Xispas is a new online magazine that spotlights Chicano culture and art. Published in Los Angeles, California, the magazine presents interviews, history, cartoons, artwork, poetry, fiction, editorials, reviews, and more. The special issue on Columbus offers a poster you can download and print out, plus articles on the history of conquest and resistance.

The magazine features interviews with people such as long-time Chicano education activist Sal Castro and Mexican singer Lila Downs, a history of the Xicano people and of Xicano rock, cartoons... including the series “Porfie and Arni” by Sergio Hernandez, artwork by artists Mark Vallen, Joe Bravo, Xavier Raul Montes, Alfonso Malagon, among others, Barriology tests by Antonio Gomez; reviews of restaurants, CDs and movies, poetry by Ariel Robello, Andres Rodriguez, and Richard Vargas, among others, short pieces by Julian Segura Camacho and Oscar Barajas; and more.

Xispas is edited by acclaimed Chicano writer, Luis J. Rodriguez, author of the international best seller, Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in LA, and books in fiction, nonfiction poetry and children’s literature. He is also a founder of Tia Chucha’s Cafe Cultural. Xispas was launched in March of 2004 out of Tia Chucha’s Cafe Cultural - a bookstore, cafe, art gallery, performance space, workshop center, and cyber cafe in the Northeast San Fernando Valley section of LA. Founding members of Xispas include writers Alisha M. Rosas, Jim Rentana, Rubi Mendoza and Diane Hernandez, artists Vallen and Hernandez, musicians Hector Gonzalez and Lava Gonzalez, film maker Jim Velarde, copy editor Rachel Shelton, among others.

The story of the European conquest of the Americas is indeed a story of theft, rape, enslavement, genocide and oppression. It should not be romanticized and cannot be justified. But, realistically speaking, was the Aztec conquest of Mexico a couple of centuries earlier morally superior? And, consider what might have happened in the 1500's if the tables had been turned. Suppose the Aztecs or the Incas had possessed gunpowder, metal weapons, horses and sea-going ships and the Spaniards had not. And suppose the Aztecs or the Incas had found out about the existence of a place called Spain. Does anyone but a fool doubt that the Aztecs and Incas would have invaded Spain, massacred many of its inhabitants, stolen its wealth, and impregnated its women, willing or not? After all, invaders from Africa (the Moors) had done the same in Spain even earlier than the bloody conquest of Mexico by the Aztecs.

Perhaps we need to desist from explaining history in racial or ethnic terms, with good peoples valiantly struggling against bad peoples. Perhaps the task is to put war, conquest, and capitalism behind us so that the crimes of the past can never be repeated.

The point about the Aztec conquest neither supports nor criticizes imperialism, except you say it's equivalent to European imperialism and is "immoral."

The rest of the argument is bogus.

Suppose you poked me with a stick and ran away. You'd be a mean guy.

If I had telekintetic powers and could poke you with a sharp stick, and did, then I'd be a mean guy too.

But I don't have those powers. I don't have the stick either.

The main thing to consider is what actually happened.

Why don't you tell us what you think about the Aztec conquest of Mexico and about the hatred that most Mexican Indians felt for their conquerors? And also what you think about the Moorish conquest of Spain?

odd thing is that without the conquest there'd be no Chicanos....

...odd isn't it? To be faced with the option of non-existence or the erasure of a horrible event in world history.

The very nature of being Chicano is tied with THIS history. Without it......we are, in essence, nothing. Ironic, isn't it?

And I'm not at all an apologist for the Conquest....but this is just some food for thought. I never see being critical as being a bad thing. And no I'm not a right-wring, "Hispanic-magazine" reading, troll. I'm some sort of anarcho-loco chicano something.