The entire organization, Movimiento Estudiantíl Chicano de Aztlán, was born at a conference in 1969 at
MOVIMIENTO - The Chicano movement has been going for over a century. However, the turbulent 1960s in particular was a major part of the movimiento. East Los Angeles high school students organized a series of walkouts to protest problems in the educational systems and demand change. This was a large event that set the stage for M.E.Ch.A. Various student organizations united to strive for their common goals: It was obvious that these needs, which are out rights, were not met. M.E.Ch.A. promises to seek solutions in these areas when the educational system is lacking. Por la raza habla el espíritu.
ESTUDIANTIL - M.E.Ch.A.'s seed sprouted in 1969, and it is still germinating. M.E.Ch.A. has spread from college to high schools, to junior highs, and to elementary levels. It began in California, but has spread nationwide.
CHICANO - The Mexica (later named the Aztecs) were a strong band of Native Americans in central Mexico. They spoke Nahautl, pronouncing their name Me-shee-ca. The Spanish conquistadores arrived in 1519, however, to conquer the Mexica. They improperly pronounced their proud name as Me-chee-ca. Pretty soon, they called them Mechicanos. Later this was shortened to "Chicano", which many Mexican-Americans identify with today. Even though not everyone today agrees with Chicanismo, it still "reflects self-respect and pride in one's ethnic and cultural background," as defined in El Plan de Santa Barbara.
AZTLAN - This has a unique meaning to each individual. Some say it is the land of the Aztecs. Others decipher the name to mean "place of herons." Some say it was what the Southwest United States now is, and some even say it is a mythical place in legends which gives spiritual empowerment. Aztlán symbolically represents the people. Some say "the people" means raza and others believe all people with the same mentality and consciousness or mutual beliefs, struggles, and goals. Aztlán connects us with the indigenous. Its being included in the title M.E.Ch.A., which tells us it has a special meaning.
El Plan de Santa Barbara - A mission statement was organized by M.E.Ch.A. to assure that Chicanos go on to a higher education and successfully complete it,
El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan sets the theme that the Chicanos (La Raza de Bronze)
1. UNITY in the thinking of our people concerning the barrios, the pueblo, the
2. ECONOMY: economic control of our lives and our communities can only come
3. EDUCATION must be relative to our people, i.e., history, culture, bilingual
4. INSTITUTIONS shall serve our people by providing the service necessary for
5. SELF-DEFENSE of the community must rely on the combined strength of the
people. The front line defense will come from the barrios, the camp os, the
pueblos, and the ranchitos. Their involvement as protectors of their people will be
given respect and dignity. They in turn offer their responsibility and their lives for
their people. Those who place themselves in the front ranks for their people do so
out of love and carnalismo. Those institutions which are fattened by our brothers to
provide employment and political pork barrels for the gringo will do so only as
acts of liberation and for La Causa. For the very young there will no longer be acts
of juvenile delinquency, but revolutionary acts.
6. CULTURAL values of our people strengthen our identity and the moral
backbone of the movement. Our culture unites and educates the family of La Raza
towards liberation with one heart and one mind. We must insure that our writers,
poets, musicians, and artists produce literature and art that is appealing to our
people and relates to our revolutionary culture. Our cultural values of life, family,
and home will serve as a powerful weapon to defeat the gringo dollar value system
and encourage the process of love and brotherhood.
7. POLITICAL LIBERATION can only come through indepen-dent action on our
part, since the two-party system is the same animal with two heads that feed from
the same trough. Where we are a majority, we will control; where we are a
minority, we will represent a pressure group; nationally, we will represent one
party: La Familia de La Raza!
UC Santa Barbara. Together the various organizations (such as UMAS, MAYA, MASC, etc.) created
"El Plan de Santa Barbara," and united under one symbol and name. M.E.Ch.A.
