earth.

Later Emily’s sister Carol caught up with us. We had dinner at a place called Los Tapatios that has a great taco plate. Mexican restaurants in Utah used to be such a joke. The times they are a-changing, amigos.

 

That night, Yamamoto led the Dodgers to a victory, sending them to the World Series. I was reminded of the words of the Firesign Theater: “The Tokyo Cubs had won the Series, and mustaches were out of style, and believe me, the dames looked better without ‘em.” 

 

Also, No Kings protests were scheduled all over Utah. Saw a sign declaring that St. George was “Utah’s Dixie.” 

We took Carol to Snow Canyon. She was wowed.

Then we went to Kanarra Falls, crisscrossing the icy river into a dazzling slot canyon. Here we go, I thought, the Senior Citizen Adventure Club. Mike had broken his toe in the hotel, but it didn’t slow him down. I took a tumble at one point, but somehow did an automatic tuck-and-roll, so there was no pain a few days later.

A dead llama was splattered across the road.

Next morning I improvised huevos rancheros with some Cholula packets and pre-cooked eggs in the Days Inn breakfast room. When the going gets tough, the tough get creative . . .

Besides, I needed to get in the mood for the Pink Coral Sand Dunes; a rock shop in the Orwellianly named Orderville served tacos (they’re everywhere), and featured dinosaurs and a Flintstone car.

Then we went to the as-usual amazing Bryce Canyon National Park. No employees during the government shutdown, so it was free, though the trash receptacles were overflowing. The magnificent hoodoos still stood tall.

 

That night we asked a local what the best Mexican restaurant in Kanab was. The name Escobar’s was offered immediately. Once again, good food and funky decor. 

A Uto-Aztecan future in the making . . .

Chicanonautica: 2025: Another Year, Another Odyssey

 

by Ernest Hogan

I’m back from another annual family road trip through parts of Aztlán and Sasquatchlandia in search of America, States . . . United? Altered? And I’m still Chicano AF, as the kids (gimme a break, I’m almost 70, everyone under 40 looks like a child, and most of my friends are dying) say these days.

It’s great to be back, and yeah, it was an odyssey. Homer’s Odyssey was about a guy coming home. So, in 2001: A Space Odyssey, just who is going home to where, Mr. Kubrick? 

Anyway, I’m back, and the world is different, again.

Alvin Toffler was right, future shock is the new normal . . .

So, what’s a Chicanonaut to do?

I carried my virgin passport sandwiched between my wallet and phone, but nobody asked for proof of my citizenship, ICE, National Guard, Border Patrol, whomeverlachingada . . .

Though the country (the world, actually) was ablaze with political turmoil, it was a rather calm trip. There were the occasional Charlie Kirk posters and pro-Trump manifestations, but they seemed more like desperate acts of defiance rather than the cresting of a successful movement. There were No Kings protests, but no violence. I watched it on TV screens in hotel breakfast rooms.

Is politics really the entertainment divisions of the military industrial complex, Mr. Zappa?

What I saw was a number of different cultures. Southern Arizona is different from Northern. Utah–Mormonlandia, and the possible historic location of an historic Aztlán, is undergoing changes as the Mexica return. Nevada is more like a post-Apocalyptic Mars colony every day. California is still another country–going from futuristic, multicultural Mexicoid to Pacific Northwest Hobbiton. Oregon is even more Hobbitish. Washington gets a little more subdued, but cannabis is everywhere. Idaho and Wyoming are more conservative, cowboy, but once you get to Colorado it’s getting artsy-fartsy again . . .

Sort of a continuum, no definite borders, blending into one another. What language do they speak here? Is that legal here? Where are we? What is this, a geopolitical Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal? Dare I be Chicano and say there’s some kinda rasquache going on here? Or should I say Xicanxfuturism?

How can they say if I belong if they don’t know who they are?

My notes tell a strange story with overtones of sci-fi and gonzo. I’ve got some transcribing to do. Did all it all really happen? I do have photos, but they’re a bit surreal.

So, watch for my travelogue, over at Mondo Ernesto and here, depending on how it all sorts itself out.

At least the Mexican restaurants I keep finding everywhere are getting better. I’m gonna need some tacos, beans and rice to get me through this.

Ernest Hogan’s new story “Doula” is in the Center for Science and the Imagination’s Sound Systems: The Future of the Orchestra, which is available as a free ebook. His new Paco Cohen, Mariachi of Mars story will be in Codex II of Xicanxfuturism: Gritios for Tomorrow, meanwhile buy and read Codex I.

