Chante Chicano: As Reality Has Taken a Shift

Daniel Stange de Acatl

Posted April 30, ,2026

Where do we find a center of truth? A society is always composed of a multitude of ideas and actions performed by innumerable individuals. People have their own minds, but they share a collective dream. It might be the American Dream, dreams of grandeur, the dream of your family, the dream of industry or fraternity. Every group designs their mission and hopefully they have a value statement. Individuals align with others in small sets that share those values and dreams. But the greater society still imparts some higher purpose through religious or scientific avenues.

These greater social beliefs do provide some rules and standards for living and keeping social status generally through measures like money and membership. Still, there exists a multitude of unspoken and sentimental knowledge that comes from generations of experiences and cultural nuance. This is a factor that causes tribalism and the reason people develop stereotypes about other cultural groups. It also gives them a shared experience that cannot always be expressed.

Knowing something is not always akin to doing the thing that is necessary.

When individuals sit and share stories, they will definitely find things in common that can provide a way to resolve differences. But groups of people gravitate and extended families live closer to one another, so that communities become distinct until they get gentrified. The phenomenon might be a product of colonialism, yet some people believe that all communities are eventually outgrown or outdated.

If always there is a process, then the stage of renewal or rebirth; which can feel like death, must revive some seeds of the former. The original design or pattern is retraceable. Perhaps we struggle to realize that shape and yet, some of us can just fit into our role and find our groove. This feeling is rarely noticed, without a greater number of individuals moving and acting together. Another reason that we desire attention and sense of belonging.

As Chicano people, our belonging is rooted into the soil and we share this unspoken truth with Native American people, falsely called Indians. We share a generational struggle for self-determination. We hide shame in our labels of Hispanic and Latinx grouping and even allow ourselves to be considered a minority. But from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, there is an unspoken truth about the way we remember the freedom of living in balance with the Mother Earth. There is a word of prophecy and hope for return that is coded in our music and ceremony; there is a realization that our sun has returned. That the spaces we now occupy are old dimensions of ancestral wisdom, because we still have a great deal to teach the world.

American history describes an era of enlightenment, and the great philosophers of western civilization never give respect to the original inhabitants of this continent. The eurocentric imagination would have us believe that they were divinely inspired to manifest destinies of global domination, that would conspire into the final battle of Armageddon. Prophecies of end times and myths of creation are not so deeply divided. Understanding the mechanism of the cosmos is much closer to the reality that Maya, Incan, Wixárika, Hopi, or Anishinaabe nations implemented.

Knowing something is not always akin to doing the thing that is necessary. In every situation there are options for our reaction, but fear more often guides our decisions. Fear and survival keep us alive so we cannot judge ourselves harshly for all those bad choices. Recognize that the options are limited by our imagination. Quiet your mind and heart so that the silent knowledge within you will be ready when it is our chance to respond. It’s going to take all of us together to bring about the changes our children deserve.

The center of truth in this shift of reality is already within you; because wisdom is the motivator of every seed that opens and begins to grow when the soil is right and there is water. We are the seeds of our ancestors, but we also have blended the nations of the world into an American experiment. We can find love to move us forward and change the reality of the system that has bound us in chains. We owe it to our future generations to build through love.

Love is the binding force of all matter. Respect is formed through giving without expectation. Humility is bred in empathy for others; courage to live in truth and the wisdom to know your gifts and share them with the world.

Danny Stange de Acatl is a Denver Native and Cultural activist that serves his community on various levels.