A mockery he'd so far been able to correct with only marginal success. True, the Mexican people had since his election gained a better understanding of their lineage--had come to understand the true history of their country that had been all but obliterated by Spanish imperialism. Even the name, the Aztec Party, which so many news reporters used to describe Mexica Tenochca, was an insult, a nod to falsity. Hernan Cortes and his bloodthirsty Spanish conquistadors had named the Mexica peoples Aztecs, bastardized from the name of the legendary home of the Mexica--Aztlan. It was a necessary artifice, however. For now, Aztec was a term the Mexican people both understood and could take to their collective hearts. In time, Garza would educate them.

It was, in fact, a ground surge of pre-conquest nationalism that had swept Garza and the Mexica Tenochca into power, but Garza's hopes for Mexico's widespread and immediate embracement of its history were starting to fade. He'd come to realize they'd won the election partly because of the previous administration's incompetence and corruption and partly because of Mexica Tenochca's "Aztecan showmanship," as one political pundit had termed it.

Showmanship indeed! It was absurd.

Hadn't Garza years ago renounced his Spanish Christian name, Fernando, for a Nahuatl one? Hadn't his entire cabinet done the same? Hadn't Garza renamed his own children in the Nahuatl tongue? And more: Literature and images of Spain's conquest of Mexico were slowly being weeded from school curricula; street and plaza names had been changed in favor of Nahuatl words; schools now taught courses in Nahuatl and the true history of the Mexica people; religious holidays and traditional Mexica festivals were celebrated several times a year. But still, all the polling showed that the Mexican people saw all of it as novelties--excuses to miss work or drink or misbehave in the streets. Even so, that same polling suggested real change could be instituted if they had enough time. Garza and the Mexica Tenochca needed another term, and to get that Garza needed to have the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies, and the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation more firmly under his thumb. As it stood, the presidency was restricted to a single term of six years. Not long enough to accomplish what Garza had planned, not long enough to accomplish what Mexico needed: a fully realized history of its own, free of the lies of conquest and slaughter.