"Lost in a world of confusion, caught up in the whirl of a gringo society," the Coordinating Council on Higher Education (CCHE) held a conference at the University of California, Santa Barbara that would become the birth place of El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA) (Gonzales 6). The people attending the conference were "young, upwardly mobile, relatively well-educated Mexican Americans " (Gutierrez 136). The Chicano student movement of the 1960s was a quest for identity. It was an effort to recapture what has been lost through the socialization process imposed by US schools, churches, and other institutions. Chicanos had been strongly discouraged not to speak in Spanish, their native tongue. MEChA became the further development of the Chicano student movement. Although MEChA has its founding in the conference at Santa Barbara, El Plan de Santa Barbara, it has its origins with El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan and student organizations.
Chicanos (Mexican-Americans) became an oppressed minority group as a consequence of the expansion of the US Empire in the nineteenth century. This expansion had a profound impact on their political and intellectual development. Mexican American children attended segregated public schools. They underwent a profound process of "Americanization and indoctrination into the American way of life"(Munoz 20). This led to numerous lawsuits buy the Chicano community.
Chicanos had experienced many racially motivated agendas by public school authorities. One example is the Lemon Grove Incident. In southern California, a small town made a special school for the Mexican children. This new special school was an old, run-down barn. The explanation the school board gave was so the Mexican children could learn English. The case was won by the Chicano parents because the school board placed Chicano students who only knew English. This show of double standard was not uncommon in the Southwest.
The oppression and racist in the educational setting set the stage for the East Los Angeles blow out. On the morning of March 3 1968, the halls of Abraham Lincoln High School, a predominantly Chicano school, was filled with voices of Chicano youth yelling "Blow Out." They were protesting racist school policies and teachers. They called for freedom of speech, the hiring of Chicano teachers, administrators, and classes on Mexican American history and culture.
In an effort to provide direction to the efforts of Chicano youth, the Crusade for Justice hosted a National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference in March, 1969. The Crusade for Justice was founded and headed by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales. Corky Gonzales wrote the epic poem I am Joaquin. It portrayed the quest for "identity and its critique of racism" (Munoz 61). It also provides a critical framework for the developing student movement. The conference, held in Denver, Colorado, brought together for the first time activists from all over the country who were involved in both campus and community politics. During the week-long conference, it was stressed the need for students and youth to play a revolutionary role in the movement.
Out of the conference, a doctrine, El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan, was written that would become the framework for the movement. El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan drew "its inspiration from Aztec myths and from the vivid expressions of Chicano cultural pride" (Gutierrez 185). Aztlan was the land to the north were the Aztecs originally came from. The word Aztec in Nahuatl means "people of Aztlan" (Anzaldua 4). The notion of Aztlan was to bring Chicanos together and to make a statement to the Anglo community. The message was that Chicanos were not foreigners and/or invaders of their (the Anglo) land but instead, it was the Anglos that were the foreigners. The Chicanos saw " the brutal gringo invasion of our territories" (El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan). There were seven organizational goals: unity, economy, education, institutions, self-defense, cultural, and political liberation.
El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan had seven major points that would help the Chicanos in La Causa. Unity would come in the thinking of the Chicano population and to liberate La Raza. Economic control would come about by driving "the exploiter out of our communities, our pueblos, and our lands" (El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan). This economic idea would bring power to the neighborhoods rather than outsiders. Education should focus on the history, culture, and contributions of Chicanos. The community should be in control of the schools, teachers, administrators, counselors, and programs. Institutions should serve the Chicano population by providing the service "necessary for a full life and their welfare on the basis of restitution, not handouts, or beggars crumbs" (El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan). The restitution is for the past "economic slavery, political exploitation, ethnic and cultural psychological destruction and denial of civil and human rights" (El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan). Self-defense of the community would come from the combined strength of the people. Cultural values are what strengthen the Chicano identity and the moral backbone of El Movimiento. The culture unite and educates the Chicanos towards "liberation with one heart and one mind" (El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan). Political Liberation would come from another political party because the two-party system is the same as "an animal with two heads that feed from the same trough" (El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan).
