• Home
    • Get the Podcasts
    • About
      • Contact Latinopia.com
      • Copyright Credits
      • Production Credits
      • Research Credits
      • Terms of Use
      • Teachers Guides
  • Art
    • LATINOPIA ART
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Film/TV
    • LATINOPIA CINEMA
    • LATINOPIA SHOWCASE
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Food
    • LATINOPIA FOOD
    • COOKING
    • RESTAURANTS
  • History
    • LATINOPIA EVENT
    • LATINOPIA HERO
    • TIMELINES
    • BIOGRAPHY
    • EVENT PROFILE
    • MOMENT IN TIME
    • DOCUMENTS
    • TEACHERS GUIDES
  • Lit
    • LATINOPIA WORD
    • LATINOPIA PLÁTICA
    • LATINOPIA BOOK REVIEW
    • PIONEER AMERICAN LATINA AUTHORS
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Music
    • LATINOPIA MUSIC
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Theater
    • LATINOPIA TEATRO
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Blogs
    • Angela’s Photo of the Week
    • Arnie & Porfi
    • Bravo Road with Don Felípe
    • Burundanga Boricua
    • Chicano Music Chronicles
    • Fierce Politics by Dr. Alvaro Huerta
    • Mirándolo Bien with Eduado Díaz
    • Political Salsa y Más
    • Mis Pensamientos
    • Latinopia Guest Blogs
    • Tales of Torres
    • Word Vision Harry Gamboa Jr.
    • Julio Medina Serendipity
    • ROMO DE TEJAS
    • Sara Ines Calderon
    • Ricky Luv Video
    • Zombie Mex Diaries
    • Tia Tenopia
  • Podcasts
    • Louie Perez’s Good Morning Aztlán
    • Mark Guerrero’s ELA Music Stories
    • Mark Guerrero’s Chicano Music Chronicles
      • Yoga Talk with Julie Carmen

latinopia.com

Latino arts, history and culture

  • Home
    • Get the Podcasts
    • About
      • Contact Latinopia.com
      • Copyright Credits
      • Production Credits
      • Research Credits
      • Terms of Use
      • Teachers Guides
  • Art
    • LATINOPIA ART
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Film/TV
    • LATINOPIA CINEMA
    • LATINOPIA SHOWCASE
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Food
    • LATINOPIA FOOD
    • COOKING
    • RESTAURANTS
  • History
    • LATINOPIA EVENT
    • LATINOPIA HERO
    • TIMELINES
    • BIOGRAPHY
    • EVENT PROFILE
    • MOMENT IN TIME
    • DOCUMENTS
    • TEACHERS GUIDES
  • Lit
    • LATINOPIA WORD
    • LATINOPIA PLÁTICA
    • LATINOPIA BOOK REVIEW
    • PIONEER AMERICAN LATINA AUTHORS
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Music
    • LATINOPIA MUSIC
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Theater
    • LATINOPIA TEATRO
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Blogs
    • Angela’s Photo of the Week
    • Arnie & Porfi
    • Bravo Road with Don Felípe
    • Burundanga Boricua
    • Chicano Music Chronicles
    • Fierce Politics by Dr. Alvaro Huerta
    • Mirándolo Bien with Eduado Díaz
    • Political Salsa y Más
    • Mis Pensamientos
    • Latinopia Guest Blogs
    • Tales of Torres
    • Word Vision Harry Gamboa Jr.
    • Julio Medina Serendipity
    • ROMO DE TEJAS
    • Sara Ines Calderon
    • Ricky Luv Video
    • Zombie Mex Diaries
    • Tia Tenopia
  • Podcasts
    • Louie Perez’s Good Morning Aztlán
    • Mark Guerrero’s ELA Music Stories
    • Mark Guerrero’s Chicano Music Chronicles
      • Yoga Talk with Julie Carmen
You are here: Home / Literature / LATINOPIA BOOK REVIEW / LATINOPIA BOOK REVIEW “AFRO- 6 ” REVIEWED BY ERNIE HOGAN

LATINOPIA BOOK REVIEW “AFRO- 6 ” REVIEWED BY ERNIE HOGAN

November 24, 2013 by

THE COLLIDING WORLDS OF AFRO-6.

Dell Books, 1969

By Hank Lopez

Reviewed by Ernest Hogan
___________________________________
Ernie HoganChicano ain’t no pure thing. Ain’t no puro Chicano. Puro Mexicano is an illusion. We are a collision of worlds, blood mixed on the crossroads.

That’s especially true when the times they are a-changing. You can find yourself being knocked from black to Chicano, not being able to tell what revolution you’re caught up in. It was true back in 1969, when Hank Lopez’s Afro-6 — that some consider to be the first science fiction novel by a Chicano — was published.

It looks more like literary blaxsploitation than Chicano lit, but Hank Lopez was a Chicano activist and lawyer as well as a writer. According the L.A. Times, he was believed the first Chicano graduate of Harvard Law School . . .

You see, outside the barrio, Chicanos — especially if they’ve grabbed themselves some education — have a chameleon-like ability to blend into different environments. Sometimes it’s a survival skill. Other times it’s the way the natives perceive you. Take it from a long-time Chicanonaut.

Afro -6Afro-6 was an influence on my novel High Aztech. It’s right there on page 1: I had once seen in the slums of Mexico City, a crumbling hole-in-the-wall saloon that was gloriously named La Conquista de Nueva York por los Aztecas en el Año 2000 . . .

But it’s not the Aztecs who conquer New York in Afro-6, but a well-organized conspiracy of black people.

