“¡La unión hace la fuerza!” (unity creates strength!): M.E.Ch.A. and Chicana/o student actvism in California, 1967-1999

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“¡LA UNIÓN HACE LA FUERZA!” (UNITY CREATES STRENGTH!)

M.E.Ch.A. AND CHICANA/O STUDENT ACTVISM IN CALIFORNIA, 1967-1999

by

Gustavo Licón

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(HISTORY)

August 2009

Copyright 2009 Gustavo Licón

ii

Table of Contents

List of Figures iii
Abstract iv
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: Chicanismo and Chicana/o Student Activism in California, 21
1967-1972.
Chapter 2: Marxist-Leninism and Ideological Factionalism in MEChA, 68
1970-1992.

Chapter 3: Sexo en Aztlan: Gender Norms in California MEChA, 104
Late 1960s-1990s.
Chapter 4: Immigration, Nativism, and Chicana/o Solidarity in MEChA, 155
1970-1999.

Conclusion 204
References 210
Bibliography 232

iii

List of Figures
Figure 1: Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl 109
Figure 2: Ana Nieto-Gómez criticized this section of CSUN’s 115
Chicano Mural
Figure 3: "Think The Border Patrol Cares?" 165

iv

Abstract

This dissertation is a study of Chicana and Chicano student activists’ sense of
community, identity, and ideology in California MEChA from the late 1960s through
the 1990s. It argues that their sense of community, identity, and ideology has
evolved due to internal strife, immigration, and international solidarity. Chicana and
Chicana student activists created MEChA as a network of activism dedicated to
institutional reform, social justice, and Chicano liberation. Marxist-Leninism made
major inroads into MEChA after the decline of Chicano Movement, but nationalism
made a resurgence with the end of the Cold War. Chicanas progressively established
an understanding within MEChA that Chicana and Chicano liberation also required
confronting sexism and heterosexism. Chicana and Chicano student activists’ broad
sense of community and social justice prompted them to stand in solidarity with
Latin American immigrants and revolutionaries. Although the organization
remained cultural nationalist, these influences caused it to be more internationalist
and inclusive demographically, sexually, and ideologically.

1

Introduction

I'm 59 years old. I have the fortune or misfortune, whichever way you want to
see it, of having been through [the] Chicano Movement from its inception.
—Beto, Chicano Activist
(2007)
1

Beto’s family history is quintessentially Mexican American. His Chicago born
mother “repatriated” to Mexico during the Great Depression, she worked like “Rosie
the Riveter” in San Diego during World War Two, and lost her lemon packer job in
the 1950s for supporting unionization efforts. Beto’s father was born in Jalisco,
Mexico where he married Beto’s mother, immigrated to the United States without
“papers,” and worked “under-the-table” until he could legalize his immigration
status. Beto’s mother continued to work in the canning industry and his father
worked as a dishwasher until they could afford to open a restaurant in Oxnard,
California.
Beto’s early experiences sensitized him to the plight of the working poor. He
was raised in the working-class multiracial neighborhood of La Colonia, Oxnard.
Although he attended Catholic school and his parents owned a small restaurant, he
worked in the agriculture fields of Ventura country for seven years from the age of
eleven. Beto worked alongside braceros, undocumented immigrants, and other local
farm workers. As a United States’ citizen, he enjoyed relative privilege compared to
undocumented immigrants and braceros who received the most abuse. Beto’s
family background, affinity to these workers, and his Catholic youth group service

1
Beto, interview by author, 16 January 2007, South Pasadena, Calif., digital audio recording.
2

activities sensitized him to the plight of braceros and he resented the social hierarchy
of the agricultural workforce.
Beto’s political activist development mirrors the major trends of Chicana/o
student activism from the mid 1960s through the 1990s.
2
As a high school student,
he demanded Oxnard school administrators hire bilingual teachers and implement
bilingual education. As a Ventura Community College student in 1966, Beto co-
organized with local residents to successfully get the city to pave a ditch that was
adversely affecting their health. As a University of California Los Angeles student,
he cofounded the United Mexican American Students. Beto used his summer breaks
to organize youth in his community, first under a Catholic non-profit group, and then
as part of the Oxnard chapter of the Brown Berets. He believed that the
government’s violent response to the Chicana/o Movement in the 1970s demanded a

