MEChA

For the city in Saudi Arabia, see Mecca.

For the fictional robot, see Mecha.

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

MEChA (Spanish: Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, "Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán") is an organization that seeks to promote Chicano unity and empowerment through education and political action. The acronym of the organization's name is the Spanish word mecha, which means "fuse". The motto of MEChA is La Unión Hace La Fuerza ("Unity Creates Strength"), according to the MEChA National Constitution.

Origins in the 1960s

MEChA began during the 1960s, empowered through the political movements of the time, especially the civil rights and Chicano Movement. The group coalesced out of several organizations which had formed during that turbulent decade and which came together at a conference in Denver. The Denver, Colorado-based Crusade for Justice, a civil rights and educational organization founded in the mid-1960s, concerned itself with the problems of the city's Chicano youth. One of the founding documents, "El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan", was drafted during this conference. This document reflects the sentiment of the Latino/Chicano youth during an era of a turbulent social climate (especially in the wake of violence experienced by Latino youth from the US military and police during the zoot suit riots).

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

The Brown Berets were a youth organization that agitated 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 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 Chicano Studies programs and departments in academia.

MEChA is also spelled as MEXA in certain areas as a claim to deeper indigenous roots having to do with the Nahuatl pronunciation of "x" as "ch". This then changes the word "Chicano" to "Xicano".

Organizational status

MEChA Constitution

MEChA's constitution was ratified in 1995 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.
• Raising Chicanos through higher education.

During the 1999 National Conference at Phoenix College, 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". In addition, The Philosophy of MEChA addressed the problem of outside organizations co-opting the legitimacy of MEChA to advance their own agendas, doing so by establishing guidelines to make local MEChA chapters more accountable to the national organization.

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 as well as other Latin American 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 by various groups, most often by conservative publications and writers such as National Review , which alleges that MEChA is a Hispanic nationalist organization tinged with racist and separatist views. Groups such as American Patrol (an anti-illegal immigration website) are even more vitriolic in their criticism, accusing MEChA of outright supremacism and irredentism. However, American Patrol itself has been classified as a hate group website by the SPLC and Anti-Defamation League.

Much of the criticism addresses statements made by individual MEChA members or chapters, as opposed to the official agenda of the national organization. Critics also point out the group's use of the word Aztlán: To many, this word calls to mind a region comprising much of the Southwestern United States and as a result, some critics feel use of the phrase implies support for the controversial theory of reconquista. While MEChA supporters point out that the Aztlan mythology itself does not refer to reclaiming conquered lands, it simply describes the ancestral home of the Aztec people.

Also controversial is the phrase "Por La Raza todo, Fuera de La Raza nada", which is often translated "For the Race, everything, for those outside the Race, nothing". Many critics of MEChA see this statement as ethnocentric or racist. This phrase appears in El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán and is often claimed to be the "slogan" of MEChA, despite little attestation of its use by MEChA members or alleged importance within MEChA. The official motto of MEChA, as seen in its logo, is "La Unión Hace La Fuerza", meaning "Unity Makes Strength". MEChA members themselves differ in their interpretations of "La Raza". While some use the term to strictly refer to only mestizos and Chicanos, others use it to mean all Hispanics and minorities, and still others claim that it refers to a generalized concept of "the community" or "the people". Some 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". A likely origin of the phrase is the Cuban Revolution, which used a similar slogan: "Por la revolución todo, fuera de la revolución nada!"

A 1998 MEChA youth conference at California Polytechnic State University featured a printed program that introduced the school as "Cal Poly State Jewniversity". The program also referred to New York as "Jew York". When the Anti-Defamation League objected to the program, the university’s MEChA chapter issued a formal apology. MEChA has also been linked to La Voz de Aztlán (The Voice of Aztlan), a Chicano webzine that regularly publishes articles attacking Jews, Zionism, and Israel.

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 caused damage to the Faculty Center estimated between $35,000 to $500,000 during a riot which ensued following the university administration's rejection of the creation of a Chicano Studies program.

• 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.

• 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 2006, 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."

California Statewide Conferences

California MEChA statewide conferences are held twice a year, during the fall and spring smesters. The hosting chapter must rotate between the three California regions (Alta Califas Norte, Centro Califaztlán, and Alta Califas Sur).

• June 16-18, 1971: Regeneración, held at University of California, Davis
• 1972: Bakersfield Community 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/University of California, Berkeley
• Fall 1993: University of California, San Diego
• Spring 1994: Loyola Marymount University
• Fall 1994: California State University, Sacramento
• 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: University of California, Santa Cruz
• Fall 2000: James Logan High School
• Spring 2001: University of California, 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: University of California, Los Angeles
• Fall 2004: Santa Barbara City College
• Spring 2005: San Francisco State University
• Fall 2005: California State University, Fullerton
• Spring 2006: University of California, Santa Cruz
• Fall 2006: University of California, Davis
• Spring 2007: University of California, San Diego
• Fall 2007: California State University, Stanislaus
• Spring 2008: Sonoma State University

External links

• National MEChA Website
• MEChA National Constitution
• El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán
• El Plan de Santa Barbara
• Crooked Timber blog: interviews of MEChA members
• www.myspace.com/mecha_de_csula

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