FROM UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
FOR RELEASE: WEEK OF MARCH 31, 2000
COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS by Patrisia Gonzales and
Roberto Rodriguez "AZTECS IN 'MANHATITLAN"


NEW YORK CITY -- With copal incense burning in the background, the conch
shell is blown and the ceremony to the four directions begins. Like a
heartbeat, the drum signals the beginning of the "Mexica danza" -- or Aztec
dance -- and the "danzantes" begin to move in precise mathematical and
astronomical movements. This ancient danza and ceremony took place recently
at a powwow here and was received as enthusiastically as the indigenous
dances from the north.

While there's always been a debate as to how far the Mexican or MesoAmerican
influence reached before the arrival of Columbus, it has certainly now
reached the Big Apple. Felipe Galindo-Feggo, a 17-year resident of New York,
has documented it in both an animation film and art exhibit titled "The
Manhatitlan Chronicles." They include Mexican images superimposed over New
York icons, such as the Virgen de Guadalupe in place of the Statue of Liberty
and an Aztec danzante wandering the streets of Manhattan. New York, he says,
is now home to several hundred thousand Mexicans. What attracts them, he
says, is the lack of a generalized vicious anti-immigrant sentiment here.

At the recent pow wow, the ancient beat of the drum by the Danza Cetilitzli
was the same beat, rhythm and danza that can be observed in Mexico
City-Tenochtitlan. The members come from all parts of America -- El Salvador,
Bolivia, Mexico and the United States -- affirming the ancient connections
between north and south.

Danzante Jennie Luna, a Columbia graduate student from San Jose, Calif., who
has been dancing for seven years, says that through danza she is helping to
establish a Chicano indigenous identity among Mexicans in New York and
bridging relationships with native peoples from the north. "It's a road to
follow." That road, she says, is one of political activism and the
"reclaiming of our culture -- what was taken away from us -- our spirituality and our connection to each other and all living beings."

For Maureen Guadalupe Lim, a Wall Street lawyer from Los Angeles, "Danza
Mexica feeds me spiritually and physically." It is breaking stereotypes of
Mexicans as "poor Indios," she says. "It also provides a social space in which I can actively redefine and reinvigorate what it means to be Chicana,
Mexicana, indigena."

Danza touches everyone. Juan Francisco Esteva Martinez, originally from
California, says that when he first moved to New York, he taught danza to
African Americans and Puerto Ricans. One of his students made a moving
connection to the conch shell when he explained to her that they came from
the sea. She told him: "My mother had told me that Puerto Rico is surrounded by the ocean. I am sure they have many of those there. I'm going to ask my
mother to take me there to get one."

Danza, Martinez explains, "opens the window to new understanding of our
relations to other individuals and to other cultures. ... But more important,
it opens windows within ourselves."

Lydia Zendejas, also from California, agrees. "Danza has given me the ability to connect with my spirit. When I try and explain danza to non-Mexica or
non-indigenous people, they have a hard time understanding. But people who
are religious can understand. A Jewish woman has been one of the only people
who really appreciates how I feel about danza and that it is my form of
prayer."

It is inspiring to see a native New Yorker, such as Myrna Tinoco, reconnect
to her ancient ancestral Mexican ways amid the hard, fast life of the city.
With five years of experience in Mexican "ballet folklorico," she notes that danza is not performance. "The spirituality and respect that you maintain
while [Aztec] dancing is completely different from folklorico."

When their group teaches danza to children in New York, "it has so much
meaning to teach the knowledge from one generation to the next," says Tinoco.
"You feel the importance of legacy."

Danza has called a new generation of youth who see this path as the way of
warriors who must use their spiritual teachings to create a just world. Lim
concludes: "It not only prepares me to deal with problems in my personal
life, but gives me strength and the centeredness to deal with U.S. society's
efforts to marginalize and silence us."

Her words carry the smell of copal and the blowing of the conch shell.

COPYRIGHT 2000 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE

* For info regarding "The Manhatitlan Chronicles" or "Cronicas de
Manhatitlan," please contact the filmmaker at: feggo@lycosmail.com

* To contact Danza Cetilitzli, write to: lalunaxicana@yahoo.com

The writers can be reached at PO BOX 7905, Albq NM 87194-7905, 505-242-7282
or XColumn@aol.com  Previous columns are archived on the web at:  www.uexpress.com