2
The terms Latina and Latino are problematic because they lump together a multi-national, multi-
racial, and multi-ethnic populace that is primarily native to the Americas, and of mixed indigenous,
African, and European ancestry. Latina and Latino (I use Latina/o to refer to both simultaneously)
obscures this diversity under terms that infer a common European origin and tradition. Nevertheless,
I find Latino and Latina more acceptable terms than Hispanic when referring to this amalgamation of
peoples. I use them here to emphasize that Latina/os (plural form) and not just Mexican Americans
participated in the Chicana/o Movement. Since the majority of the people involved in the Chicana/o
Movement were Americans of Mexican descent (Mexican Americans) that identified as Chicana/os,
the term is popularly used to mean Americans of Mexican descent. In my work, I attempt to
consistently use the term Chicana/o (this means Chicana and Chicano) to refer to people that self-
identified as Chicana/o, which included Latina/os of non-Mexican descent. Thus, the term can be
used to refer to people that identify culturally as Chicana/o, or people that identify politically as
Chicana/o, but many times it is used in its plural form to mean Latina/os or Americans of Mexican
descent. I attempt to use the term Chicana/o exclusively in reference to individuals that identified as a
Chicana/o movement activists, and to the community that these activists claimed as their own. For a
thorough analysis of Latina/o ethnic labels, see Suzanne Oboler, Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives: Identity
and the Politics of (Re)Presentation in the United States (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1995).
3

more radical posture and mode of operation from community activists, than
Chicanismo alone could provide.
3

After graduating from college, Beto embraced a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist trend of
thought and started preparing the community for socialist revolution. He joined a
Marxist collective and in 1974 he participated in the founding of the August Twenty-
Ninth Movement (Marxist-Leninist). For years, Beto fought tooth-and-nail with
CASA, ATM’s political rival. In the late-1970s, ATM merged with other Marxist-
Leninist-Maoist people of color organizations across the United States to form the
League of Revolutionary Struggle (LRS). Beto continued to work with Latina/o
student, community, and labor activists to influence the direction of their activism
and recruit them to LRS. As the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet bloc imploded, LRS
members decided to disband the organization. Beto found new hope in the Zapatista
rebellion of Southern Mexico in 1994. He embraced the Zapatista Army of National
Liberation’s ideological combination of Marxist-Leninism, indigenismo, horizontal
grass-roots community organizing and anti-globalization perspective. Beto now
dedicated himself to international solidarity work and grassroots community
activism.
4

Beto’s political development illuminates the pendulum of ideology and activism
that activists navigate over a lifetime, but his ideological evolution and political

3
Beto, interview by author, 16 January 2007, South Pasadena, Calif., digital audio recording. I call it
the Chicana/o Movement to emphasize that both Chicanas and Chicanos were involved regardless of
the sexism and the emergence of a separate Chicana Movement.

4
Ibid.
4

activist direction also mirrors that of Chicana/o student activism in California since
the late 1960s. Beto closely followed the trends and direction of Chicana/o and
Latina/o student activists, since his own time in college to the 1990s. As an ATM
and LRS member, he was in constant contact with MEChA—Movimiento Estudiantil
Chicana/o de Aztlan (Chicano and Chicana Student Movement of Aztlan)—the
largest and longest lasting Chicana/o student activist network and organization. Beto
helped ATM and LRS influence the direction of MEChA and recruit MEChA
members to join the socialist struggle. In the 1980s, LRS dominated California
MEChA’s statewide network of chapters through clandestine infiltration. By the late
1980s and early 1990s, Beto decided that LRS was headed in the wrong direction.
He disliked its posture toward the community and voted to disband the organization.
For certain sectors in MEChA this was a victory and they declared their autonomy
from outside infiltration. Like Beto, MEChA in the 1990s was inspired by the
Zapatista struggle and influenced by indigenismo.
5

Although Beto became a Chicano activist during the rise of the Chicana/o
Movement, his activism and passion for social justice did not end with the decline of
the mass mobilizations of the 1960s and 1970s. He continued to fight and envision a
better tomorrow for his people and for the world. What this “better tomorrow”
looked like in his mind evolved with his experience, the demographic shifts of his
community, and the political climate. My dissertation is an attempt to understand the
political evolution of Chicana/o activism beyond the confines of the Chicana/o

