To me, you have to declare yourself a Chicano in order to be a

Host: The bar was half-lit and half-empty, the kind of place where old music lingered like ghosts and the walls were painted in memory. It was the tail end of a Friday night in East L.A. — laughter spilling out from the sidewalk, a jukebox humming low, the faint smell of beer, chili, and nostalgia curling in the air.

At a table near the back, Jack sat with a glass of mezcal, the rim smudged with salt. Across from him, Jeeny leaned on her elbows, chin resting in her hands, her brown eyes catching the neon glow from the bar sign. Behind them, a mural of Our Lady of Guadalupe looked down with weary patience over cracked plaster.

The jukebox shifted to an old Santana song. Outside, a siren wailed far away — city sound blending with the heartbeat of culture, defiance, and survival.

Jeeny: “Cheech Marin once said, ‘To me, you have to declare yourself a Chicano in order to be a Chicano. That makes a Chicano a Mexican-American with a defiant political attitude that centers on his or her right to self-definition. I'm a Chicano because I say I am.’”

Jack: (half-smiling) “So identity’s a declaration, not a document.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. It’s not what they call you — it’s what you claim.”

Jack: “You make it sound like rebellion.”

Jeeny: “It is rebellion. Every act of self-definition is rebellion against someone else’s narrative.”

Host: A man laughed at the bar — loud, easy, free. Somewhere, a pool ball cracked against another. The world outside kept moving, but at their table, the air felt charged, like an old question had just come alive again.

Jack: “So Marin wasn’t just talking about ethnicity. He was talking about sovereignty — personal and political.”

Jeeny: “Yes. The right to name yourself in a world that keeps trying to rename you.”

Jack: (leaning back) “You know, I used to think identity was something you’re born into. Now I think it’s something you earn.”

Jeeny: “Not earn. Choose.”

Jack: “That’s the same thing sometimes. Choosing takes courage.”

Jeeny: “Especially when the world keeps telling you your choice is wrong.”

Host: The bartender passed by, wiping a glass, nodding to them — the kind of silent acknowledgment between people who’ve seen too much and learned not to explain it.

Jack: “You think Cheech was angry when he said that?”

Jeeny: “No. He was free. That’s what defiance looks like when it’s matured — not anger, but ownership.”

Jack: “Ownership of what?”

Jeeny: “Your story. Your blood. Your contradictions.”

Host: She sipped her drink, her gaze wandering to the mural. The candlelight below it flickered, throwing faint shadows across the Virgin’s painted face.

Jeeny: “That’s the thing about being Chicano — or anyone between two worlds. You live in translation. And sometimes, translation becomes resistance.”

Jack: “You mean, the act of saying who you are becomes political?”

Jeeny: “Always. Because when you name yourself, you take away someone else’s power to define you.”

Host: Jack rubbed his thumb along the rim of his glass, thinking — the slow, heavy kind of thought that lives in the gut, not the head.

Jack: “So being Chicano isn’t about heritage alone — it’s about agency.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. It’s about saying, ‘I belong to both worlds, but neither owns me.’”

Jack: “That’s a dangerous thing to say in any century.”

Jeeny: “Yes. And that’s what makes it beautiful.”

Host: A gust of wind slipped through the open door, carrying the faint smell of tacos and gasoline. The city hummed — a heartbeat that never quite rested.

Jeeny: “You know, I grew up hearing people say ‘Chicano’ like it was a dirty word. Then one day, I heard Cheech Marin laugh and say it like it was sacred. That changed everything.”

Jack: “So, humor as reclamation.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Laughter as revolution. When you can joke about your scars, you’ve taken their power back.”

Jack: “And when you can define your name, you’ve taken your place in history.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s what he meant — ‘I’m a Chicano because I say I am.’ That’s not arrogance. That’s liberation.”

Host: The bar grew quieter as midnight thickened. The air pulsed with the low murmur of lives unwinding — people speaking in Spanish, English, Spanglish, all of it blending into one shared sound of survival.

Jack: “It’s strange, though. We all fight to belong somewhere, but the real fight is to belong to ourselves.”

Jeeny: “Because every identity starts with loneliness. You say ‘I am,’ and at first, no one echoes it back.”

Jack: “And then others start to say it too.”

Jeeny: “And suddenly, what was isolation becomes community.”

Host: She smiled — not softly, but fiercely, like someone who understood that identity is built with both tenderness and teeth.

Jeeny: “That’s what Chicano means to me — not heritage, but horizon. It’s saying: I come from struggle, but I define the light that follows.”

Jack: (nodding) “That’s what Marin did. He turned defiance into art.”

Jeeny: “And art into a mirror.”

Host: The candle between them flickered low. The room seemed smaller now — more intimate, as if the whole bar had leaned in to listen.

Jack: “You ever think identity’s less about who we are and more about what we refuse to be?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. Because refusal is freedom. Every ‘no’ to the world’s labels makes your ‘yes’ to yourself stronger.”

Jack: “So, being Chicano — being anything — starts with that ‘no.’”

Jeeny: “And ends with a declaration: I say who I am.”

Host: The jukebox changed again, humming a slow bolero. The night outside was now fully alive — car engines purring, laughter echoing through the streets, life unbothered and bold.

Jeeny stood, pulling her scarf tighter, her voice low but clear.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack, maybe the truest definition of identity isn’t blood, or birth, or belonging. Maybe it’s the courage to look at the world and say — this is me, because I say so.”

Jack: (smiling) “Then I guess everyone’s a revolution waiting for language.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And some of us already found the words.”

Host: They left the bar together, the sound of the bolero following them into the night. The city lights spilled across their faces, turning them both into silhouettes of two people walking toward the endless horizon of self-definition.

And as the streetlights hummed and the air carried the pulse of a thousand stories, Cheech Marin’s declaration echoed through the dark like a manifesto:

That identity is not inheritance,
but insistence.

That the right to name yourself
is the most radical act of freedom there is.

And that a people — or a person —
is not made by where they were born,
but by the moment they stand up,
look the world in the eye,
and say,

“I am who I say I am.”

Host: The wind lifted the edge of the mural’s candlelight,
and the night — wild, stubborn, infinite —
smiled back.