SOURCE: “The Teachings of Alurista: A Chicano Way of Knowledge,” in Chicano Poetry: A Response to Chaos, University of Texas Press, pp. 69-93, 1982.

In the following essay, Bruce-Novoa offers a thematic reading of the first ten poems of Floricanto en Aztlán.

Quetzalcóatl-Nanauatzin is the sun-god of the priests [Tlamatinime], who consider voluntary self-sacrifice the highest expression of their doctrine of the world and of life.

—Jacques Soustelle, La Pensée Cosmologique des Anciens Mexicains¹

Alberto Urista, known as Alurista, has published three collections of poetry, Floricanto en Aztlán (1971), Nationchild Plumaroja (1972), and Timespace Huracán (1976). They are didactic books that attempt to teach Chicanos to understand themselves and their situation, and to overcome the threats to their existence. Alurista shares the anti-industrialist, anti-technological, anti-capitalist attitude of I Am Joaquín, as well as the purpose of consciousness-raising through an appeal to self-knowledge and ethnic pride. However...