La Verdad Publications
Publishing Hub for Unión del Barrio
The PA Podcast with Juan Carlos Lozano: Season 1, Episode 5
The first season, episode 5 of the Pablo Aceves “PA” Podcast. Our guest host Harry Simón Salazar provides a reading of PART 2: Unión del Barrio’s Report & Analysis On The 2019 MEChA National Conference. We were compelled to share this article in audio format because of the significance of the topic and the related analysis involving the 50-year history of MEChA and the repercussions of the March 2019 organizational name change.
The PA Podcast is an informational project of La Verdad Publications, the informational hub of Unión del Barrio. Please follow us on social media @UnionDelBarrio. You can find out more about us at our organizational webpage http://uniondelbarrio.org. 
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Appreciate the comment about social media call-outs, this is also not a call-out only a critique:
1. Yes, the debate was incomplete and I feel many present felt disenfranchised. In fact I know many MECHISTAS came home to find that their fellow MeChA members were unaware what was voted on. The debate should have been begun there, continued at their respective collectives and then continued again in 2020 before voting, allowing for some chapters to vote in absentia via Google or Skype or whatever worked best.
2. This question is not facetious, I am interested on how you came to your conclusion. Is it “anti Mexican bias” to critique Mexican Nationalism expressed in the word Chicano if you are:
A. A Mexican who doesn’t identify or connect with the word Chicano
B. A Central American who does the same
C. an anti nationalist critiquing the often fascist roots of Mexican Nationalism as U.D.B. also does (and rightly so) I’m against many of the trappings Chicanismo and I suffer from often pro-Mexican bias.
3. Lastly as you point out, while the term Aztlan emerged from the Chicano movement, not just MeChA, alot of things emerged from the the Chicano movement that we no longer (or should no longer) ascribe to, the machismo, the homophobia, and many other things that should stay in the past. The fact that Aztlan didn’t come from Mecha alone only strengthens their choice to leave it behind. Raza, a term stemming from the Spaniards who used it to differentiate themselves from the Moors and the Jews, later used by Vasconcelos to describe a fascistic idea of a super race, should also be done away with.
Mexican Nationalism is anti Indigenous, while people elevate Aztlan they erase the hundreds of tribes that did not come from the Aztecs, and in this way the Chicano and the Aztlan ignores those who do not derive their identity from this nationalist identity. UDB, in all of your writings, seem to be aware of all of these things yet persist to hold onto these obsolete things.
Again, this is not a call out, I will still be following the podcast and your great work.