MEChA motto

I was just watching a few MEChA members out in California..of course, they were busy calling everyone else a racist.  Then somebody brought up the MEChA motto.

Por la raza todo.  Fuera de la raza nada.  Literal translation:  For the race all.  Outside the race nothing.

For the past few years, they've been trying to convince us that we misinpret this.  That la raza means "people,"  "community," etc., etc., etc.  Really focusing on the first part.  You know, I hate to bring this up, but what about the latter part?  If, in fact, we have misinterpreted what the saying means, then is MEChA for people but against animals, plants, extra-terrestrials?    If they're for the community, does this mean one community will not help or associate with another community? 

Logic just fails me here.  It still seems that a Chicano organization with a motto like this is talking Chicano...not people, not community.  Especially in view of this MEChA statement:  "Chicano is our identity; it defines who we are as people. It rejects the notion that we...should assimilate into the Anglo-American melting pot...Aztlan was the legendary homeland of the Aztecas ... It became synonymous with the vast territories of the Southwest, brutally stolen from a Mexican people marginalized and betrayed by the hostile custodians of the Manifest Destiny." (Statement on University of Oregon MEChA Website, Jan. 3, 2006)

A History of MEChA

Funding Hate - Foundations and the Radical Hispanic Lobby- Part III

By Joseph Fallon
Volume 11, Number 1 (Fall 2000)
Issue theme: "America's porous borders"

MEChA


Founded in 1969, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA) is the youngest of the four 'Hispanic' organizations. It is also the most unabashedly racist and its pronouncements the most incendiary. Reconquista The Takeover of America, prepared and published by the California Coalition for Immigration Reform in 1997, documents the truth about MEChA by quoting what the founders and supporters of this organization have said.

The first chapter of MEChA, called 'El Plan de AZTLAN,' was established at the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1969. Other chapters eventually were formed at other colleges and even at high schools. 'According to Miguel Carillo, a Chula Vista High School teacher, there are MEChA chapters at over 90% of the high schools in San Diego and Los Angeles.'

Money facilitated this rapid growth. Where did the money come from? As unbelievable as it sounds, according to Jacqueline Carrasco of UCLA, 'Most chapters get their budget from the (tax-funded) schools and sometimes from the associated students. Funds range from $100 to $8000 for larger schools such as Cal State Northrop.' (They also get it from NCLR which funds at least part of their schools ~Faye)

Among the demands MEChA has made are rescinding California Proposition 187 (ending welfare benefits to illegal aliens); rescinding all 'English Only laws; abolishing the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol; and open borders.

The goal of MEChA, however, is an independent 'Aztlan,' the collective name this organization gives to the seven States of the U.S. Southwest - Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah. According Miguel Perez of MEChA, at Cal State Northridge 'When asked his preference of government, he replied, �Communism would be closest. Non-Chicanos would have to be expelled...opposition groups would be quashed because you have to keep the power.''

As one of MEChA's mission statements declares 'This is revolution at its basic level, moving the people ['Hispanics'] to confrontational politics...' At the November 1996 MEChA statewide conference, one thousand supporters assembled to condemn California Proposition 187 and Proposition 209 (ending bilingual education). According to Reconquista, California State University Professor, and MEChA advisor, Rodolfo Acu�a - who previously stated 'the (demise) of the Soviet Union was a tragedy for us' and 'Chicanos have to get a lot more militant about defending our rights' - proclaimed 'anyone who's supporting 209 is a racist and anybody who supports 187 is a racist... you are living in Nazi U.S. We can't let them take us to those intellectual ovens.' Not surprisingly four months after those and other incendiary statements were uttered, a MEChA representative during a rally in front of Los Angeles City Hall publicly declared; 'When the people in this building don't listen to the demands of our community, it's time to burn it down!'

This was not an empty threat. In 1993, in order to advance their demand for full department status for Chicano Studies at UCLA, MEChA spearheaded a riot that destroyed half a million dollars worth of campus property.

MEChA spreads its message of hate through campus newspapers such as El Popo, Aztlan News, Chispas, Gente de Aztlan (UCLA), Voz Fronteriza (UC at San Diego), La Voz Mestiza (UC at Irvine), and La Voz Berkeley. MEChA's hatred extends to any 'Hispanic'-American who is loyal to the United States. For example, the front page of the May 1995 issue of Voz Fronteriza carried a picture of Luis A. Santiago and the story of how this INS agent was killed in the line of duty defending the U.S.-Mexican border. The headlines read 'Luis A. Santiago Death Of A Migra Pig.'

In April 1997, MEChA held its national conference at Michigan State University and decided, in an apparent attempt to be more indigenous, to change the spelling of its name replacing the 'ch' with 'x.' 'MEChA' became 'MEXA' and 'Chicano' became 'Xicano.'

Unlike MALDEF, and La Raza, MEChA apparently does not receive funding from the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation or the Rockefeller Foundation.

Unlike LULAC, MALDEF, and La Raza, MEChA does not have a national headquarters. Instead, it has regional centers.

http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc1101/article_912.shtml