This document is an essay by Amalia Mesa-Bains in which she explores the history of indigenismo, an embrace of one’s indigenous heritage, and the integral role it has had in helping to develop a sense of personal and collective identity within the Chicano community in the United States. She suggests that Chicanos turned to notions of indigenismo in an effort to formulate a coherent—as well as culturally and politically useful sense of self—during the tumultuous early years of the Chicano Movement. Moreover, Mesa-Bains explores the importance of naming in relationship to notions of indigenismo, focusing on two terms, “Xicano” and “Aztlan”, and their importance to notions of a specifically Chicano self-identity. She also discusses the idea of [José Vasconcelos’ 1925] la raza cósmica, or the Cosmic Race, as well as the figure of the Tolteca, or artist-activist. Mesa-Bains then turns her attention to specific forms of cultural production that reflect indigenous influences, including curanderismo, the making of home-altars, and specific ceremonial practices. Following this, she considers several examples of work seen as having emerged from the conceptual base of indigenismo, focusing on three major California artist collectives, including the Centro Cultural de la Raza, el Teatro Campesino, and Mujeres Muralistas.

Mesa-Bains is an artist, curator, and cultural critic who wrote extensively on Chicano/Latino art. This essay was written as a result of Mesa-Bains participation in the 1989 “Cultural Diversity Based on Cultural Grounding Conference,” held in New York. She presented it as part of the “Voices from the Battlefield” series; that is, from international conversations about cultural diversity and cultural equity in 1992. Along with providing a comprehensive discussion of the importance of pre-Columbian thought and iconography to the Chicano sociopolitical and art movements, Mesa-Bains posits the ways in which the language of indigenismo provided a conceptual base to the Chicano Movement; thus being used as a means of unifying the resistance of the community against mainstream society.