In 1966, student activists began the formation of distinct Mexican American student organizations on their campuses throughout the Southwest. St. Marys College in San Antonio, Texas was named the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO). The University of Texas at Austin was called the Mexican American Student Organization (MASO), later changing its name to MAYO. In Los Angeles area, chapters of the United Mexican American Student Organization (UMAS) were formed at UCLA; California State College, Los Angeles; Loyola University, Long Beach; and San Fernando State College. At East Los Angeles Community College, another group organized as the Mexican American Student Association (MASA).
The formation of Chicano student groups showed society that they were going to fight for their right. Although each organization had its own different interpretation, they wanted to help the Chicano community. The student organization all felt that college was essential to the survival of the Chicano community.
UMAS leadership urged their members to assume a more political role in both the communities and on campus after the LA school blowouts in 1968. UMAS wanted to think in terms of being part of the student movement but UMAS advanced no particular ideology for the student movement. UMAS also had "no political labels" (Munoz 67). UMAS stressed educational issues. They saw the need for involvement in the community to assist high school students and defend them from harassment by racist teachers. UMAS also saw the need to establish tutorial programs, and efforts to increase enrollment of Mexican American college students. These goals illustrate UMASs emphasis on reaching out to and being "part of the Mexican American community" (Munoz 89).
Approximately a month after National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference in 1969, the Chicano Coordinating Council on Higher Education (CCHE) held a conference at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The goal of the conference was to develop a master plan for the creation of curriculum and the related auxiliary services and structures essential to facilitate Chicano access to higher education. This was the first opportunity for young Chicanos who attended the Denver conference to implement the ideas of El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan. The students envisioned the development of a Chicano student movement that would play an important role in national as well as community politics.
The students voted to drop their current organizational names throughout the state of California. Based on a wide agreement, the new name should reflect the terms Chicano and Aztlan. The new name is El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA). The adoption of the name and its acronym, signaled "a new level of political consciousness among student activists" (Munoz 79). MEChA symbolized the emergence of a new generation of Chicano youth. The adoption of this new name thus encouraged students to see themselves as a part of the new Chicano generation that was committed to "militant struggle against US institutions that had historically been responsible for the oppression of Mexican Americans" (Munoz 90).
The Santa Barbara conference proposed two basic goals for the student movement. In the community, MEChA was to become tied to the every day social and political life of the Chicano communities, with the aim of developing those communities. On campus, MEChA was to become a permanent, well-organized power bloc for the purpose of redirecting university attention and resources to the needs of Chicano students and Chicano communities. In the community, close working relationships with community organizations were to be established.
A critical element of this political education was the way in which the community viewed the college and university. MEChA had to understand that these "institutions were strategic agencies in any process of community development, and thus it was important to view them as their institutions" (Munoz 81). This position reflected MEChAs understanding that part of its own power on campus would have to derive from community support. If political and educational changes were to be won on campus, the community outside the campus would have to be mobilized. The MEChA strategy was to establish itself as both a legitimate community organization and a student group.
MEChAs second broad goal was to establishing itself as a power base on campus This meant that it would have to undertake an ambitious effort to increase the recruitment of Chicano students and to teach them the ideology of Chicanismo. It would politicize them so that they would participate in protest activities on behalf of the Chicano community. MEChA is the first step to tying the Chicano students into a "vibrant and responsive network of activists that will respond as a unit to oppression and racism and that will work in harmony when initiating and carrying out campaigns of liberation for our people" (Chicano Coordinating Council On Higher Education 59).
The strategy called for students to be organized around social and cultural events that were designed to expose universitys greed and intolerance of other points of view. For instance, the University of Texas at Austin held a staged war with Anglo student dressed in rags with their faces painted with mud. It was held on Texas Independence Day and the students with mud on their faces were supposed to be the Mexicans. MEChA would advocate replacing that ethic with the values associated with the ancestral communalism of the ancient Mexican people. MEChA would appeal to the sense of obligation to family and community on the part of every student. MEChA must and will "bring to the mind of every young Chicano that the liberation of his people from prejudice and oppression is in his hand and this responsibility is greater than personal achievement and more meaningful than degrees, especially if they are earned at the expense of this identity and cultural integrity" (Chicano Council On Higher Education 59).
