Insurgent Aztlán: The Liberating Power of Cultural Resistance

Abstract

This is a book review of Insurgent Aztlán: The Liberating Power of Cultural Resistance, written by Ernesto Todd Mireles and published in 2020 by Somos en escrito Literary Foundation Press in Berkeley, California. As the subtitle indicates, this book is about the liberating power of cultural resistance, and in this case the subjects of cultural resistance are Mexican Americans in the South West of the United States of America (USA) who identify themselves as Xicanos. The author, who is a Xicano scholar and organizer, reconstructs the relationship between social and political insurgent theory and Xicano literature, films and myths. Based on decades of organizing experience and a scholarly review of the writings of recognized observers and leaders of national liberation movements, the author provides a remarkable work of scholarship that incorporates not only the essence of earlier resistance writing but also provides a new paradigm of liberation for the particular situation of Mexican Americans in the USA.