total liberation from oppression, exploitation, and racism. Our struggle then must be for the control of our barrios, campos, pueblos, lands, our economy, our culture, and our political life. El Plan commits all levels of Chicano society – the barrio, the campo, the ranchero, the writer, the teacher, the worker, the professional – to La Causa." Functions and basis Chicano nationalism allowed Chicanos to define themselves as a group on their own terms, and was a determination on their part to mold their own destiny. It is rooted in the Aztec creation myth of Aztlán, a "northerly place". As the Aztecs are central to the conquest and history of Mexico, the use of the word took on the added dimension of the reclamation of an indigenous heritage as part of the decolonization process. The sense of Chicano nationalism was enhanced by a geographical proximity of the United States and Mexico. Chicanos use the name Aztlán in reference to territories within the boundaries of the Mexican Cession, the land that was "granted" to Spain in 1493 by Pope Alexander VI in Bull Inter caetera, then claimed by the First Mexican Empire in 1821 when Spain signed the Treaty of Córdoba at the conclusion of the Mexican War of Independence, then claimed as "territories" (as opposed to "states", often referred to as "provinces") by 1824 Constitution, and finally ceded to the United States in 1848 as an outcome of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (although it also included Texas, which had earlier proclaimed its independence from the government in Mexico City and was independent territory.) The commitment to a nationalist ideology allowed Chicano activists to supersede differences that threatened their unity. Mexican Americans had regional, linguistic, age, cultural, racial, and gender differences, all of which were all subsumed to a mutual dedication to the Chicano Movement. Criticisms Some small groups of Mexican nationalists, in Mexico, label Chicano nationalism as a form of separatism, similar to the Republic of Texas or black separatism which is opposed to their own idea of Reconquista and unification of Mexico according to the borders of the Adams–Onís Treaty. As chicano identity may be only composed of people of predominantly or fully indigenous ancestries, Mexican nationalists believe the idea of Aztlan to be divisive and condemn Chicano nationalists for attempting to create a new identity for the Mexican American population, distinct from that of the Mexican nation which