ABSTRACT
At the peak of the Chicano civil rights movement, students and activists convened in Denver, Colorado, to propose El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan, the political and cultural manifesto that propagated a Chicano nationalism based on the collective history of subjugation, disempowerment, and cultural denigration of Mexicans in the United States. The plan, by demanding the separation of the Southwest from the United States, constituted a nationalist blueprint and declaration of independence by the "bronze people. The visual adaptation of the East Los Angeles mural on cover of The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez points to central icons, symbols, and themes that appear in text, such as the silver cross in the sky, the Hollywood sign, a house, or the slogan "Aztlan es una fabula". The original mural by Cruz depicts an Aztec warrior holding a dying child; however, the textual message reads quite differently: "To ace out a homeboy from another barrio is to kill la raza".
