Though out history, our people have been conquered. We have struggled for centuries to be understood and served as an equals in a country of democracy that we were left to help bring together; left behind by our mainlanders in the aftermath of a war to survive the European rulers and their racism. After decades of abuse from both sides of the border and feeling that we were left without a country, we broke from our mainlanders, ignoring the forces of government that held us down, rising from the odds and prevailing above all. No matter what is said or done or the way we as a Chicano nation choose to live our lives our hearts pump the same blood as our mainlanders and we share the same ancestry, but we are an independent nation  to never be ruled again. The Chicano youth of the early 60’s shinned a brilliance of light on our equal rights to live the way we want to live, to learn what we want to learn and to die the way we want to die….. Those are our rights as Americans.