SOURCE: “Alurista, Poeta-Antropologo, and the Recuperation of the Chicano Identity,” in Return: Poems Collected and New, Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, pp. xi-xlix, 1982.

In the following essay, Keller asserts that Alurista's use of pre-Columbian elements in his poetry is intended to invigorate and validate Chicano cultural identity.

This volume brings together one of Alurista's earliest and most celebrated works, Nationchild plumaroja (1972), and his latest book of poems, Dawn's Eye. Some of those who have studied Alurista's literary production over the last ten years or so—¡han pasado los años!—have noted the development and change of that obra over the decade. They have highlighted the defiant social protest in Floricanto en Aztlán (1971); the alienation with USA and the harking back to Amerindia through cultural and thematic motifs as well as generic forms (chants and songs) in Nationchild; the expression, mostly in Spanish, of the spiritual rebirth...