And it takes place in the Sixties “present” rather than an imagined future. There is no futuristic technology. This makes it speculative fiction rather than sci-fi — What If, asked of the current, serious situation rather than the “pure” entertainment of the post-Star Wars, pre-Afrofuturist/Postcolonial era.

It’s in the African American tradition of George S. Shuyler’s Black Empire, in which a Negro mad genius leads a organization of blacks to eventually cripple Europe and liberate Africa, and Sam Greenlee’s The Spook Who Sat By the Door, about a CIA token Negro who uses his training to start a black revolution.

And there’s plenty of world building, and extrapolation — based on ideas by Che Guevera — thought out in detail, on a national scale.

Hey, kids of all colors and cultures, why not build worlds that become a better reality, instead of fantasies where you hang out untilAfro 6 some corporation decides what it’s going to do with you? Just saying.

Afro-6 doesn’t go as far as Empire’s transformed world, or Spook’s establishment of Black Nationalist state. Where it excels is in creating characters that provide a spectrum between black and white — again, something that comes out of the Chicano experience. John Ríos, the Afro/Latino hero, after struggling with living between conflicting worlds, finds a new identity as a revolutionary . . . more sinister than Dr. Fu Manchu — a character feared in the suburbs, but admired in the ghettos and barrios.

Ruben SalazarIt was reviewed by none other than Ruben Salazar, who uses it as an opportunity to report that Black Harlem is blacker than ever before, and: We who were brought up on the idea that “America is a melting pot” suddenly realize that the theory is a myth if not propaganda. The review appeared in July, 1970. Salazar was killed August 29 of the same year.

Travel between the worlds of black and white is still difficult. We are still blood mixed on the crossroads.

Ernest Hogan is often mistaken for black. He stopped correcting people about it decades ago.

_____________________________________________________

This review was first published by Ernie Hogan on October 10, 2013 in his Chicanonautica blog at http://labloga.blogspot.com. Be sure to visit this most amazing Latino literary blog site-it’s the very best!

Filed Under: LATINOPIA BOOK REVIEW, Literature Tagged With: Afro - 6, Chicano science fiction, Ernie Hogan, Hank Lopez, Latino spec ficton

RICARDO ROMO’S TEJANO REPORT 07.10.25 LUIS LOPEZ BORDERLANDS ARTIST

July 10, 2025 By wpengine

Luis Lopez: Borderlands Artist Looks Forward to His Exhibit in Mexico Borderland artist Luis Lopez moved from Laredo, Texas to San Antonio nearly 50 years ago to pursue his passion for creating art. Over the past five decades, Lopez has received recognition on both sides of the U.S.–Mexico border for his diverse and transformative body […]

BURUNDANGA BORICUA (ENGLISH) 07.10.25 WE WILL CONTINUE TO CONSPIRE

July 10, 2025 By wpengine

We’ve been able to…or not. The signature is on paper and the Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) that dictates the domestic policy for President Trump’s second administration is the current mandate for the United States. The Institute of Taxes and Economic Policy anticipates three options to meet the law: cut investment in health and food assistance, […]

BURUNDANGA BORICUA DEL ZOCOTROCO 7.10.25 SEGUIREMOS CONSPIRANDO

July 10, 2025 By wpengine

Burundanga de Zocotroco José M. Umpierre Nos hemos podido…o no. La firma está sobre el papel y la Gran Bella Ley (Big Beautiful Bill – BBB) que dicta la política interior para la segunda administración del presidente Trump es el mandato vigente para el ordenamiento de los Estados Unidos. El Instituto de Impuestos y Política […]

RICARDO ROMO’S TEJANO REPORT 07.03.25 BRILLIANCE OF ÁNGEL RODRÍGUEZ-DÍAZ

July 3, 2025 By wpengine

The Brilliance of Latino Artist Ángel Rodríguez-Díaz Among the major acquisitions by the prestigious Smithsonian American Art Museum in the 1990s was an Ángel Rodríguez-Diaz painting of famed Latina novelist Sandra Cisneros. Rodríguez-Díaz painted Cisneros in a black Mexican dress decorated with sequins and embroidery, and she “holds a patterned rebozo that snakes around her […]

More Posts from this Category

New On Latinopia

LATINOPIA ART SONIA ROMERO 2

By Tia Tenopia on October 20, 2013

Sonia Romero is a graphic artist,muralist and print maker. In this second profile on Sonia and her work, Latinopia explores Sonia’s public murals, in particular the “Urban Oasis” mural at the MacArthur Park Metro Station in Los Angeles, California.

Category: Art, LATINOPIA ART

LATINOPIA WORD JOSÉ MONTOYA “PACHUCO PORTFOLIO”

By Tia Tenopia on June 12, 2011

José Montoya is a renowned poet, artist and activist who has been in the forefront of the Chicano art movement. One of his most celebrated poems is titled “Pachuco Portfolio” which pays homage to the iconic and enduring character of El Pachuco, the 1940s  Mexican American youth who dressed in the stylish Zoot Suit.

Category: LATINOPIA WORD, Literature

LATINOPIA WORD XOCHITL JULISA BERMEJO “OUR LADY OF THE WATER GALLONS”

By Tia Tenopia on May 26, 2013

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is a poet and teacher from Asuza, California. She volunteered with No More Deaths, a humanitarian organization providing water bottles in the Arizona desert where immigrants crossing from Mexico often die of exposure. She read her poem, “Our Lady of the Water Gallons” at a Mental Cocido (Mental Stew) gathering of Latino authors […]

Category: LATINOPIA WORD, Literature

© 2025 latinopia.com · Pin It - Genesis - WordPress · Admin