Finally, the MEChA strategy called for the organization to play a substantive role in the creation and implementation of Chicano Studies and support services programs on campus. Chicano Studies programs would be a relevant alternative to established curricula. Most important, the Chicano Studies program would be the foundation of MEChAs political power base. El Plan de Santa Barbara states "the institutionalization of Chicano programs is the realization of Chicano power on campus" (Chicano Council On Higher Education 43).
Since Chicano Studies programs were at the heart of MEChAs concerns, special measures were advocated. The politics of expediency characteristic of college administrators constituted a particular threat. It was important that Chicano Studies programs not be in the straightjacket of the usual, academic guidelines. Community input was deemed essential to "preclude the complete control of programs by academicians - many of who accepted a rigid academy-community dichotomy and who therefore would tend toward business as usual" (Munoz 83).
The conference lasted three days and was an unequivocal success. The historic meeting produced results that went far beyond the expectations of the organizers. Not only did the conference meet the goals set for it, but other significant developments that had not been planned took place. One was the founding of MEChA, which reflected the further development of the Chicano student movement beyond "the protest stage to the level of movement with its own ideology" (Munoz 138).
The Santa Barbara conference ended on a high note of solidarity. MEChA did play a prominent role in the new politics of protest and confrontation, both on the campus and in the community. The political consciousness of the students rose through the intensification of MEChAs political activity, and much was accomplished. Chicano Studies programs were established at California community colleges located in areas with a substantial Mexican American community, at all the state colleges, and at virtually all of the campuses of the University of California. In some schools, they were instituted as regular departments, in others as research centers, and in still other schools as specialized curricula within existing academic units.
By 1978, the student movement had significantly declined. The career goals of Chicano students had changed. More Mexican Americans pursued engineering, business, and professional degrees, while Chicano or behavioral studies were considered inferior as their market value fell. Many new students rejected the term "Chicano." On the other hand, neither MEChAs leadership nor the more committed Chicano faculty were able to appeal to these ambitious students, who formed such groups as the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, the Latino Business Association, Hispanic Business Student Association, and so on. Often these associations functioned apart from MEChA.
By the end of the 1970s, universities had lessened their commitment to equal opportunity. In order to divert public attention away from their failures to attract poor Chicano students, universities creamed the top off the Latino community, using Cubans, South Americans, and middle-class Chicanos to fill their recruitment quotas. The target became Hispanics-with less attention paid to the Chicano poor.
What are the prospects for the re-emergence of the Chicano student movement and of MEChA in particular as strong political forces in the 1990s? MEChA is all that remains of the Chicano movement and is the only student organization visible on some campuses in the United States that has direct links with the politics of the 1960s. MEChA continues to promote the quest for Chicano identity and political power for people of Mexican descent, but for the most part it has done so at a symbolic level as opposed to the practice of struggle that characterized the movements politics in the late sixties and early seventies. Most significantly, MEChA has confined its politics to the campus, and particularly to issues related to affirmative action. MEChA has stood the test of time. MEChA is symbolized by this quote: "I am the masses of my people and I refuse to be absorbed. I am Joaquin. The odds are great but my spirit is strong, my faith unbreakable, my blood is pure. I am Aztec prince and Christian Christ. I SHALL ENDURE! I WILL ENDURE!" (Gonzales 14).
| Munoz, Carlos Jr. | Youth, Identity, Power. Verso. New York. 1989. |
| Chicano Coordinating Council On Higher Education. | El Plan de Santa Barbara; A Chicano Plan For Higher Education. La Causa Publications. Santa Barbara. 1970. |
| Anzaldua, Gloria. | Borderlands/La Frontera The New Mestiza. Aunt Lute Books. San Francisco. 1987. |
| Acuna, Rodolfo. | Occupied American; A History of Chicanos. Harper Collins. New York. 1988. |
| Gonzales, Rodolfo. | I Am Joaquin - Yo Soy Joaquin; An Epic Poem. Bantam. New York. 1972. |
| Gutierrez, David. | Walls And Mirrors; Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, And The Politics Of Ethnicity. University of California Press. Berkeley. 1995. |
| MEChA,University of Oregon. | El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan. 1969. http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~mecha/plan.html. |