5
Ibid.
5

Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. I analyze Chicana/o student activism in
California MEChA, paying particular attention to activists’ changing sense of
ideology, identity, and community as a case study of this larger phenomenon. I
argue that the struggle for gender equality, the influence of Marxism-Leninism,
international solidarity efforts, and immigration—as a political issue and
demographic shift—have all played a defining role in the shifting direction and tone
of Chicana/o activism since the 1960s.
Historical scholarship tends to be driven by a need to understand contemporary
conditions. As Eric Foner stated, “Activism without detached analysis can become
mere rebelliousness; scholarship divorced from consideration of the problems of the
real world can become sterile.”
6
The 1990s and 2000s witnessed some of the largest
mass mobilizations in California and United States history, all of which revolved
around Latina/os and immigration policy. The year 1965 was a watershed year for
Latin American and Asian immigration towards the United States. The flow of
immigrants has increased since then, but so has large scale nativism and policies
aimed at punishing undocumented immigrants. This has set the stage for a volatile
situation, where immigrants and their allies are standing up for their rights and
paranoid nativists have increasingly taken the law into their own hands.
To understand the Immigrant Rights Movement and the contemporary political
context, we need to understand the Chicana/o Movement and the Chicana/o Student
Movement in particular. The Chicana/o Movement changed the political attitude of

6
Eric Foner, “Foreword,” in Taking Back the Academy! : History of Activism, History as Activism, ed.
Jim Downs and Jennifer Manion (London: Routledge, 2004), xii.
6

the Mexican American community, from anti-immigrant or neutral at best, to pro-
immigrant.
7
The movement laid the foundation for an activist structure and network
that has facilitated action by Latina/os since the 1970s, and a significant component
of this network is MEChA. The three largest mass mobilizations by ethnic Mexicans
in the United States have been preceded by large scale student activism in the form
of walkouts. This occurred in the Southwest in 1968, California in 1994, and
nationwide in 2006. The rise of Chicana/o student activism in each period has
served as a signal, announcing the rallying of the Mexican and now Latina/o masses
to undertake demonstrations of dissent. Students may not be the first to address an
issue, but they tend to be among the first in their community to take mass action and
overtly resist the powers that be. To understand Chicana/o student activism, you
have to understand the historical trajectory, ideology, and identity of the largest
Chicana/o student activist network and organization in the country, Movimiento
Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA).
Social Movement Theory

Social movement theory emerged from social psychology studies on collective
behavior.
8
The standard bearers for these early works are The Laws of Imitation by

7
For a history of the shifting political attitudes of Mexican Americans towards Mexican immigrants,
see David G. Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the
Politics of Ethnicity (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995).

8
This section heavily draws from, Sheldon Stryker, Timothy J. Owens, and Robert W. White ed., Self,
Identity, and Social Movements, Vol. 13 of Social Movements, Protest, and Contention series.
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000); and Hank Johnson and John A Noakes, ed.,
Frames of Protest: Social Movements and the Framing Perspective (Boulder, CO.: Rowan &
Littlefield Publishers, INC., 2005).
7

Gabriel Tarde and The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind by Gustave Le Bon.
9

These studies concluded that social movements were mobs of irrational actors and
people afflicted by psychological problems.
10
Several scholars, in the 1970s,
attempted to eliminate the use of social psychology in the study of social
movements. They found these earlier studies offensive, because many of them were
social movement participants themselves. These scholars argued that movement
participants were rational actors. Thus, they paid more attention to structural factors,
rather than the psychology of activists. Resource Mobilization Theory emerged as
the dominant approach to studying social movements. Scholars that use it
underscored the importance of manipulating and mobilizing resources in the rise and
fall of social movements.
11

9
Gabriel Tarde, The Laws of Imitation, trans. E.C. Parsons (New York: Henry, Holt and Co., 1903);
Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895; reprint, Dover Publications, 2002).