M.E.Ch.A. was formed to unite and fight for equality and justice for all. Today M.E.Ch.A. still serves as an inspiration to take part in our communities, seek a higher education, gain knowledge in technology, learn about out indigenous roots and cultural history, and much more. All across the nation Mechistas are learning to be great leaders and active participants of society.
to gain more Chicano employees in the schools and other workplaces, to demand respect and equal treatment which everyone deserves, to help out in the barrios and with Chicano parents' struggle, to obtain Chicano studies for all, to remain politically active in the community and society, and to empower all Chicano youth. M.E.Ch.A. cries for an end to racism and hatred on campus, increased funding for education, and making colleges a more approachable reality for Chicanas/os. ("Education is a right, not a privilege!")
In the spirit of a new people that is conscious not only of its proud historical
heritage but also of the brutal "gringo" invasion of our territories, we, the Chicano
inhabitants and civilizers of the northern land of Aztlan from whence came our
forefathers, reclaiming the land of their birth and consecrating the determination of
our people of the sun, declare that the call of our blood is our power, our
responsibility, and our inevitable destiny.
.
We are free and sovereign to determine those tasks which are justly called for by
our house, our land, the sweat of our brows, and by our hearts. Aztlan belongs to
those who plant the seeds, water the fields, and gather the crops and not to the
foreign Europeans. We do not recognize capricious frontiers on the bronze
continent
Brotherhood unites us, and love for our brothers makes us a people whose time has
come and who struggles against the foreigner "gabacho" who exploits our riches
and destroys our culture. With our heart in our hands and our hands in the soil, we
declare the independence of our mestizo nation. We are a bronze people with a
bronze culture. Before the world, before all of North America, before all our
brothers in the bronze continent, we are a nation, we are a union of free pueblos,
we are Aztlan.
For La Raza to do. Fuera de La Raza nada.
Program
must use their nationalism as the key or common denominator for mass
mobilization and organization. Once we are committed to the idea and philosophy
of El Plan de Aztlan, we can only conclude that social, economic, cultural, and
political independence is the only road to total liberation from oppression,
exploitation, and racism. Our struggle then must be for the control of our barrios,
campos, pueblos, lands, our economy, our culture, and our political life. El Plan
commits all levels of Chicano society - the barrio, the campo, the ranchero, the
writer, the teacher, the worker, the professional - to La Causa.
Nationalism
Nationalism as the key to organization transcends all religious, political, class, and
economic factions or boundaries. Nationalism is the common denominator that all
members of La Raza can agree upon.
Organizational Goals
campo, the land, the poor, the middle class, the professional-all committed to the
liberation of La Raza.
about by driving the exploiter out of our communities, our pueblos, and our lands
and by controlling and developing our own talents, sweat, and resources. Cultural
background and values which ignore materialism and embrace humanism will
contribute to the act of cooperative buying and the distribution of resources and
production to sustain an economic base for healthy growth and development Lands
rightfully ours will be fought for and defended. Land and realty ownership will be
acquired by the community for the people's welfare. Economic ties of
responsibility must be secured by nationalism and the Chicano defense units.
education, contributions, etc. Community control of our schools, our teachers, our
administrators, our counselors, and our programs.
a full life and their welfare on the basis of restitution, not handouts or beggar's
crumbs. Restitution for past economic slavery, political exploitation, ethnic and
cultural psychological destruction and denial of civil and human rights. Institutions
in our community which do not serve the people have no place in the community.
The institutions belong to the people.
1. Awareness and distribution of El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan. Presented at every
meeting, demonstration, confrontation, courthouse, institution, administration,
church, school, tree, building, car, and every place of human existence.
2. September 16, on the birthdate of Mexican Independence, a national walk-out by
all Chicanos of all colleges and schools to be sustained until the complete revision
of the educational system: its policy makers, administration, its curriculum, and its
personnel to meet the needs of our community.
3. Self-Defense against the occupying forces of the oppressors at every school,
every available man, woman, and child.
4. Community nationalization and organization of all Chicanos: El Plan Espiritual
de Aztlan.
5. Economic program to drive the exploiter out of our community and a welding
together of our people's combined resources to control their own production
through cooperative effort.
