Maiz Poppin Press

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La Revolución Begins with the Mind

Liberating our Gente one word at a time

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“Told in verse, this book cuts through a real and imagined Aztlán—where Spanish and English collide, bleed, and hold each other up.

Echoes of old México meet the U.S. in poems shaped by work-worn bodies, family scars, and the blunt weight of politics.

Personal and unguarded, these lines drag ancestors into the present, refusing erasure. In a moment that demands silence, this body of work is a raw American song of memory, resistance, and staying. A medicine for these troubling times!”

-Tim Z. Hernandez, author of They Call You Back

“Once Upon a Time in Occupied Aztlan is a colorful and emotionally-charged epic that cuts like obsidian. The kind of poetry Raza needs more than ever.”

 –Pedro Iniguez, Bram Stoker and Elgin Award-winning author of Mexicans on the Moon: Speculative Poetry from a Possible Future

”Once Upon a Time in... Occupied Aztlán is the modern day I am Joaquin. In this contemporary, yet time-cherished collection of epic memories, we travel, collectively, through a time and space that most of us know oh-so-well. And for those who have not had these lived experiences or have even heard of such, this is an opportunity to delve into the world of Chicanism@. This epic poem is the new Xican@ manifesto, indeed!”
- Diosa X
Award winning poet & educator Author of When the Leaves Come Tumbling Down

Once Upon a Time in… Occupied Aztlán  is an ambitious, roaring journey that pridefully centers not only the life of a Mejicano-Chicano familia, but the larger history of La Raza in an epic poem. It’s a tale of highs and lows, the warmth of kinship, the coldness of poverty, the glowing delight of the quinceañera party, the brutal pain of the gang jump-in, the shame of ignorance, the pride through education, and the unconditional love of the family.

Author Bio:

elindiocopyright1985 or simply, elindio, is a Chicano vallero from Sun Valley, Sur Califas. He is a visual artist and poet, producing work that is mostly a digital & multi-media mix-and-mashup of historical and popular images, centering Mexican & Chican@ iconography. Imagine Andy Warhol’s pop style, meeting Emiliano Zapata’s revolutionary ideology, with a sprinkle of Frida Kahlo’s surrealism and a dash of Banksy’s urban art technique. He works with serious subject matter while presenting it in a pop or light-hearted manner—a style elindio has dubbed, rascuache pop. Similarly, his debut poetry book, Once Upon a Time in… Occupied Aztlán, is an ambitious mashup of poetry, experimental literature, Chicano y Mejicano history & socio-politico commentary. It is published through Maíz Poppin’ Press.