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Rio Grande Valley
The Azteca-Mexica partnership, often known as the Aztec Empire, was the military alliance that ruled most of central Mexico before the Spanish conquest. They identified the present-day U.S. southwest as their homeland, Aztlán.
Azteca-Mexica Quotes in Borderlands / La Frontera
The Borderlands / La Frontera quotes below are all either spoken by Azteca-Mexica or refer to Azteca-Mexica. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Part 1, Section 1: The Homeland, Aztlán / El otro México
Quotes
We have a tradition of migration, a tradition of long walks. Today we are witnessing la migración de los pueblos mexicanos, the return odyssey to the historical/mythological Aztlán. This time, the traffic is from south to north.
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Azteca-Mexica Term Timeline in Borderlands / La Frontera
The timeline below shows where the term Azteca-Mexica appears in Borderlands / La Frontera. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 1, Section 1: The Homeland, Aztlán / El otro México
...Mexico north of the border, and historian Jack D. Forbes, who describes Chicanos as the Aztecs of the north, the US’s largest indigenous community. Anzaldúa begins with a bilingual poem about...
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The Aztecs placed their homeland, Aztlán, in what is now the US southwest, a conclusion that archeological...
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Part 1, Section 3: Entering into the Serpent
...the Mesoamerican serpent creator goddess Coatlicue, who was also known as Tonantsi. But the patriarchal Azteca-Mexica society “split” the goddess into two, Tonantsi the good and Coatlicue the evil.
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...at the site of an old Tonantsi temple on Tepeyac hill and told him in Aztec to preach to his people that she is the mother of God. She quickly became...
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...and the Change to Male Dominance. Anzaldúa quotes the sun-god Huitzilopochtli telling the Mexica and Azteca tribes that he will help them unite the peoples of the earth through war. She...
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...an abandoned church. Some locals think she is la Llorona, but Anzaldúa thinks she’s the Aztec earth goddess Cihuacoatl, who is also said to wail in the night. Anzaldúa suggests that...
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Part 1, Section 4: La herencia de Coatlicue / The Coatlicue State
...of human hands, hearts, and skulls. This shows that she brings together all the main Aztec religious symbols into a single, contradictory whole. The Coatlicue state involves keeping the conscious mind...
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Part 1, Section 6: Tlilli, Tlapalli / The Path of the Red and Black Ink
Ni cuicani: I, the Singer. The Aztecs used writing in black and red ink (called “tlilli” and “tlapalli”) to communicate between our...
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...she lives with it like a victim offering daily blood sacrifices to a vampire—or the Aztecs.
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Part 1, Section 7: La conciencia de la mestiza / Towards a New Consciousness
...and disorienting. She describes this way of life as “mental nepantilism”—the latter word is an Aztec concept that refers to being “torn between ways.” Stuck in constant transition, facing multiple conflicting...
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Part 2, Section 2: La pérdida
...her apart violently and throws her uterus in the trash. She imagines honoring Tlazolteotl, the Aztec goddess of filth and sin, by bathing in other people’s trash. She watches Tlazolteotl stab...
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