6. Creation of an independent local, regional, and national political party.
7. A nation autonomous and free - culturally, socially, economically, and politically- will make its own decisions on the usage of our lands, the taxation of our goods, the utilization of our bodies for war, the determination of justice (reward and punishment), and the profit of our sweat.
For all peoples, as with individuals, the time comes when they must reckon with
their history. For the Chicano the present is a time of renaissance, of renacimiento.
Our people and our community, el barrio and la colonia, are expressing a new
consciousness and a new resolve. Recognizing the historical tasks confronting our
people and fully aware of the cost of human progress, we pledge our will to move.
We will move forward toward our destiny as a people. We will move against
those forces which has denied us freedom of expression and human dignity.
Throughout history the quest for cultural expression and freedom has taken the form
of a struggle. Our struggle tempered by the lessons of the American past, is an
historical reality.
For decades Mexican people in the United States struggled to realize the
"American Dream." And some--a few--have. But the cost, the ultimate cost of
assimiliation, required turning away from el barrio and la colonia. In the
meantime, due to the racist structure of this society, to our essentially different life
style, and to the socioeconomic functions assigned to our community by
Anglo-American society--as suppliers of cheap labor and dumping ground for the
small-time capitalist entrepreneur--the barrio and colonia remained exploited,
impoverished, and marginal.
As a result, the self-determination of our community is now the only acceptable
mandate for social and political action; it is the essence of Chicano commitment.
Culturally, the word Chicano, in the past a pejorative and class-bound adjective,
has now become the root idea of a new cultural identity for our people. It also
reveals a growing solidarity and the development of a common social praxis. The
widespread use of the term Chicano today signals a rebirth of pride and
confidence. Chicanismo simply embodies an ancient truth: that a person is never
closer to his/her true self as when he/she is close to his/her community.
Chicanismo draws its faith and strength from two main sources: from the struggle
of our people and from an objective analysis of our community's strategic needs.
We recognize that without a strategic use of education, an education that places
value on what we value, we will not realize our destiny. Chicanos recognize the
central importance of institutions of higher learning to modern progress, in this
case, to the development of our community. But we go further: we believe that
higher education must contribute to the information of a complete person who truly
values life and freedom.
The destiny of our people will be fulfilled. To that end, we pledge our efforts and
take as our credo what Jose Vasconcelos once said at time of crisis and hope: "At
this moment we do not come to work for the university, but to demand that the
university work for our people."
For the Movement, political action essentially means influencing the
decision-making process of those institutions which affect Chicanos, the university,
community organizations, and non-community institutions. Political action
emcompasses the elements which function in a progression: political
consciousness, political mobilization, and tactics.
Commitment to the struggle for Chicano liberation is the operative definition of the
ideology here. Chicanismo involves a crucial distinction in political
consciousness between a Mexican-American (or Hispanic) and a Chicano
mentality. The Mexican-American (or Hispanic) is a person who lacks self-respect
and pride in one's ethnic and cultural background. Thus, the Chicano acts with
confidence and with a range of alternatives in the political world. He is capable of
developing an effective ideology through action.
Mexican-Americans (or Hispanics) must be viewed as potential Chicanos.
Chicanismo is flexible enough to relate to the varying levels of consciousness
within La Raza. Regional variations must always be kept in mind as well as the
different levels of development, composition, maturity, achievement, and
experience in political action. Cultural nationalism is a means of total Chicano
liberation.
MEChA is a first step to tying the student groups throughout the Southwest into a
vibrant and responsive network of activists who will respond as a unit to
oppression and racism and will work in harmony when initiating and carrying out
campaigns of liberation for our people.
