The symbol was a source of Aztlaner pride, but it creeped me out. It reminded me of Mama G’s death. I thought of the dead snake I had found on our doorstep the day before her murder, and of the way my adopted grandmother’s throat had been slashed open by a macauitl . The national symbol seemed all too evocative of the death of this innocent healer shaman, carried out by the warrior eagle of the Aztlaner state. It wasn’t an image I wanted to dwell upon.