Aztlan Flag Design

Xicano artist, Saenz, designed this flag to commemorate the Xicano masses defending their community of Baldwin Park, California against the racist "Save Our State" organization. Saenz's original design was inspired by the Cuban Revolution "M-26-7" Armbands, only the artist reversed the fields to symbolize a mirror to that revolution. Red symbolizes revolution, black is for strength and white the Aztec color for Aztlan (mythical homeland of the Aztecs, the “place of the white heron”, seen by many as the Southwest of the US). At the center is a Hummingbird icon of Huiztlilapochtli, the premiere Aztec deity and god of war. Saenz chose the Hummingbird because of an eyewitness account of the appearance of a blue hummingbird during the blessing at the counter-demonstration in Baldwin Park on May 14, 2005. Saenz uses Caló to inscribe the flags he designs - he says, to honor the Pachucos that began the Xicano movement. Caló is the unique language spoken by Xicanos, and this flag displays the words "Con Safos", a statement that can be translated as, "Nothing you say will change this". Also on the flag are the words "United People of Aztlan". To the Aztecs Aztlan was their place of origin, and the Pachucos of the 60s incorporated the term Aztlan into Caló. Xicanos, most being Pachucos, or greatly influenced by Pachucos, expanded the term Aztlan to mean the lands ceded to the USA by Mexico in 1849. Aztlan is also an attitude of personal, political, social and economic empowerment necessary to master one's own destiny.