FRITOZ

As you look at me you may think I am no more than a useless shadow on a busy city sidewalk but I rode with Pancho Villa, I followed Zapata.I am that ChicanoI was the zoot suiter who was stripped naked in public humiliated with my head down but I raised my head proudly when Cesar Chavez, Corky Conzales and Jose Angel Gutierrez told me I was someone special in Culture and in Blood.I am that ChicanoI am the millionaire CEO and the poor farmworker with blistered hands. I am your teacher, your mayor, your friend and your enemy.I am that ChicanoI am my mothers baby boy and my fathers young man. I am the Cholo both young and confused who guards mi barrio with my life. I am the mother, the father, los hermanos who cries my eyes raw over a life lost over a grica, over territory.I am that ChicanoI am the LA times columnist shot to death by the Chota in 1970. I fought for the US in Vietnam and will fight the US for Aztlan. Chicanismo is in my veins, it pumps mi corazon, the corazon of a true Chicano. My soul is puro RAZA, my past is of the MexicaAnd this Chicanos future is AZTLAN!By Jacobo Prendez