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MEChA still empowering Latinos, but with less edge

Yvonne Wingett
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 18, 2006 12:00 AM

Emma Yesenia Martinez spent her first year in college looking for friends who would help her adjust to college life.

She didn't know too much about MEChA, the organization born out of the highly political Chicano movement on Southwestern college campuses in the 1960s.

But the Arizona State University West student joined anyway. She wasn't looking for a cause. Just a club, and she found it.

Today's Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán groups on Arizona's campuses are mere ghosts of their radical past.

Chapters across the Valley have adapted to the needs of a new generation, seeking cultural awareness over confrontation, and focusing more on networking, and less on political involvement to reach their goal of social empowerment.

The group, which played a role in Arizona's civil rights history, has produced several prominent leaders in Arizona, including Emeritus Professor and researcher Miguel Montiel government affairs executive George Diaz Jr. and former state lawmaker John Loredo.

MEChA still has several hundred members throughout the state. But because of Latinos' social and political gains, the organization's original mantra of ending the "cultural tyranny suffered at the hands of institutional and systematic discrimination," is no longer relevant, advisers and experts said.

"In a way, they're (MEChA) victims of their own success because they helped to create access to arenas where Chicanos hadn't really been a part of prior to the '60s," said Mario Garcia, professor of history and Chicano studies at University of California-Santa Barbara where MEChA was founded.

"They can no longer perceive themselves to be the Chicano organization as it existed in the '60s. These organizations like MEChA have to rethink who they are; they have to rethink who they're appealing to. They have to rethink what their agenda is."

Phoenix College hosted the organization's Statewide Student Success Conference on Friday, which centered on leadership and higher education.


Group's beginnings


MEChA was founded in 1969 in the midst of the Black civil rights movement, the farm workers movement and the Vietnam War. Around that time emerged chicanismo, the ideology that a Chicano's destiny cannot be split from his or her culture or the past. The term Chicano came to prominence in the 1960s and is used by some Hispanics, primarily in the Southwest, to indicate a strong ethnic consciousness.

As some Hispanic students and young professors in California and Phoenix were recruited to colleges in part as a result of affirmative action in the mid-'60s, they developed tight-knit Hispanic groups, such as the Mexican-American Student Confederation, the United Mexican American Students and ASU's Mexican American Student Organization, then the only Hispanic organization on campus.

The clubs ran independently, but members were outraged by the same issues: labor conditions for farm workers, dismal enrollment rates of Hispanic students and poor hiring rates of Hispanic faculty members.

They dealt with the issues by organizing rallies and demonstrations, typically led by tough-talking students and attended by dozens of community leaders, students and teachers, former members and Chicano experts said.

For example, after ASU announced in 1968 a long-term contract with a laundry company that had a long list of complaints from Latino employees, infuriated student Alfredo Gutierrez orchestrated a student strike of the school on behalf of the company's immigrant workforce.

Dozens from the Mexican American Student Organization followed and staged a two-day takeover of the administration building and the president's office. After the sit-in, university officials agreed to include a set of affirmative action-type requirements in the new contract for workers.

"We decided to do something that was unseen here at ASU. It was against the rules," said Arturo Rosales, one of the first co-chairmen of MEChA and an ASU history professor.

"That gave us a tremendous platform. We became overnight sensations. (The administration) paid attention to us because they knew we were capable of drastic things."

Shortly after, in spring 1969, students met at University of California-Santa Barbara. They drafted a constitution and unified the Hispanic groups under the umbrella group Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán.

In 1971, ASU's students changed the name of the Mexican American Student Organization to MEChA.


Who the 'mechistas' are


Mechistas, a term for MEChA members, were a visible force through the following years, staging dozens of rallies to make their positions known. They focused on Hispanic recruitment of students and faculty, support programs for Hispanics and cultural enrichment through community events.

They pressured college administrators in California and Arizona to offer courses on Chicano history and culture. Some California universities eventually set up Chicano studies programs or departments, partly because of MEChA.

MEChA in Arizona became a training ground for a crop of elected officials, business leaders and community activists who are still strong advocates for Hispanic issues. But over the years, Chicano experts said, campus groups such as the Hispanic Business Student Association, the Mexican American Engineers and Scientists Association and Kappa Delta Chi Sorority Inc. have been the focus of many Latino students.

Meanwhile, Valley MEChA chapters have become known more as community and cultural advocates rather than effective political organizations. The old groups used confrontational tactics, such as sit-ins, to get what they wanted. The new groups have cultural events and conferences to raise awareness.


Students still joining


Still, students like Martinez join MEChA. She has learned about several issues facing the Latino community, she said, and was an opponent of anti-illegal immigration law Proposition 200, and an advocate for the DREAM Act. But most importantly, the 22-year-old said, MEChA has helped her make a network of friends.

"We don't do major, major stuff, but we do some minor stuff," said the recreation and tourism-management major. "We're just barely getting together and reviving MEChA again. We still fight against things that we think aren't right."

The MEChA chapter at Glendale Community College held a small demonstration in 2004 and spoke to the district governing board about a math teacher who used the school's computer system to send out Internet links that contained remarks disparaging about Hispanics.

Each year, Phoenix College's chapter puts on leadership workshops.

And ASU's group went door-to-door against Proposition 200, hosted a youth conference this year, and some members volunteer with local immigrant rights groups.

No one keeps a statewide membership count, members said. But at least 150 college students belong to chapters at University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University, ASU and some colleges in the Maricopa Community College District, according to chapter estimates.

At least 200 high school students are members of groups at Phoenix's Cesar Chavez and Carl Hayden.


Looking ahead


MEChA advisers said the organization, like any student group, provides a comfortable gathering place for like-minded students and gives them a chance to educate themselves on issues affecting the Hispanic community.

"I don't see it as vociferous as it was in the '60s," said Pete Dimas, an adviser for Phoenix's College's MEChA and a history professor. "(But) then, Chicanos were very much the minority on the campus. That's no longer the case. The very presence of such numbers is driving the change that's taking place."

Some members from college chapters said they are focused on reviving MEChA, boosting membership, encouraging high school students to go to college and working in the community.

Others said they want to address attempts by some Republican state lawmakers to make lives more difficult for undocumented immigrants.

Phoenix College student Roberto Diojorquez joined MEChA about four years ago, hoping to meet politically active people, meet community leaders and volunteer in the Hispanic community. MEChA has helped him organize events and speak in front of crowds.

"Our main impact is on a level where we talk with high school students," said Diojorquez, 22, of west Phoenix. "We're trying to show students that the same people who go to college are people just like them."

Reach the reporter at yvonne.wingett@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-4712.