MEChA

One common feature of logos used by MEChA chapters, an Eagle holding a lit stick of dynamite and a maquahuitl.

MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán or Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán), is an organization that seeks to promote an awareness of Chicano history by education and political action. In Spanish, the word mecha means fuse. The motto of MEChA is La Unión Hace La Fuerza, or "Unity Creates Strength".

MEChA has attracted substantial criticism, with critics claiming that it is an irredentist movement aimed at uniting the Southwestern portion of the United States (including Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California) with Mexico , preferably through political means, but through force if necessary.

Origins in the 1960s

MEChA was formed in 1969 as an attempt to unify a wide variety of Chicano and Chicana rights student organizations that had been active throughout the 1960s.

The group coalesced out of several organizations which had formed during that turbulent decade.

The Denver, Colorado-based Crusade for Justice, a civil rights and educational organization founded in the mid-60s, concerned itself with the problem's of the city's Chicano youth.

The Mexican American Youth Organization was founded in San Antonio, Texas, in 1967, and employed the tactics of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later spurred the creation of the Raza Unida Party.

The Brown Berets were a youth organization that militated against police brutality in East Los Angeles. In 1968, they helped the United Mexican American Students (UMAS), Sal Castro, and other youth who met at the Piranya Cafe organize the East L.A. walkouts, called the Blowouts, a series of protests against unfair conditions in Los Angeles schools.

Following the Blowouts, a group of students, school administrators, and teachers formed the Chicano Coordinating Committee on Higher Education (CCCHE), a network to pressure the adoption and expansion of equal opportunity programs in California's colleges.

Rene Nuñez, an activist from San Diego, conceived a conference to unify the student groups under the auspices of the CCCHE.

In April 1969, Chicana and Chicano college students held a nationwide conference at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Many of the attendees were present at the First National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference hosted by Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales's Crusade for Justice a month prior, and the Santa Barbara conference represented the extension of the Chicano Youth Movement into the realm of higher education.

The name "Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán" was already in use by a few groups, and the name was adopted by the conference attendees because of the importance of each of the words and as a means of transcending the regional nature of the multiple campus-based groups. Conference attendees also set the national agenda and drafted the Plan de Santa Barbara, a pedagogic manifesto.

MEChA chapters first took root on California college campuses and then expanded to high schools and schools in other states. It soon became one of the primary Mexican-American organizations, hosting functions, developing community leaders, and politically pressuring educational institutions.

MEChA was fundamental in the adoption of Chicana and Chicano Studies programs and departments in academia.

Organizational status

MEChA Constitution

MEChA's constitution was ratified in 1995.[1] and contains four objectives:
* Educational, cultural, economical, political, and social empowerment of Chicanos.
* Retention of Chicano identity and furthering of cultural awareness.
* Implementing plans of action concerning Chicanos and Chicanas.
* Raising Chicanas/os through higher education.

In 1999 MEChA adopted a document entitled The Philosophy of MEChA at Phoenix College during the 1999 National Conference that was held there, which affirmed the more moderate view that "all people are potential Chicanas and Chicanos", and that "Chicano identity is not a nationality but a philosophy".[2] According to MEChA, no one is born "Chicano". Therefore, MEChA was no longer a Mexican-America based organization, but a student movement that worked to better the general RAZA community. MEChistas (or members of MEChA) do not consider themselves Chicana or Chicano in terms of ethnicity, but in terms of a philosophy.

Affiliated chapters and national structure

MEChA exists as over 400 loosely affiliated chapters within a national organization. Typical activities of a MEChA chapter include educational and social activities, such as academic tutoring, mentorship, social events, folklore and poetry recitals. Many chapters are also involved in political actions, such as lobbying high school and university administrators for expanded Bilingual Education programs and Chicano-related curricula, the celebration of Mexican holidays (such as Mexican Independence Day), Columbus Day protests, sit-ins, hunger strikes and other political activism relating to civil rights, affirmative action and immigration.

Criticism

MEChA is often criticized, usually by right-of-center publications and writers such as the National Review[3] and Michelle Malkin[4], which allege that it is a Hispanic nationalist organization tinged with racist and separatist views. Nationalist groups such as American Patrol (who themselves are labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League) are even more vitriolic in their criticism, accusing MEChA of outright supremacism and irredentism.

