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 . . .
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