As of present, wherever one travels throughout the Southwest, one finds that there
are different levels of awareness on different campuses. The student movement is
to a large degree a political movement and as such must not elicit from our people
the negative responses that we have experienced so often in the past in relation to
politics, and often with good reason. To this end, then we must re-define politics
for our people to be a means of liberation. The political sophistication of our Raza
must be raised so that they do not fall prey to apologists and vendidos whose
whole interest is their personal career or fortune. In addition, the student movement
is more than a political movement, it is cultural and social as well. The spirit of
MEChA must be one of "hermandad" and cultural awareness. The ethic of profit
and competition, of greed and intolerance, with the Anglo society offers must be
replaced by our ancestral communalism and love for beauty and justice. MEChA
must bring to the mind of every young Chicano that the liberation of his people
from prejudice and oppression is in his hands and this responsibility is greater than
personal achievement and more meaningful than degrees, especially if they are
earned at the expense of his identity and cultural integrity.
MEChA, then, is more than a name; it is a spirit of unity, of brotherhood, and a
resolve to undertake a struggle for liberation in society where justice is but a
word. MEChA is a means to an end.
To socialize and politicize Chicano students on their particular campus to the
ideals of the movement. It is important that every Chicano student on campus be
made to feel that he has a place on the campus and that he/she has a feeling of
familia with his/her Chicano brothers and sisters. Therefore, the organization in its
flurry of activities and projects must not forget or overlook the human factor of
friendship, understanding, trust, etc. As well as stimulating hermandad, this
approach can also be looked at in more pragmatic terms. If enough trust,
friendship, and understanding are generated, then the loyalty and support can be
relied upon when a crisis faces the group or community. This attitude must not
merely provide a social club atmosphere but the strengths, weaknesses, and talents
of each member should be known so that they may be utilized to the greatest
advantage. Know one another. Part of the reason that the student will come to the
organization is in search of self-fulfillment. Give that individual the oppurtunity to
show what he/she can do. Although the Movement stresses collective behavior, it
is important that the individual be recognized and given credit for his/her efforts.
When people who work in close association know one another well, it is more
conducive to self-criticism and re-evaluation, and this every MEChA person must
be willing to submit to. Periodic self-criticism often eliminates static cycles of
unproductive behavior. It is an opportunity for fresh approaches to old problems to
be surfaced and aired; it gives new leadership a chance to emerge; and must be
recognized as a vital part of MEChA. MEChA can be considered a training
ground for leadership, and as such no one member or group of members should
dominate the leadership positions for long periods of time. This tends to take care
of itself considering the transitory nature of students.
It is a fact that the Chicano has not often enough written his/her own history, his/her
own anthropology, his/her own sociology, his/her own literature. He/she must do
this if he is to survive as a cultural entity in this melting pot society which seeks to
dilute varied cultures into a gray upon gray pseudo-culture of technology and
materialism. The Chicano student is doing most of the work in the establishment of
study programs, centers, curriculum development, and entrance programs to get
more Chicanos into college. This is good and must continue, but students must be
careful not to be co-opted in their fervor for establishing relevance on the campus.
Much of what is being offered by college systems and administrators is too little
too late. MEChA must not compromise programs and curriculum which are
essential for the total education of the Chicano for the sake of expediency. The
students must not become so engrossed in programs and centers created along
established academic guidelines that they forget the needs of the people which
these institutions are meant to serve. To this end, Barrio input must always be
given full and open hearing when designing these programs, when creating them,
and in running them. The jobs created by these projects must be filled by competent
Chicanos, not only the Chicano who has the traditional credentials required for the
position, but one who has the credentials of the Raza. Too often in the past the
dedicated pushed for a program only to have a vendido sharp-talker come in and
take over and start working for his Anglo administrator. Therefore, students must
demand a say in the recruitment and selection of all directors and assistant
directors of student-initiated programs. To further insure strong if not complete
control and direction and running of programs, all advisory and steering
committees should have both student and community components as well as
sympathetic Chicano faculty as members.
