it's vital to avoid a longtime error of leftist politics, starting with Marxism: failure to understand the powerful role in human society of subjecti… - Elizabeth Martínez

The origin myth's omissions are grotesque. It ignores three major pillars of our nationhood: genocide, enslavement and imperialist expansion. The massive extermination of indigenous peoples provided our land base; the enslavement of African labor made our economic growth possible; and the seizure of half of Mexico by war (or threat of renewed war) extended this nation's boundaries north to the Pacific and south to the Rio Grande. Such are the foundation stones of the United States, within an economic system that made this country the first in world history to be born capitalist.

Revolutionary Chicanas want the liberation of our people and of all oppressed peoples. We do not want to become page-girls in President Richard Nixon's Congress the most recent bone tossed to "women's liberation."

There's little recognition of the fact that almost one-third of the present-day United States used to be part of Mexico and, before that, Native American lands. There's also little recognition of the vast wealth created by Mexican labor. The Southwest was essentially built by Mexican, along with Chinese and Filipino, workers -- yet Mexicans are seen strictly as immigrants and not as "real" Americans.