Chicanonautica: Traveling While Chicano in Trumptopia 2.0

by Ernest Hogan

Once again, my wife Emily and I are getting ready for another road trip with her brother Michael Theile. I love these crazy excursions out of our usual stamping grounds, Arizona, Aztlán, searching for the latest version of the dream called the United States of America. This time, however, it’s different.

We did trips in the height of the pandemic. It was weird, but in a fun way. Like being in a science fiction story. Something else that is my idea of a good time.

We have traveled during the first Trump administration, which was both dystopian and enlightening.

Now we’re well into Trumptopia 2.0 . . .

I must admit, it’s kinda scary.

Emily and I got the latest flu and Covid shots and I got a passport. What the hell, I may need it for other reasons that keep coming up.

Then the events of the last few months came about. 

The passport may be necessary on this side of the border.

Traveling while Chicano never has been an issue in the past, but now . .  .

People have been doubting my American citizenship all my life.

I’ve resented it every time. Isn’t my SoCal accent enough? What makes you think you look more American than I do, paleface?

There could be another “national emergency” and the National Guard could be sent into a part of the Wild West that we’re passing through.

It might be like a scene from my new story “Once Upon a Time in a Mass Deportation”:

“We stopped this guy at the checkpoint, asked him for his ID, then things got . . .” Rodriguez paused and gulped.

“Weird,” said Garza. 

Sarge looked the Tacoma man over and got a sharp-toothed grin for his trouble.

“Okay, okay,” the Sergeant said, “how weird?”

“Well, first,” Garza handed over a card. “Take a look at his ID.”

Sarge grabbed and squinted. “Pop-o-ca—”

“Popocatepetl.” The moustache stretched again. It started Po-po. The tl sounded like a t and the l was swallowed.

 

Sarge’s nostrils flexed like he smelled something awful. 

“Muldoon?”

“Yeah, that’s my last name.”

“Isn’t that Irish?”

“Sure is.”

“But Popoca–uh . . .”

“Aw, just call me Popo, it’s easier.”

“Isn’t that Spanish?”

“No, it’s Nahuatl.”

Sarge took a deep breath. “Nah-what?”

“It’s the language the Aztecs spoke,” interjected Rodriguez.

“They still do.” Muldoon said it with a smirk.

“So, you’re an Irish Aztec?” asked Sarge.

“Sorta,” said Muldoon. “But I consider myself a Chicano.”

Sarge squinted again. “Yeah. You do look more like a Mexican than an Irishman.”

“I’ve been told that.”

“How did you get the last name Muldoon?”

“My great-great-great–I’m really not sure how many greats– grandfather was Irish.”

Sarge shook his head. “How did that happen?”

“He jumped ship in San Francisco, and ended up in New Mexico–one of the New Mexico Irish, you know, like Billy the Kid.”

Sarge’s brows made a V between them. “And this is your ID?”

“My Arizona driver’s license. Says right there.”

“That would make you seventy,” said Sarge. 

“And you don’t look that old . . .” He turned to Rodriquez and Garza. 

“Run a check on him. See if he’s registered for the draft.”

 

Rodriguez winced.

Muldoon shrugged. “Nobody knows what to do with an Aztec leprechaun.”

Not bad. Wonder if I can find someone crazy enough to publish the whole story? Or will it just get me deported?

Like a proper Xicanxfuturist and Father of Chicano Science fiction, I choose to boldly go into the strange new world. If I get in trouble, I’ll scream bloody murder across several social media platforms.

Buhahahahahaha!

Ernest Hogan wants you to buy his books while you still can. Buy Xicanxfuturism: Gritos for Tomorrow / Codex I, too (Codex II will be out in February with his new Paco Cohen, Mariachi of Mars story, “A Wild and Wooly Road Trip on Mars”).

Chicanonautica: Ciberbandid@je in Paris

by Ernest Hogan

And suddenly, some of my art appears in Paris, in the Sorbonne, yet. It triggers flashbacks to that time in Oaxaca when I stumbled through explaining what the enfer a quesadilla was to some Sorbonne girls who had unwashed, uncombed travel hair, but that’s another story . . .

It starts with my getting a message from Colton “Cuca” Campbell, a student from my “Gonzo Science Fiction, Chicano Style” class, and fellow contributor to Xicanxfuturism: Gritos for Tomorrow. He explained it in his Instagram announcement better than I could:

I presented my work at the Sorbonne yesterday for the 16th International Conference of the Image. I won an emerging scholar award from @commongroundresearchnetworks which allowed me to be able to travel and present here in Paris, and moderate some really incredible panels.

