Rebel Thoughts on

the Fall of MexicoTenochtitlan from Los Barrios de España

CompiledbyKristianE.Vasquez

From“WeArrived”

TheEuropeanskycries,moved.Itstearscan’tbedistinguished fromtheonesthatmoistenthecheeks weatheredbysun,sea, anguishandadrenaline oftheintrepid421stSquadron.In theirstep,theirgaze,andtheirheartbeats,theMayanpeople— thelegendwillsay—crossedtheAtlanticin50daysandnights, intheirlongandturbulentjourneyforlife.

I woke up a bit disoriented as my circadian rhythm was adjusting to the time/space I arrived to as I realized myself—a Xicano—on the lands of another Europe, another Spain that I only knew from a colonial history narrated to me in Chicanx Studies classes, a reality that lived in my genetic code and on the surface of my largest organ, my skin. I woke up to a Spain from below and to the left that was full of a history of communists, anarchists, feminists, and other radicals that held Zapatismo to the level of a political philosophy or a set of practices that opposed capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy—in Madrid, I woke to a city that spoke castellano but also spoke rebellion. Only having been here for a few days, the group I traveled with—the compas from our collective project Chicanx World-Making & Futurities—were encountering Madrid for the first time— alongside our compas from sexta networks or the Zapatista journalist world.

We were here as neither tourists nor as researchers—we were here to witness and learn how Spain from below, España del abajo, resisted. We accompanied the mesas de trabajo, encounters, workshops, and mobilizations of organized resistance from below that was led by various groups and collectives. In encountering Spain from below, we listened to the people who resisted here and who were building another world in rebellion, surging to become a world of many worlds—we witnessed a new becoming that was initiated by the Esquadrón 421, a contingent of seven Zapatistas who traveled by boat to Europe.

Here I share a few reflections, quotes, notes, and musings from tierra insumisa, another Europe from below re-named by the Zapatistas on their Journey for Life that means a land that does not submit to domination— unsubmissive land. I share this spirit of rebellious lands as I journeyed here to tierra insumisa to learn from these lands a rebellious spirit and activity that desired self-organization and autonomy, life and joy, land and liberation. * * *

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