It was an exciting time for me, when a different light of consciousness was dawning. A whole new and exhilarating set of strophes was being written for the ballad of this Chicano native son, this time choreographed by the power of el movimiento xicano and its romantic nationalism. As a newborn nationalist, I reveled in the glorious feeling of pride in my ethnic history and took every opportunity to celebrate its roots. In the company of my comrades at La Raza Studies, I was rediscovering those roots, and, for the first time in my life, the heavy yoke of racism my teachers had hung on me as a youngster, which had taught me my subordinate place in gringo society, no longer dragged me down. I inhaled deeply of the ideas of don Américo Paredes and the writings of other Chicano radicals. Rudy Acuña’s Occupied America became my manifesto, while the poetry of Alurista and my friend Omar Salinas (the “Aztec Angel”), as well as the plays and fiery tracts of Luis Valdez, all contributed to my transformation and sense of self-discovery

It was the gringo, I now convinced myself, in all his duplicity, greed, and savagery, who was the evil spirit let loose in America. The Chicanos and other people of color were the good and innocent victims of that evil. It was that simple: the evil Anglos against the innocent Chicanos, “them” versus “us.” This discovery filled me with a sense of righteousness that must have bordered on arrogance—perhaps even racism. The feeling of empowerment could be intoxicating, even dangerously brash, as at times I engaged in behavior that placed me at some risk—both politically and domestically. (In one of many demonstrations in which I engaged, I occupied a university building with my fellow protesters.)

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After a graduate education in anthropology at the University of Texas, I had undergone yet another transformation. The zealous ethnic romanticism had waned, and I came to a more sober view of my relationship with the Anglo social order. The world was not painted in the extreme colors the Chicano Movement had portrayed: the “Anglos” were not a monolithic group, any more than the “Chicanos” were. Having absorbed the more complex theories of social action advanced by Marxism and, to a lesser extent, postmodernism, I abandoned the crude and essentialist romantic-nationalist view for a more dynamic one. That capitalism, with its insatiable hunger for cheap, exploitable labor, was a force in shaping the Anglos’ attitude toward Mexicans still seemed a tenable proposition. But not all Anglos were exploiters, and not all were unreconstructed racists. And Mexicans were just as capable of exploitation and prejudice as their gringo antagonists. As I had grudgingly discovered, Anglo-Mexican relations were never driven by the unmitigated hatred the Chicano Movement had depicted. They were much more labyrinthine.

Thus, for me (and perhaps for other members of my generation) a shifting identity, grounded in two distinct cultures, seemed the only alternative possible. Balanced, still, on the boundary between two conflictive cultural worlds, my life would always be driven by a love-hate relationship with my antagonists/collaborators—the Anglo teachers, classmates, friends, lovers, patrones, and colleagues who early on invaded my consciousness and contributed inevitably to the forces shaping my sense of self. As I now realized, my social face was as much American as it was Mexican. But I was not, as my inner voice had once reminded me, a cultural schizophrenic. I was a native son of America but a unique one—a hybrid or synthesis: an American mestizo.