It’s almost over, this
Xicanxfuturist summer, and it’s another different world. I expect to hear about
an invasion of Antarctica any day now. Is it martial law yet? Fascism?
I’m so sick of
complaining about it. You can only sing the dystopia/apocalyptic homesick blues for so long.
You can also only sit
holed up in an air-conditioned environment for so long.(Phoenix is like a Mars colony, only
on Mars it would be cold, but who knows, once the anthropogenic side-effects
start kicking in . . .) My wife and I have our wild imaginations,
and we also have been able to manage some overnight, out-of-town getaways to
cooler 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're
all over, if you have the right kind of eyes hooked to the right kind of brain.
I don’t see “the
Southwest” as the creature the Eastern-oriented dominant culture tries to enforce. I see
Aztlán.
I don’t mean any kind of
separatist/secessionist fantasy that scared the racists into building walls and
sending in troops. They shouldn’t worry—when I set my sci-fi worldbuilding mind
contemplating plausible scenarios they all collapse under the pesky details.
Like the zombie apocalypse, it ain’t gonna happen.
My Aztlán is an alternate
reality conjured up when I see through a glorious rasquache scramble into the
Wild West mythology, down to its pre-Columbian roots.
My imagination takes off.
I want to rearrange it all into locations, props, and concepts for the
surrealistic spaghetti western of my dreams. No, I haven’t even begun working
on 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 to
have to settle for living it.
And what a life it is!
When I look through the photos
I take on these trips, I’m delighted. Did it all really happen?
Sometimes we don’t
have to go that far. There’s a lot of great places in Downtown Glendale, not far
from Hacienda Hogan.
All over Metro Phoenix,
and metastasizing into the surrounding deserts, every available lot is being
filled with apartment buildings that look like dystopian backdrops. There
doesn’t seem to be any thought to where the people will work. Yeah, there’s
some talk about tech industries, but I don’t see any sign of them. Maybe the
flying saucers full of middle managers will arrive tomorrow. Hopefully they won't be from South Korea.
Worse yet, there’s no
thought of where these people will live, as in have FUN.
The Aztlán I dream of is
a human environment, full of places like the towns Emily and I like to visit. Not
quite utopia, but something to work towards.
Meanwhile, at work, I
look out the window and see excavators chewing up the remains of one of last
of 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 . . .
