In the first book on Aztec dance in the United States, Ernesto Colín combines cultural anthropology, educational theory, and postcolonial theory to create an innovative, interdisciplinary, long-term ethnography of an Aztec dance circle and makes a case for the use of the metaphor of palimpsest as an ethnographic research tool.

1. A Danza Landscape 2. Calpulli (An Alliance of Houses) 3. Tequio (Community Work) 4. Tlacahuapahualiztli (The Art of Educating a Person) 5. Cargos 6. Macehualiztli (The Art of Deserving) 7. Decolonial Pedagogy 8. Re-inscribing the Self 9. A Modern Mexica Palimpsest