MEChA

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Image:Mecha symbolsmall.gif MEChA, an acronym for Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (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.

1 Origins in 1960s
2 Organizational status
- 2.1 MEChA Constitution
- 2.2 Affiliated chapters and national structure
3 Criticism
4 Controversies
5 California Statewide Conferences
6 External links
7 Critics

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Origins in 1960s

MEChA was formed in 1969 as an attempt to unify a wide variety of Chicano rights 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, Chicano college students held a 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 Chicano studies programs and departments in academia.

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Organizational status

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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.
Raising Chicanos through higher education.
Implementing plans of action concerning Chicanos.

In 1999 MEChA adopted a document entitled The Philosophy of MEChA, 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". MEChistas (or members of MEChA) consider themselves neither Americans nor Mexicans in terms of ethnicity, but descendants (either genetically or spiritually) of the indigenous pre-Columbian nations—hence, the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán.

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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.

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Criticism

MEChA has attracted critisicm from a variety of sources, which allege that it is a Hispanic nationalist organization, analogous to the Brown Berets and the Young Lords, but with a racist and separatist bent, and that its agenda includes reuniting the southwestern United States with Mexico.[3] [4] 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. Much of the criticism also derives from a phrase found in one of MEChA's guiding, but nonbinding, founding documents, El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán. The phrase, "Por La Raza todo, Fuera de La Raza nada," is often translated as "For the Race, everything, for those outside of the Race, nothing," and is highlighted in practically all criticism of the group. However, many 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 a sentiment similar to "United we stand, divided we fall."

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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 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. [7]

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California Statewide Conferences

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: The first California M.E.Ch.A. Statewide Conference was hosted by Bakersfield College
Spring 1973 - 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