First, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Christopher Michael Escobedo Sr. I am a father of five and married to an Afghanistan War Veteran. When I was 15, a spirit visited me in my dreams and blessed me with a gift. Being raised by a father who didn't believe in or go to church, I turned from God, and I was blinded from my vision until 2016, when I was 35. I woke up to realize I had not told many people about my vision and the powers I inherited from it. I started to research God and learn about things I had never thought to question. First, God was never the name in the original text of scripture. Instead, the Tetragrammaton was used to name our creator with the letters YHWH. These letters are so interesting to me because they represent both male and female, while the name God means a male deity. The name Jesus was also made up as Aramaic, which Yeshua spoke, does not have a J; instead, the son of YHWH was named Yehoshua or Yeshua. Next, I started to understand that Moses and Yeshua were both African, as that part of the world was known as Africa until Europeans renamed it the Middle East because it was east of Europe. This would mean that Yeshua was raised seeing Africans crucified throughout the countryside as a warning against pushing back against Rome. This is why Yeshua started a revolution against European supremacy over 2000 years ago. He told his disciples to sell everything and buy swords for all those who didn't have one. I learned so much that I was ready to become a priest, but when I told this to my European priest, he said that I couldn't become a priest because I had children. I was so confused that I prayed about it and was given a path forward. Chicanos are from the tribe of Issachar through our African lineage that once conquered Spain. We are a part of the chosen people the bible was written for. Our ancestors' history and future are written in that book. Before I could go another step towards YWHW, I was to learn about myself and where I come from. And so my journey of learning and teaching about Chicano history began. Here is what I understand about American history.
In the beginning, only the ocean, darkness, and monsters were created by Huitzilopochtli, Tezcatlipoca, Xipe Totec, and Quetzalcoatl, known as the four directions. When the Gods witnessed the chaos of the world and of Cipactli, they knew they had to change things. Cipactli was a giant sea monster crocodile that was so large it would feed on other creations. The four Gods of the North, East, South, and West decided that Cipactli needed to be destroyed because his appetite would eat all other creations. They pulled the monster in four directions, and the land, animals, and people poured out of its body, creating the world we know today.
As Chicanos, we are Indigenous Americans and are connected to many different creation stories across Turtle Island.
The story of Chicanos starts pre-Columbian, or before the Spanish arrived in Turtle Island because Chicanos are Indigenous Americans. The Indigenous Americans had over 100 million people living in what we now know as North America when Columbus started genociding them in the 1400s. Fossils prove that people have existed on Turtle Island for at least 10000 years. This would mean our ancestors rode the Woolly Mammoths during the Ice Age. Here is a timeline of our Ansestors from the Olmec to the Mexica tribe.
Since whiteness was the key to citizenship in the United States, Mexicans were referred to as white in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after the Mexican-American War in 1848, where the United States coerced Mexico into giving them half of their land. Article 10 of the treaty said that Mexicans who were already on the land were supposed to be able to keep their lands. The United States government took this article out before ratifying it. The lands were systematically taken from Mexicans and given to Europeans. "In its first words on the subject of citizenship, Congress in 1790 restricted naturalization to “white persons.”1 Though the requirements for naturalization changed frequently thereafter, this racial prerequisite to citizenship endured for over a century and a half, remaining in force until 1952.2 From the earliest years of this country until just a generation ago, being a “white person” was a condition for acquiring citizenship" (Lopez 2006).
Since Mexicans were seen as white according to the law, this created a perfect storm of exploitation and prejudice.
