Some Latinos Seek Their Pre-European Past

Cozkacuauhtli Zenteotl was once known as Eduardo Rivera. For 18 years, he didn’t think much about his name until one day he realized that, unlike many of his white and African-American classmates, he knew very little about his family’s history.

“Their roots went back to Europe and Africa,” he said. “But me? I did not know how I came about.”

Today, Zenteotl, 28, is part of a small but growing number of people of Mexican or Central American ancestry who are pursuing a radical approach to genealogy, detaching themselves from European influence and adopting rituals and traditions of their distant ancestors.

Followers of what scholars call the indigenous movement are primarily young people who are searching for an ideology, a memory, a lost identity.

“It’s a movement similar to what you saw in the 1960s and 1970s with African Americans learning where they came from,” said Rudy Acuna, Chicano studies professor at Cal State Northridge. “I see an awful lot of students doing this. A lot of college students are receptive to indigenous ceremonies.

“We all want to find out where we came from,” Acuna said. “Now it’s our [Latinos of Mexican and Central American ancestry] turn.”

But with few written records to document family trees, the task is not simple.

“It’s impossible to trace our real roots, we are so mixed,” said Olin Tezcaplipoca, director of the Mexica (Meh-SHEE-kah) Movement, an organization founded in 1987 in East Los Angeles that encourages people to trace the history of the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Central America. On its Web site (www.mexica-movement.org), the group explains the movement, its philosophy and the history of the indigenous peoples.

“It’s symbolic. . . . Most just learn Aztec dances, but never learn about their history, pre-European culture,” Tezcaplipoca said.

Ten years ago Zenteotl was like that.

Then known as Eduardo Rivera, he was proud of his Spanish name. He prayed to La Lupita, Virgen de Guadalupe, and knew a lot about European and U.S. history--what he calls “white history”--but little about the history of Mexico or Central America.

He began researching his past.

From his grandmothers, he learned that both sides of his family came from a region of central Mexico once dominated by the Aztecs.

About the same time, he said, “I started seeing the African-American movement, African Americans learning about their past, and I started questioning my own history. What am I? Spaniard? Mestizo? Or what?”

The majority of people in Mexico, Central and South America are considered mestizos, having both Spanish and Indian ancestors. Scholars estimate that about 30% of the Mexican population and 40% in Latin America consider themselves indigenous.

After months of research, reading accounts of European colonists killing Mexican natives and imposing their language and customs on them, the 28-year-old Cal State Northridge student said he began to believe his roots were on the other side--the side of the conquered.

He figured, “I must be an Aztec” who could no longer be Eduardo Rivera, a name that he felt symbolized evil and greed.

Eduardo Rivera died. Cozkacuauhtli Zenteotl was born.

The indigenous movement has expanded from East L.A. to the northeast San Fernando Valley, attracting followers like Zenteotl.

A year ago he founded Tloque Nahuaque, which means “close and together.” The group, which now has about 20 members, visits neighborhoods in Pacoima, which has a large population of indigenas, people of Mexican and Central American Indian ancestry.

He said he plans to visit other neighborhoods with similar populations in Van Nuys, San Fernando and Panorama City. “They have no use of my knowledge in Beverly Hills,” he joked.

Every Friday members--mostly men in their 20s--meet at Hubert Humphrey Park in Pacoima to learn more about their heritage.

Sharing Zenteotl’s passion for the indigenous movement, they all dress in a similar manner: in handmade Mexican sandals, shirts, sweaters with shells around their ankles.

Zenteotl lectures on the history and traditions of Mexican and Central American cultures and demonstrates indigenous arts and crafts.

At a recent meeting, he told the group: “Christianity, capitalism, fanaticism, all of that has origins in Europe. A lot us have adopted these traditions. We follow European religion. We speak their language.

“Our reality was very different before Europeans made their way to America in the 16th century, very different.”

The lecture was followed by presentations of such Aztec traditions as dances and prayers to the moon, sun and land.

Every summer for 10 years, Zenteotl has also taken a dozen or so members to central and southern Mexico, where they interact with indigenous communities, dance to their music, eat their food and try to speak their language.

Like Zenteotl, most members have adopted Aztec names or plan to do so.

Zenteotl, who made the change official 10 years ago, said he chose his name by matching his birthday with that time on an Aztec calendar.

Born in 1971 in Chicago, Zenteotl and a younger brother were raised by their mother in the Van Nuys and Pacoima areas.

Now majoring in liberal studies, Zenteotl hopes to become an elementary school teacher after he graduates in December.

His wife, also a Cal State Northridge student, changed her name from Sire Velasco to Meztli, which means moon. So did Xipe Cuetzpallin, 24, who refuses to give out what he calls his “fake name.”

“That’s my name, Xipe,” he said. “I have no Spanish name.”

Others, like Juan Rodriguez, 24, say they plan to drop their Hispanic names. Rodriguez, a senior at Cal State Northridge, said he plans to become Huehuecoyotl after he graduates. His ancestors were Tarahumara, a people who lived in northern Mexico and were less powerful than the Aztecs, he said.

“That name [Rodriguez] just reminds me that we were raped and enslaved,” he said. “I want to graduate from college and start a new life with a new name.”

Changing one’s name takes courage and determination, said Olin Tezcaplipoca of the Mexica Movement.

“You will be forced to explain, defend, attack, educate and let the world know that you are fighting for your identity as an indigenous person, as a Mexica, as part of the Anahuac [now Mexican] nation,” he said.

Members of the movement do not refer to themselves as Hispanic, Latino, mestizo or members of la raza, all words with Spanish origins, Tezcaplipoca said.

Many Chicano scholars say they are fascinated by these young people who try to detach themselves from all European influence, legally replace their Spanish names with Aztec ones and follow ancient rituals.

It’s impossible to know how many have done so, but experts sense that the movement is much stronger in big cities, especially in California.

“Chicanos in California do not identify themselves as truly Mexican and at the same time do not feel accepted by mainstream America,” said Carlos S. Maldonado, director of the Chicano Education Program in Cheney, Wash., an organization dedicated to increasing the number of Latinos and Latino studies programs in higher education. “So they try to fill their identity crisis by going back and rescuing what was taken away from them by European settlers.”

But some Chicanos are perplexed by the movement.

Fernando Sanchez, 29, a member of a Mexican American student organization at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, said he spends his days educating people about their rights as Americans and not about dedicating their lives to Aztec culture.

“It all may sound good in theory, tracing your roots, but I don’t see how going back is going to help them. We focus on the future,” Sanchez said. “We learn where we come from and then move on.”