Peregrinos de Aztlán: narrando los orígenes, reconociendo la nación

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to analyze how the novel Peregrinos de Aztlan, by Miguel Mendez, takes the form of a foundational fiction in order to create an identity for a nation: the one of the Chicano community. This community needs to recognize itself as such and thereby to start its fight for its civil rights. To do so, the text approaches the Latin American foundational fictions from two directions: by questioning them and by proposing a new type of fiction that could meet the distinctive features of the emerging nation described in the novel.