10
For work influenced by, or that followed the early social psychology model, see Seymour Martin
Lipset and Earl Raab, The Politics of Unreason (New York: Harper and Row, 1970); William
Kornhauser, The Politics of Mass Society (New York: Free Press, 1959); Ted Gurr, Why Men Rebel,
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970); Gerhard Lenski, “Status Crystallization: A Non-
Vertical Dimension of Social Status” American Sociological Review 9 (1954): 405-413; Eric Hoffer,
The True Believer (New York: Harper and Row, 1951); Lewis S. Feur, The Conflict of Generations
(New York: Basic Books, 1969); Hubert Blumer, “Social Problems as Collective Behavior,” Social
Problems 13 no. 3 (1971): 298-306.

11
For studies that employ Resource Mobilization Theory, see: John D McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald,
The Trend of Social Movements in America (Morristown, N.J.: General Learning Press, 1973); Mayer
N. Zald and Roberta Ash, “Social Movement Organization: Growth, Decline, and Change,” Social
Forces 44 (1966): 327-341; and Anthony Oberschall, Social Conflicts and Social Movements
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.; Prentice-Hall, 1973). This approach took various forms such as Political
Process Theory, which focused on political structures, processes, and opportunities. Works that
exemplify Political Process Theory, are: Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development of
Black Insurgency, 1930-1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982); Sidney Tarrow,
“National Politics and Collective Action: Recent Theory and Research in Western Europe and United
States,” Annual Review of Sociology 14 (1988): 421-440; Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movements:
Social Movements, Collective Action, and Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994);
and Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution, (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1978).
8

Encounters with Unjust Authority by William Gamson, Bruce Fireman, and
Steven Rytina (1982) successfully led the charge to reintegrate social psychology
into social movement theory.
12
They argued that Resource Mobilization Theory was
too rationalist, individualist, and structural. Gamson, et. all, claimed Resource
Mobilization Theory failed to examine the cultural and symbolic processes that
underlie collective action and that it did not account for human variation.
From this shift in approach, emerged the New Social Movement Theory in
Europe and the Social Constructionist approach in the United States. They both
stressed the role of ideas, identity, culture, symbolic systems of meaning, and the
larger social and historical context of movement mobilization. Adherents of New
Social Movement Theory argued there was a strong connection between
contemporary social movements and the broad structural changes in societies, and

12
William Gamson, Bruce Fireman, and Steven Rytina, Encounters with Unjust Authority,
(Homewood, IL.: Dorsey Press, 1982). Works that also helped reestablish social psychology in social
movement studies: William A Gamson, “The Social Psychology of Collective Action,” in Frontiers of
Social Movement Theory, ed. Aldon D. Morris and Carol Mueller (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1992): 53-76; Hank Johnston and Bert Klandermans, ed., Social Movements and Culture
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995); Bert Klandermans, “Mobilization and
Participation: Social-Psychological Expansion of Resource Mobilization Theory,” American
Sociological Review 49 (1984): 583-600; Bert Klandermans, “The Social Construction of Protest and
Multiorganizational Fields,” in Frontiers of Social Movement Theory, ed. Aldon Morris and Carol
McClurg Mueller (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Bert Klandermans, The Social
Psychology of Protest (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997); Doug McAdam and Ronnelle Paulson, “Specifying
the Relationship between Social Ties and Activism,” American Journal of Sociology 99 (1993): 640-
667; David A. Snow and Pamela E. Oliver, “Social Movements and Collective Behavior: Social
Psychological Dimensions and Considerations,” in Sociological Perspectives on Social Psychology,
ed. Karen S. Cook, Gary Alan Fine, and James S. House (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1995), 571-99;
Lois A. Zurcher and David A. Snow, “Collective Behavior: Social Movements,” in Social
Psychology: Sociological Perspectives, ed. Morris Rosenberg and Ralph H. Turner (New York: Basic
Books, 1981), 447-482; Jean Cohen, “Strategy or Identity: New Theoretical Paradigms and
Contemporary Social Movements,” Social Research 52 (1985): 663-716; and Sidney Tarrow,
“Mentalities, Political Cultures, and Collective Action Frames: Constructing Meaning through
Action,” in Frontiers of Social Movement Theory, ed. Aldon Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 174-202.
9

that post-1960 movements were different from labor movements of the past. They
were more fluid, decentralized, and often resorted to more symbolic and cultural
forms of resistance than those labor movements.
The Social Constructionist approach improved on Resource Mobilization Theory
by contributing the framing perspective. This approach argues that social
movements undergo a process where they use and modify existing symbols and
culture to construct their goals, tactics, grievances, identity, and organizational
structure in a ways that correspond with the experiences, interests, and beliefs of
potential and current participants.
13
By the mid 1990s, framing was one of the most
widely used methods of studying social movements.
14

