y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA), he said, "That's not Chicano poetry, [...] It's nice that they're doing it, but it's not part of the tradition of Chicano literature." Activism As an active member of the San Diego-area Chicano Movement, Urista was instrumental in the 1970 takeover of Chicano Park and in the foundation of the Centro Cultural de la Raza, a cultural center. It was at this time that he began using the name "Alurista". The assumption of a pen name was as much for anonymity as it was for artistry. According to Urista, "My apartment was shot up by the Minutemen. I didn't want these people to be able to associate my last name with my family, so I changed it." However, the name change was also a reflection of his Marxist philosophy: "The notion was to synthesize--to bring things together. So I tried to do that with my name." In the 1970s, Alurista organized the Festival Floricanto, an annual event that convened Chicano writers and critics to share and critique their work. In addition to his own poetry, Alurista has written works of non-fiction, literary criticism, and many essays on Chicano culture and history. He is credited with popularizing the Chicano Movement-era concept of "Aztlán" and imbuing it with a spiritual dimension through his poetry. His Spanish-language writings were among the first by an American to be taken seriously by critics from hispanophone countries. In the United States, he was one of the first critically acclaimed poets to mix the Spanish and English languages. Personal life Alurista has been married twice and has four children. He spent the years 1995 – 1998 in a "spiritual meandering", about which he said, "Being an artist is not all creativity. There are periods of self-destructiveness. You internalize things that destroy you. You end up blaming others for your pain--whatever or whoever those 'others' happen to be--which makes you a resentful person. That resentment turns inward, and you end up eating yourself up." In 1998, after family problems and rumors of substance abuse, Alurista left his longtime home of San Diego for San Jose, California, attracted by its active cultural arts scene. Spiritually, Urista identifies as both a Buddhist and a Roman Catholic, as well as acknowledging indigenous practices such as the sweat lodge. Politically, he identifies himself as a "...socialist. With a definite Mayan bent to everything." Religion Alurista identifies as