Much of the basis for this criticism derives from statements made by individual MEChA members or chapters, as opposed to the official agenda of the national organization. Also controversial is the phrase "Por La Raza todo, Fuera de La Raza nada," which is found in El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, and which is often translated "For the Race, everything, for those outside the race, nothing". The phrase is often claimed to be the "slogan" of MEChAand highlighted in practically all criticism of the group, despite the lack of evidence that actual MEChA members often quote the phrase or give it any special signficance. Some members of MEChA claim that a more appropriate translation is "By the people, everything; outside of the people, nothing," and that it is best understood as an expression of solidarity similar to "United we stand, divided we fall." This translation may indeed be more appropriate, especially when such a simple word as 'por' is mistranslated as the English 'for' when, in fact, it translates most accurately to the English 'by'. On the other hand, the 'more appropriate' translation ignores the fact that the term "La Raza" has been used for decades as a unifying term for Latinos to differentiate them from non-Latinos. Translational ambiguity remains problematic when defending phrases that can be interpreted in a negative light. A likely origin of the phrase is the Cuban Revolution, which used a similar slogan, "Por el revolucion todo, fuera de la revolucion nada!"

MEChA chapters on high school and college campuses have been challenged by opponents who believe the group does not merit academic recognition or sanction. For example, high school student Josh Denhalter is seeking to have the MEChA student clubs removed from schools in the Jurupa Unified School District (Riverside County, California). He says many Mexican Americans don't support MEChA and fear criticising it because of violent retaliation.

Controversies

*The national MEChA organization does not advocate violence, citing the example set by the late labor activist César Chávez. However, on several occasions, MEChA members and chapters have been involved or implicated in violent or criminal disturbances. In the largest such instance, on May 11, 1993, Chicano students at UCLA allegedly caused between $35,000 and $50,000 worth of damage to the Faculty Center during a riot which ensued following the university administration's rejection of the creation of a Chicano Studies program. [5] (Some accounts erroneously reported this as $500,000 worth of damage). [6].
*In 1996, at a July 4 celebration, a group of Mechistas, were videotaped attacking black and white Americans protesting illegal immigration. [7]
*In 2002, MEChA members were implicated in the theft of an entire press run of a particular issue of the UC Berkeley conservative newspaper California Patriot which was featuring an article that labelled MEChA a "neo-Nazi"-like organization. [8]
*On May 18, 2006 MEChA members claimed (in writing) to have destroyed the entire press run of the May 18, 2006 issue of the Pasadena City College newspaper. Nearly all 5,000 copies of the Courier were removed from newspaper boxes on the Pasadena, California campus, torn in half and returned to the paper's campus office with a signed note claiming responsibility. The letter expressed disappointment for the lack of coverage provided for a MEChA-hosted event on May 12, which had involved "months of hard work." It ended stating, "As students of P.C.C., we can not accept this issue of the Campus Courier." [9]

California statewide conferences

Silkscreen announcement poster for the 1971 MEChA statewide "Regeneración", by Ricardo Favela

MEChA statewide conferences are held twice a year in California. Each subsequent statewide conference has to be held in a different region (Alta Califas Norte, Alta Califas Centro, Alta Califas Sur).
* June 16-18, 1971: Regeneración, held at University of California, Davis
* 1972: Bakersfield College
* Spring 1973 - Spring 1978: ?
* Fall 1978 - Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego
* Spring 1979 - Fall 1985: ?
* Spring 1986: California State University, Bakersfield
* Fall 1986: Stanford University
* Spring 1987 - Spring 1989: ?
* Fall 1989: California State University, Los Angeles
* Spring 1990 - Fall 1992: ?
* Spring 1993: Stanford University/UC Berkeley
* Fall 1993 - Spring 1994: ?
* Fall 1994: Sacramento State University
* Spring 1995: University of Southern California
* Fall 1995: Hartnell College
* Spring 1996: San Francisco State University
* Fall 1996: California State University, Northridge
* Spring 1997: Santa Barbara City College
* Fall 1997: San Jose State University
* Spring 1998: San Diego State University
* Fall 1998: California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo
* Spring 1999: San Francisco State University
* Fall 1999: Pasadena City College
* Spring 2000: UC Santa Cruz
* Fall 2000: James Logan High School
* Spring 2001: UC Riverside
* Fall 2001: Fresno State University
* Spring 2002: Chabot College
* Fall 2002: San Diego State University
* Spring 2003: Bakersfield College
* Fall 2003: California State University, Sacramento
* Spring 2004: UC Los Angeles
* Fall 2004: Santa Barbara City College
* Spring 2005: San Francisco State
* Fall 2005: CSU Fullerton
* Spring 2006: UC Santa Cruz
* Fall 2006: UC Davis

External links

*National MEChA Website
*El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán
*El Plan de Santa Barbara
*Crooked Timber blog: interviews of MEChA members

Critics

*"An Investigation of Racism within MEChA" The Stanford Review, October 15, 2003
*"The California Future as Northern Aztlan" by Raoul Lowery Contreras, Calnews.com, August 20, 2003
*High School Student:Ban MEChA by Josh Denhalter for the Daily Bulletin Newspaper