Daniel Stange de Acatl
Posted September 18, 2025
Yo Soy Chicano! I am the Grito de Dolores. My heart yearns for justice and my mind calls out for change. The system that promises the world freedom and then built the largest prison system in the world has put me at odds with my sense of morality. Just like My European Father and My Indian Mother that failed to keep their children together in a safe home. We have been at odds with our Identity and our purpose in this world for too many generations. Our collective voices have been divided for longer than we can remember. Sometimes because of nefarious actions of outsiders and sometimes because of our own insecurities.
The narratives of our histories are filled with mixed emotions and false recuerdos. We have tried to write our own versions and that only leads to more arguments. As Chicano-Latinx-Hispano Americans we exist along the spectrum of American Society. We have always been the greatest infiltrators and the worst scapegoats that riddle the American psyche. Leaders of ‘Proud Boys” and targets of immigration deportations. We stand among the highest decorated veterans of this nation’s foreign wars and even helped finance the first Revolution that built the 13 colonies.
Our ability to span this gulf of American Identity has been the key to our division. Even now with this recent national tragedy of political violence that led a prominent conservative figure to be assassinated in broad daylight; the split among family members and friends has widened. Mothers and sons, brothers and coworkers, feelings of shame and anxiety racing against the winds of destiny. These calloused wounds of injustice and ambition for righteousness are still cutting deep into the hearts of our loved ones.
We must search for our true nature and realize the power of love has always conquered those who whisper of hatred and destruction.
The reaction is most often to freeze. To hold still and even retreat to the comfort of our own self-induced pity. Or else to spit forth rhetoric that is constantly regurgitated through popular media outlets and social platforms. Fanning the flames of division and increasing the fear of political and social upheaval. How easy do the poets and singers decry the injustices and beg for revolution, but still they hold back when armed ICE agents are brazenly posting up in local residences and public events to snatch anybody that looks suspicious.
This internal division and cultural ambiguity has been far too long the imbalanced weight of our moral fortitude. We claim to know what is right and wrong, and still we sit idly by, as people doing wrong are given space to behave poorly. We have been waiting for some outside image or personality that will become a savior. The reality we have learned is that nobody is coming to save us. We are each entitled to personal choice and must find the responsibility to face our own actions. It is on this individual plain that real transformation takes place. You are never empowered by others because only you can give your power away. Or claim that power and become the person we all deserve.
Yo Soy Chicano, because I see myself reflected in the light within your eyes. You are the other me and although we don’t always see eye to eye, we do find ourselves shoulder to shoulder in the struggles of our ancestors. We still have many moons to walk among the stars of ambition. As we rain down the sweat of our labor or the tears of our transformations we nourish the soil of our origins. Americans come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. They always have. Today, so many people have opinions about what makes you a real American. Who can decide the fate of an entire nation? Never has there been a single event or a single person that manifests our destiny. But just as we find the great herds of Buffalo returning to their natural state, we must search for our true nature and realize the power of love has always conquered those who whisper of hatred and destruction.
Where we go from here is not clearly established. There are powers that attempt to guide this movement and most of them utilize fear and deception for which it has required them to build so much incarceration. But the human heart is the real guide of every individual. The heart has such capacity for LOVE that even in the face of extinction we have hope. Remember that we all have loved or been loved and give your fellow Americans some faith so that together we can move forward. Mexika Tiahui! This is the clarion call of the Aztec dancers. It is Nahuatl words that means people go forward. How ever we go forward, let us do it together. Don’t allow others to divide us any longer.
Danny Stange de Acatl is a Denver Native and Cultural activist that serves his community on various levels.
- ‘Just Say No’: Colorado Activists Protest Potential New ICE Detention Center In Hudson - September 18, 2025
- La Junta Native Issac B. Martínez Promoted to Brigadier General - September 18, 2025
- Celebrate the Rhythms of Latin America: 9th Annual Latin Beats Highlights Afro-Mexican Heritage - September 18, 2025