Tying the campus to the Barrio. The colleges and univeristies in the past have
existed in an aura of omnipotence and infallability. It is time that they be made
responsible and responsive to the communities in which they are located or whose
members they serve. As has already been mentioned, community members should
serve on all programs related to Chicano interests. In addition to this, all attempts
must be made to take the college and university to the Barrio, whether it be in form
of classes giving college credit or community centers financed by the school for the
use of community organizations and groups. Also, the Barrio must be brought to the
campus, whether it be for special programs or ongoing services which the school
provides for the people of the Barrio. The idea must be made clear to the people
of the Barrio that they own the schools and the schools and all their resources are
at their disposal. The student group must utilize the resources open to the school
for the benefit of the Barrio at every opportunity. This can be done by hiring more
Chicanos to work as academic and non-academic personnel on the campus; this
often requires exposure of racist hiring practices now in operation in many
colleges and universities. When functions, social or otherwise, are held in the
Barrio under the sponsorship of the college and university, monies should be spent
in the Barrio. This applies to hiring Chicano contractors to build on campus, etc.
Many colleges and universities have publishing operations which could be forced
to accept Barrio works for publication. Many other things could be considered in
using the resources of the school to the Barrio. There are possibilities for using the
physical plant and facilities not mentioned here, but this is an area which has great
potential.
Most colleges in the Southwest are located near or in the same town as a Barrio.
Therefore, it is the responsibility of MEChA members to establish close working
relationships with organizations in that Barrio. The MEChA people must be able
to take the pulse of the Barrio and be able to respond to it. However, MEChA
must be careful not to overstep its authority or duplicate the efforts of another
organization already in the Barrio. MEChA must be able to relate to all segments
of the Barrio, from the middle-class assimilationists to the vatos locos.
Obviously, every Barrio has its particular needs, and MEChA people must
determine with the help of those in the Barrio where they can be most effective.
There are, however, some general areas which MEChA can involve itself. Some
of these are:
Working in the Barrio is an honor, but is also a right because we come from these
people, and as, mutual respect between the Barrio and the college group should be
the rule. Understand at the same time, however, that there will initially be mistrust
and often envy on the part of some in the Barrio for the college student. This
mistrust must be broken down by a demonstration of affection for the Barrio and
La Raza through hard work and dedication. If the approach is one of a dilettante or
of a Peace Corps volunteer, the people will know it and act accordingly. If it is
merely a cathartic experience to work among the unfortunate in the Barrio--Stay
Out.
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(1) policing social and governmental agencies to make them more
responsive in a humane and dignified way to the people of the Barrio;
(2) carrying out research on the economic and credit policies of merchants in the Barrio and
exposing fraudulent and exorbitant establishments;
(3) speaking and communicating with junior high and other high school students, helping with projects, teaching
them organizational techniques, supporting their actions;
(4) spreading the message of the movement by any media available--this means speaking, radio, television,
local newspaper, underground papers, posters, art, theaters; in short, spreading
propaganda of the Movement;
(5) exposing discrimination in hiring and renting practices and many other areas which the student because on his/her mobility,
his/her articulation, and his/her vigor should take as his/her responsibility. It may
mean at times having to work in conjunction with other organizations. If this is the
case and the project is one begun by the other organization, realize that MEChA is
there as a supporter and should accept the direction of the group involved. Do not
let loyalty to an organization cloud responsibility to a greater force--La Causa.
Of the community, for the community. Por la raza habla el espiritu.
M.E.Ch.A. today (30 years later) - As must everything sooner or later, M.E.Ch.A. has
evolved over time. Each campus M.E.Ch.A. varies according to their specific needs.
Some of the 1960 atmosphere is no longer as tense in the 1990s and as we enter the
New Millennium. Time has passed, so the organization has changed. True, it does
seem like compared to the past, the organization altogether is presently being the
"sleeping giant." Nevertheless, Mechistas know in themselves what "la causa" is and
what we still need to live up to our promises. Don't give up- if you see a need on you
campus, organize a lucha to meet it. Always remember unity as well: keep networking
with all M.E.Ch.A.S possible. Participate and always remain active in your M.E.Ch.A.
Encourage others to learn your history and understand why M.E.Ch.A. is more than just
a club. It is a movement. There is a lot to be done, pero Si Se Puede.
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