Achievements

This section still Under Construction

The story of our achievements is the greatest story never told:

Consider this:

• The Maya invention of the concept of "zero" two centuries before the Hindus did it and centuries before Europeans got the idea. (Read the book Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife from Penguin USA Publishers). The concept of zero allowed to Maya to calculate vast numbers into the billions by creating a positional numbering system (in base 20's as opposed to base 10's by the Babylonians).

• We had universities that rivaled (and in many ways were better than) those of Europe. The University of Tlatelolco was run for centuries before Europeans ever settled in North America.

• For centuries, before English or Spanish arrived in the Western Hemisphere, the language of Nahuatl was the language of "high civilization", used in commerce, academics, and religious ceremony. It was to Anahuac (the name for the land from Aztlan down to Costa Rica)  what Latin was to the Roman Empire. The dialect that was spoken in the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan is called "Classical Nahuatl."

• We had scholars and the sharing of scientific knowledge: 1,000 years before Benjamin Franklin began his experiments in electricity, scholars from a wide area gathered at Copan (now Honduras) in a convention to compare astronomical data and to revise the Olmec-Maya calendar.

• Hydraulic irrigation that made deserts bloom with agricultural crops (Valley of Mexico peoples and the U.S. Southwest peoples)

• Pyramid-temples that rival those of the Egyptians (The Pyramid of Cholula is greater in volume than any pyramid in Egypt)

• We built the first metropolis in the Western Hemisphere: Teotihuacan. It was larger in area than Rome or London (8 square miles) and larger in population (200,000). It was the Western Hemisphere's first planned, grid-pattern city. It's still there in Mexico today, just 25 miles outside of Mexico City! Every year, thousands of people come from around the globe to see the city and climb its two enormous pyramids. It is the largest tourist attraction Mexico.

• Most of our pyramid-temples were not used as mausoleums like in Egypt (a few were), they were religious temples first and foremost.

• Writing, from the Olmec glyphs, to the Isthmian script of La Mojarra, to the Aztec pictographs, 
  to the Maya alphabet.

• Medical knowledge (pharmacology), using thousands of pharmacological plant cures, and obsidian blades for surgery. Our medical books were burned by the Spanish invaders (specifically, Bishop Zumarraga). Today, people called curanderos still use some of the surviving ancient medical knowledge.

• Enormous libraries of books (99% burned by the Spaniards). The city of Texcoco was labeled "The Athens of The New World" by the Europeans because of its libraries crammed with books, and Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) housed the greatest amount of scholar-priests anywhere.

• We were the first people in the world to start mandatory schooling for all children (in the Telpochcalli and Calmecac), regardless of rank or station (Daily Life of the Aztecs, Jaques Soustelle, Stanford University Press). This is something British and Americans didn't do until the 20th century.

• The Mexica (Aztec) Empire commanded an army of over 200,000 soldiers...it was the largest army anywhere in the world at that time, and would rank as one of the largest even today. (500 Nations by Al Josephy)

• The Maya were calculating the movement patterns of stars 1,000 years before Galileo in Europe. State-supported astronomical observatories dotted Mexico (from Monte Alban to Chichen Itza and more), analyzing and observing celestial movements while in Europe, Galileo was being persecuted for advancing astronomical knowledge that was contrary to the motives of the Catholic Church.

• Long-distance businessmen, called the Pochteca, who traded up and down the continent.

• Invention of the chinampa ("floating garden") system of agriculture, which yielded three times the amount of food as standard agriculture. These chinampas are still present for viewing in the Xochimilco area of Mexico City.

• The City of Tenochtitlan was called by the amazed Spaniards' as "the Venice of the New World", and some of their soldiers upon seeing it's gleaming white temples and buildings asked if they were in a dream.

• We built the largest city in the world - twice: once in Teotihuacan (200,000) and later in Tenochtitlan (350,000). During this time of the Aztec Empire (Tenochtitlan), London was still a city of only 60,000.

• Our people in Aztlan, built the largest apartment complex (Pueblo Bonito, New Mexico)  in America, only surpassed in size during the 20th century by the apartment ghettos of New York City

• 100 years before the first gothic cathedral was built in Europe, the people of Pueblo Bonito (New Mexico) were constructing a massive multi-story ceremonial and trading center that drew religious pilgrims from the Southwest and turquoise merchants as far away as the Valley of Mexico. The ruins of this massive center are still standing just outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico !

• And yes, the Aztecs did have the concept of the wheel. It was used for children's toys because their were no large domesticable animals in Mexico!

• And this was all done by our Anahuac peoples even though Europe had a 2,000 year head start in agriculture as a result of the Sumerians in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) !  

• We did all of this on our own, with our own people within the region known as "Mesoamerica". 
  We did not have to "borrow" from Egypt (like the Greeks did) 
  or borrow from Greece (like the Romans did) 
  or borrow from the Arabs (like the Spanish did)
  or borrow from Rome and Greece (like the British did)
   ...or borrow from Mesopotamia (like all of Europe did) !
  We did not have to "borrow our civilization from anyone" but ourselves !!

Science...Agriculture...Astronomy...Architecture...Philosophy...

ALL OF THIS CAN BE EASILY VERIFIED AT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY OR BOOKSTORE !

SO WHY ARE WE NOT LEARNING THIS IN SCHOOL? 

????

Also consider these modern-day facts:

• Emiliano Zapata fought for his people in Morelos, Mexico. He created agrarian commissions to
  distribute the land; he spent much time supervising their work to be sure they showed no favoritism and that the landowners did not corrupt its members. He established a Rural Loan Bank, the country's first agricultural credit organization; he also tried to reorganize the sugar industry of Morelos into cooperatives. His legacy still lives on in the freedom-fighters of modern-day Chiapas, Mexico. And his spirit of reform was a profound source of inspiration for the Chicano Movement in the United States.

• Chicanos and Mexicans are regarded as some of the best, most creative muralists in the entire world!

• Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta (both Chicanos) formed the first successful union for farm workers in the United States, with very little money, and none of the wealth and legal firepower that was possessed by the Agribusiness Overlords of California.

• Without the labor of our peoples, there would be no such thing as a $1 Trillion California economy (the 5th richest economy in the world and the richest state in the USA). 
  Who else would have done all this on-and-off seasonal labor?
  Can you imagine a "Bracero Program" for Chinese or Filipinos? 
  That would have been too expensive!! Can you imagine the price of fruit in that situation !?
  
  How many White people would have picked their own fruit? Would they have accepted "Mexican Wages"?
  How many Black people have left the Northern factories to return to the slave-like conditions of back-breaking field work in California?

• Without Chicanos and Black people fighting for the civil rights of poor people in this country, 
  would Whites have ever done it for us?
  
  Think about it.