The Promise That Always Recedes
Assimilation is sold as a promise: change your name, soften your accent, speak English, avoid controversy, reject the people who make the dominant culture uncomfortable, and you will be safe. But for many Latinos, the promise always recedes. Acceptance is offered on a condition, and that condition is often silence.
A person may be praised for working hard, but condemned when they demand labor rights. A student may be celebrated for being bilingual, but punished for speaking Spanish in the wrong place. A family may be called essential when it works, but illegal when it asks to belong. A young person may be told to overcome their trauma, but sentenced as if that trauma had never existed.
Internalized Colonialism
Colonial power does not survive by force alone. It also survives by teaching people to doubt themselves. Internalized colonialism teaches us that nearness to whiteness is protection, that English is intelligence, that individual success matters more than collective dignity, and that our culture must be cleansed before it can deserve respect.
This does not mean that Latinos who assimilate are weak. It means that survival often demands painful strategies. Some people move away from Spanish because they were punished for speaking it. Some deny their Indigenous ancestry because they were taught to associate it with shame. Some look down on recent immigrants because they fear being mistaken for them. Some support harsh policies because they believe the punishment will fall only on someone else.
But a system that harms one part of the community eventually threatens the whole community. The line between "good immigrant" and "bad immigrant," between "respectable Latino" and "dangerous Latino," between "deserving child" and "disposable youth," is not one we draw. It is drawn by power, and power can redraw it whenever it wishes.
The Political Divide Is Real
The 2024 election exposed the complexity of Latino political identity. The Pew Research Center found that Hispanic voters were deeply divided, and that Donald Trump lost the Hispanic vote to Kamala Harris by only three points. That was a major shift from 2020 and 2016.[1]
That figure should not be used to shame all Latinos, nor to pretend that Latinos are a single political bloc. It should compel us toward honest analysis. Latino communities are pulled by economic fear, religious identity, class aspiration, anti-socialist memory, media narratives, immigration anxiety, gender politics, regional differences, and the desire to be seen as American. Some people are trying to survive. Some are trying to belong. Some are angry. Some are misinformed. Some are reacting to real failures of institutions that promised to protect them.
A cultural revolution cannot begin with denial. We cannot build power by pretending that all Latinos already share the same consciousness. We must educate, organize, listen, and heal.
Not Hatred — Memory
A Latino cultural revolution does not mean hatred. It does not mean replacing one racial hierarchy with another. It does not mean violence. It means memory, responsibility, and repair. It means asking why our children are pushed out of schools, why our young people are punished more harshly, why our families are treated as temporary, why our elders carry silence, and why so many of us were taught to feel ashamed of the very things that kept us alive.
Memory is not nostalgia. Memory is political clarity. A people without memory can be convinced that every injustice is isolated. A people with memory can see patterns. It can understand that school exclusion, criminal punishment, immigration enforcement, labor exploitation, linguistic shame, and cultural erasure are not separate wounds. They are connected methods of control.
What Solidarity Demands
Solidarity requires more than slogans. It requires discipline. It requires rejecting anti-Blackness, Indigenous erasure, homophobia, ableism, misogyny, and contempt for the poor within our own communities. It requires defending Native American sovereignty while acknowledging the Indigenous roots of many Latino peoples. It requires protecting immigrant families without reducing Latino identity to immigration. It requires fighting for incarcerated youth without denying the pain of victims. It requires holding harm and humanity at the same time.
This work is not easy. But a divided people is easier to punish. A child without community is easier to suspend. A defendant without public support is easier to sentence harshly. A worker without solidarity is easier to exploit. A family without a voice is easier to deport. A people without memory is easier to rename.
"A divided people is easier to punish. A people without memory is easier to rename."
Building the Institutions We Need
If the dominant institutions keep defining us, we must build institutions that tell the truth. We need media that speak with moral courage and factual discipline. We need schools that teach Latino and Native American youth who carry history, intelligence, pain, and possibility. We need restorative circles that teach accountability without humiliation. We need legal defense that understands youth, disability, immigration, trauma, race, and language. We need families that are not afraid to ask questions in courts, schools, prisons, and government offices.
We also need art, ceremony, journalism, mentorship, education, and spiritual courage. The Chicano Movement understood that culture was not decoration. Culture was a source of political power. Aztlán was not only a place; it was a language of return, dignity, imagination, and responsibility.[2]
A Final Call
The border crossed us. The law renamed us. The schools disciplined us. The courts punished us. The prisons buried us. But we are still here.
We do not ask permission to exist. We do not accept the role of permanent foreigners. We do not abandon our Native American relatives, our immigrant families, our incarcerated youth, our undocumented workers, our queer children, our disabled students, our elders, or our wounded communities.
Grito de Aztlán exists because our people need a voice that is not afraid to name the system, but is also not afraid to imagine something beyond it. Our revolution begins with memory. Our memory becomes identity. Our identity becomes solidarity. And solidarity becomes power.
Selected Sources
[1] Pew Research Center, “How voting patterns changed in the 2024 election:A detailed analysis,” June 26, 2025.https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patterns-in-the-2024- election/
[2] United States Sentencing Commission, “2023 Demographic Differences in Federal Sentencing,” November 14, 2023. https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/2023-demographic- differences-federal-sentencing
[3] U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection: A First Look, released January 2025. https://www.ed.gov/media/document/2021-22-crdc-first-look- report-109194.pdf
[4] Prison Policy Initiative, “Native incarceration in the U.S.” https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/native.html
[5] PBS SoCal, “Plan De Aztlan: Early Chicano Activism.” https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/departures/plan-de-aztlan-early-chicano- activism
Ángel Rivas Téllez
Author and founder of Grito de Aztlán.