The work that I am doing on the concept of "Ciberbandid@je" is still very preliminary. In reaction to the rise of authoritarian violence in America, I responded as best as I could in my position as a scholar and a Chicano. Below is the abstract for the conference.

Xicanx people are indigenous to Aztlán, an internal colony with irredentist claims to the southwest territories of The United States of America. Under the Trump Administration, state sponsored terror in the form of digital psyops, surveillance, disappearances, and immigration raids threaten a protracted insurgency that desperately needs a way to protect its collective identity. The Güey Fawkes Mask is used to both protect the identities of the hacker collective Anonymous, as well as unify them under a single symbol. There needs to be a Xicanx version, more brown, less blush. This mask can unite Xicanx people in protest, rasquache constructed, with images indiscernible in basic form from the racist mannequins that dance across the red, white, blue, silver, and digital screens. Built as resistance, this research develops El Pachuco’s cyber camouflage: a Güey Fawkes Mask. The Mask of the Ciberbandid@. This symbol informs a decolonial pedagogical model while also being a practical tool for protest.

 

I asked a number of Xicanx artists for their own personal understandings of what the mask may look like, and I must thank everyone that contributed to the project SO FAR. Keep up with my work to see all the Ciberbandid@s!

In no order, muchisimas gracias to my compas, comrades, elders, and Ciberbandid@s all, that remain firm in our resistance.

Yup, I was one of those Xicanx artists, and I came up with my version of the mask, and a wanted poster. It felt good to work on my drawing chops. And it looks like we’re going to be needing some cartooning in the service of the resistance–pretty damn soon. Thank you, Cuca!

We’re talking about putting more of my art on display, but that also is another story . . .

Ernest Hogan is going over his notes for his class, thinking about the place of fantastic fiction in dangerous times. 

Chicanonautica: At the Intersection of Xicanxfuturism and Gonzo Sci-Fi

  

by Ernest Hogan

Seems I’m always in some kind of intersection. And intersection being another world for crossroad. In West African Vodun, Papa Legba is the Lord of the Crossroads, who like the Mexica Yacatecuhtli, God of Travelers and Merchants, influences my life. Sorry if I crossed a border–it’s something I do all the time, without thinking. It comes with the whole Chicano enchilada.

So now I'm in the middle where Xicanxfuturism and Gonzo Sci-Fi meet. Not only is Xicanxfuturism: Gritos for Tomorrow, with my new Paco Cohen, Mariachi of Mars story coming out, but all kinds of bizarre changes are happening thanks to the senile billionaire in the White House, and I’m trying to finish my story “Once Upon a Time in a Mass Deportation” before I have to teach my online “Gonzo Science Fiction, Chicano Style” class in which I write a story over the course of two weekends, telling the students how I do it.

Whew!

The story is coming together. The plot is a done deal. Now all I have to do is figure out how to fit in all the insane details I’ve come up with. It’s more like composing a surrealistic mural rather than storytelling at this point. Yeah, it’s crazy, but it’s actually how I've always done things.

I don’t usually stop, look at, and think about what the hell I’m doing, but that’s what the class is all about. Funny how it goes from violent bursts of outrage in my brain to a kind of delicate surgery . . .

And of course, I’m being distracted by the ongoing Trumpocalypse. Trying not to obsess over all the bad news, but ignoring it would be like not paying attention to the nearby volcano that’s spewing smoke and spurting out fountains of lava. Maybe the eruption won’t be so bad, but then I want to know if a pyroclastic flow is heading my way.

It doesn’t help that the president is disconnected from reality:

Greetings, America, this is the Alternate Reality News Network.

Turns out El Chapo isn’t such a bad hombre after all, besides his business savvy will be good for the economy. And does have money. 

We need immigrants like him and his family.

And we need to welcome and help all those Afrikaners threatened by that white genocide. Who says we’re not good humanitarians?

Dr. Strangelove III has been put in charge of the Golden Dome project that will keep us all busy building lots of satellites that will shoot down missiles in mid-air—fallout, anyone? And the doctor says he’ll be ready to come up with new defenses against any countermeasures all the other nuclear powers develop. A new arms race will be fun.

Ack!

And there’s a lot more happening as I type. 

Meanwhile, in the real world, a new species of bacteria has been found on the Chinese Taingong space station, and the prevalence of feeders has caused a species, Anna’s hummingbird, to undergo mutations, and expand beyond their native California. New life, new civilizations. The evolution will not be televised.

What kind of future are you making?

Ernest Hogan is getting creative as the going gets tough.