José Ángel Gutiérrez’s Revenge: 2025 Rioters Try to Enforce a 1990s Manifesto with Vape Pens and Megaphones
Subtitle: “The Plan Was Vague, The Outfits Were Retro, and the Government Wasn’t Impressed.”
By Staff Writers at SpinTaxi.com — Proudly Banned from the Aztlán National Archives
LOS ANGELES, June 2025 — It was a warm Sunday in downtown Los Angeles when a crowd of self-styled revolutionaries gathered to carry out a long-lost prophecy written by Texas Chicano activist José Ángel Gutiérrez in the 1990s. The text in question? A manifesto penned in Comic Sans, titled “We Will Take Back the Southwest (Eventually, Maybe, With Enough Grad Students).”
Clutching megaphones, nicotine vapes, and laminated printouts of El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán (retrieved from their Ethnic Studies syllabi), these rebels screamed their way through Main Street declaring the end of U.S. sovereignty — while being filmed by six TikTok influencers and one confused German tourist.
“This is the moment Gutiérrez envisioned,” said one masked protester named @IndigenousMuffin, blowing a vape cloud shaped vaguely like a Mayan pyramid. “He said we’d return. And now we’re back. But like, in a non-binary, anti-border way.”
Flashback: Who TF Is José Ángel Gutiérrez Again?
Gutiérrez, a Chicano academic and political firestarter, famously declared in 1999 that “we have a right to our homeland” and warned that demography would soon deliver sovereignty to Mexican-Americans. He ran La Raza Unida and founded a third party — which, according to historians, won a handful of city council seats and a chili cook-off.
Gutiérrez envisioned Chicano control of the Southwest through peaceful political power. What he got instead in 2025 was an attempted “vaporwave rebellion” powered by people who list “witch” in their bios and use phrases like “emotional colonialism.”
Bohiney Insight into the Manifesto March
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The revolution’s uniforms were a mix of thrifted ponchos and knockoff Aztec jewelry made in Taiwan.
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Protesters carried signs reading “Viva Aztlán!” and “Bring Back Tenochtitlán!” but couldn’t point to either on a map.
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Several activists confused Gutiérrez with the guy who started El Pollo Loco.
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One group mistook the LA County Courthouse for “a colonial fortress.” It was actually a parking garage.
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They tried to quote José Ángel Gutiérrez during a speech, but autocorrect turned it into “Goose Angel Gut-burger.”
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One leader insisted they “don’t need borders,” yet immediately asked reporters to “respect the sacred space inside the protest circle.”
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Their marching formation resembled a conga line — spirited, disorganized, and three people fell over a curb.
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Riot slogans included: “No Justice, No Taco Tuesday!” and “Land Back, But Like, with Rent Control!”
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Someone tried to summon ancestral guidance by playing a flute app on their iPhone.
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Protesters misinterpreted “La Reconquista” as a Netflix limited series and were disappointed it had no dragons.
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Their sacred circle was broken when someone tripped on a sidewalk scooter and fell into the drum line.
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The revolution paused for 30 minutes to let everyone rehydrate and post IG stories.
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One activist declared “José would be proud!” before getting tackled by a 46-year-old LAPD officer named José.
Comedian Lines on the Gutiérrez Manifesto Mayhem
“José Ángel Gutiérrez said Latinos would reclaim the Southwest. I don’t think he meant through interpretive dance and a GoFundMe.” — Ron White
“These kids read one paragraph of a 1990s pamphlet and thought they could redraw borders with chalk and incense.” — Jerry Seinfeld
“They yelled ‘This is our homeland!’ while checking the Zillow value of the building they tried to occupy.” — Bill Burr
“They brought megaphones to a gunfight, and their backup plan was astrology.” — Sarah Silverman
“The manifesto said ‘take back the land.’ It didn’t say ‘take back the land during Mercury retrograde while wearing Vans.’” — Ricky Gervais
“I asked one of them what the plan was. He said, ‘We vibe with liberation.’ That’s not a plan — that’s a bumper sticker on a Subaru.” — Dave Chappelle
“They thought Gutiérrez was a political strategist. He was — in the ’90s — back when AOL was revolutionary too.” — Larry David
“Their chant was ‘Down with Empire!’ But their megaphone had Amazon Prime tape on it.” — Ali Wong
“The revolution’s first casualty was critical thinking.” — Kevin Hart
“You know your rebellion is falling apart when the chant leader leaves to apply for a marketing internship.” — Amy Schumer
“They honored José Ángel Gutiérrez by misquoting him in three languages and a vape cloud.” — Ron White
“At this point, Aztlán is less a nation and more a group chat with no plan and a lot of emojis.” — Sarah Silverman
Field Report: “It Was Like If Coachella and a Poli Sci Class Had a Baby and It Flunked”
SpinTaxi embedded reporters inside the “Gutiérrez Vanguard Brigade” — a loose coalition of 19-year-olds from UC Santa Cruz, street poets from Highland Park, and one confused dad who thought it was a community fun run.
They marched for nearly two blocks before realizing their Spotify playlist had run out.
Leaders took turns on a megaphone quoting snippets from Gutiérrez’s book, “The Legacy of Aztlán,” while offering herbal tea samples from a mobile cooler. One speech was interrupted when a passing food truck offered $2 birria tacos — a moral dilemma that fractured the movement along hunger lines.
A Manifesto, Misread and Misapplied
Analysts agree: José Ángel Gutiérrez dreamed of Chicano power through voting, organizing, and legal means. Today’s riot movement was… something else.
“This isn’t what Gutiérrez wanted,” said Professor Rigo Herrera of CSU Northridge. “I mean, yes, he spoke about reclaiming the Southwest. But he probably didn’t expect that to involve TikTok thirst traps and astrology memes.”
Asked about that, one protester replied: “He planted the seed. We just decolonized the soil.”
That soil, incidentally, was the patch of grass outside the LAPD Metro Division, currently trampled, tear-gassed, and peppered with empty vape pods.
Tactical Errors and Emotional Support Crystals
The uprising didn’t last long. Once the riot police arrived, protestors screamed, “You can’t arrest us! We’re citizens of Aztlán!” before being gently escorted back to their rideshare pickup zones.
Some attempted to shield themselves with bundles of sage. Others curled into fetal positions chanting “This isn’t how José imagined it!”
Police later reported one activist attempting to defend herself with a laminated page from Gutiérrez’s PhD dissertation. It did not stop the zip-ties.
Legacy in Shambles (Again)
In the wake of the riot, Gutiérrez himself — now 81 and retired in Texas — was reached for comment. His reply was simple:
“Tell them to read the whole book next time. Not just the part that fits on a t-shirt.”
Conclusion: When Ideology Meets iOS Updates
In the end, this wasn’t a revolution. It was a group project with no leader, no strategy, and too many pronouns.
They stormed public space waving a ‘90s dream and a 2020s delivery system. They hoped for freedom. What they got was detainment and a group Venmo for bail.
Still, the spirit of José Ángel Gutiérrez lives on — somewhere between the pages of academic texts, campaign flyers, and now, sadly, in a riot that couldn’t even make it to the freeway before running out of breath and snacks.
Auf Wiedersehen, Aztlán. You misread the assignment — again.