top of page

A Chicano Renaissance in a Post-Apocalyptic Texas

Why San Antonio Will Be the Epicenter of It All

Written by Roberto Leal

A Nation No Longer Groovin’

Due to the Trumpvirus and the colossally incompetent mishandling of the pendejodemic by the Incredible Hoax President, the world has slid off its once well-oiled grooves and skidded into a chasm of chaos and despair. The evidence is all around us, especially here in Texas, thanks to our Punch ‘n Judy puppet team of Gov. Abbott and Lt. Gov. Patrick, we are dealing with:

  1. Trumpvirus cases in Texas, are spiking higher than Dr. Timothy Leary on peyote.

  2. Latinos are getting knocked down like bowling pins, by the pendejodemic, like league night at a neighborhood bowling alley.

  3. African Dust. No, African Dust is not the latest offering from the Rastafarian Drug Cartel. It’s a noxious, sand cloud drifting across the Atlantic from Africa, and due to descend on Texas this week.

The consequences of these stats are grim indeed. With all those Mexican-American women sick and unable to work, who is going to do the laundry, mop the floors, clean the rooms, and make the beds, in my retirement villa, here in San Antonio? Who is going to work in the kitchen, cook meals, serve food, bus tables, and take guff from gringo residents grumbling “those Mexicans don’t know how to cook meatloaf”! Who? Donna Reed? June Cleaver? Carol Brady? I kinda doubt it.

The Orange Plague is the New Black Plague

During the Middle Ages, the Black Plague decimated the population of Europe. But out of that catastrophe arose the Italian Renaissance that took root in the city of Florence and eventually spread throughout Europe, bringing Enlightenment and the Age of reason to the Old and New World.

I predict when we get past this Orange Plague (aka the Trumpvirus pendejodemic) a Chicano Renaissance will blossom all over Texas but will realize its brightest and most glorious flowering in my hometown of San Antonio. Here’s why:

Solving the Re-Naming of the Confederate Monuments

True, Texas was part of the Confederacy and there are many military installations public buildings and statues named after the Guys in Gray, who came in second place in the Civil War. But Tejas is also a state that proudly celebrates its Tex-Mex heritage and roots, as the state increasingly becomes more “Mex” and less “Tex.” Therefore, post-Orange Plague Chicano legislators will begin the process of re-naming those offensives, Johnny Reb Relics of the past with names that reflect the growing, dominant Latino culture.

Examples:

  1. Let’s rename Fort Bliss in El Paso, Fort Feliz. Fort Hood in Temple could become Fort Pico de Gallo. Lackland AFB converted to La Virgen de Guadalupe AFB. Texas Tech becomes Tin Tan Tech.

  2. The fabled Texas Rangers have a well-documented early history of genocide and lynching of Comanches and Mexicans, after the Mexican-American War. The Texas Rangers baseball team will become the Texas Tornadoes. The famous Tejano group’s signature hit, will become our new national anthem because it playfully asks the probing question of what went wrong in Trump’s America: ¿Hey Baby, Que Pasó?

  3. Replace the statue of Jim Bowie, the knife-wielding, racist, slave-owning hero of the Alamo with a statue of Julian Castro, the former mayor of the Alamo City and our future president.

  4. Finally, but most importantly, nobody remembers or cares about Stephen Austin, the man for whom the capital was named after. But everybody remembers and cares deeply about Selena. So, change the capital of Texas to Selena City.

Texas Has Mucho Latino Talent

That is a Lone Star State-sized understatement. Forget about Washington, DC becoming the 51st state. You could create a whole new US state populated entirely with talented Latino, Mexican-American and Chicano artists of every conceivable kind; visual arts, film, TV, and theater actors, poets, authors, screenwriters, (like yours truly), directors, and music.

San Antonio is the hometown of a galaxy of Latino stars: Eva Longoria, Robert Rodriguez, Emilio Rivera, James Roday, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jade Esteban Estrada, just to name a tiny, tiny few.

The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, located in W. San Antonio hosts CineFestival, the longest-running Latino-based film festival celebration in the USA. CineFestival has played an important role in introducing and promoting Chicano, Mexican and Latin American filmmakers to a wider, world-wide audience.

San Antonio also showcases great mural artwork, traditional Mexican dance and music festivals featuring every Latino musical genre under the hot South Texas Sun.

Toss in the growing virtual production technology and you have the recipe for San Antonio to emerge as the epicenter of Latino-based film, TV, music, and multi-media

¡Las Vidas Latinas Important!

Of the 800,000 DACA recipients in the US, 130,000 live, work, and contribute to society in Texas. A recent court ruling ordered the release of migrant children being imprisoned in dog cages, along the Tex-Mex border. In the Chicano Renaissance, all this Latino potential will not be working in meat processing plants so Bubba can have his sausage, biscuits, and gravy at the all-White diner in Gabachoville.

Instead, many of these young Latinos will come to San Antonio and create film, music, art, poetry and add to the ever-expanding Latino galaxy of stars in the Chicano Renaissance starry, starry night.

The ripple effects of the San Antonio-centered Chicano Renaissance will work its way through the country. Recall that the Chicano Movement started here in Texas in Crystal City, and we all know the seismic shifts that subsequently resulted from that political earthquake.

The Chicano Renaissance coming on the heels of the Chicano Movement and this current Pendejodemic will continue to change Texas from Red to Purple, to a permanent, Latino-based Azul.

¡VIVA AZUL TEJAS!

P.S. My Mom made terrible meatloaf.

Comments


bottom of page