Recent scholarship on social movements has used one or a combination of these
three major approaches and it tends to focus on specific aspects of social movements
like narratives, identity, political opportunities, or relationship to the state. This

13
The following works helped establish frame alignment, frame resonance, and master frame as
foundational concepts of this perspective: David Snow and Robert. D. Benford, “Ideology, Frame
Resonance, and Participant Mobilization,” International Social Movement Research 1 (1988): 197-
218; David Snow and Robert. D. Benford, “Master Frames and Cycles of Protest,” in Frontiers of
Social Movement Theory, ed. Aldon Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1992); and David A. Snow, E. Burke Rochford, Jr., Steven K. Worden, and Robert
D. Benford, “Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation,”
American Sociological Review 51 (1986): 464-481.

14
Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald, “Introduction: Opportunities, Mobilization
Structures, and Framing Processes—Toward a Synthetic, Comparative Perspective on Social
Movements,” in Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities,
Mobilization Structures, and Cultural Framings, ed. McAdam, Doug, and John D. McCarthy, and
Mayer N. Zald (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 1-20; Robert Benford and David
Snow, “Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment,” Annual Review of
Sociology 26 (2000): 611-639; Pamela E. Oliver and Hank Johnston, “What a Good Idea! Ideologies
and Frames in Social Movement Research,” in Frames of Protest: Social Movements and the Framing
Perspective, ed. Hank Johnson and John A Noakes (Boulder, CO.: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers,
INC, 2005).
10

dissertation employs aspects of Social Constructionist theory and New Social
Movement Theory to understand Chicana/o student activism. It employs the framing
perspective to account for how and why Chicana/o identity and ideology evolved and
why certain trends of thought resonated with Chicana/o student activists. It uses
New Social Movement Theory to analyze why Chicana/o student activists in the
1980s and 1990s claimed to be part of a movement, academics argue ended in the
1970s.
Late Twentieth Century United States Social Movements
The Consensus school dominated the study of United States’ history in the
1950s. It argued that people in the United States had reached a consensus of beliefs
and values, making ideology irrelevant and large conflicts unlikely because of the
narrow spectrum of political views. Most of these studies employed a top-down
approach and focused on influential Euro-American males.
The large scale social movements of the 1960s produced scholars that challenged
the tenets of the consensus school, with social and revisionist history. They
employed a bottom-up approach to history that incorporated a larger segment of the
United States’ population, specifically African Americans and working-class Euro-
Americans.
15
Scholarship on the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s focused on
the heterosexual male leadership of the Civil Right Movement and the New Left. It

15
Much of the work on this period has come in the form of autobiographies, biographies, and
memoirs of activists: Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, ed. Alex Haley (New York:
Groove Press, 1965); Oscar Zeta Acosta, Revolt of the Cockroach People (San Francisco: Straight
Arrow Press, 1973); Bobby Seale, A Lonely Rage: The Autobiography of Bobby Seale (New York:
Time Books, 1978); Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books,
1987); Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power: A Black Women’s Story (New York: Anchor Books, 1994).
11

portrayed them as thee significant actors of the period. These studies approached
United States’ race relations through a black and white, North and South binary.
The radical movements of the 1970s and the rise of the right produced scholars
that accounted for a broader spectrum of races, genders, sexualities, and political
ideologies that more comprehensively reflected the reality of a diverse populace.
Although this provided a more complete picture, the main “plot” of late twentieth
century United States history remains the same: the New Left and the Civil Rights
Movement at the center, followed by white middle-class anti-war, feminist, and gay
liberation movements, and the Black Power movement. The rise of conservatism has
recently garnered scholarly attention, but the struggles of non-African American
people of color are still overlooked and marginal to mainstream interpretations of the
period. They might have a token reference to César Chávez, but the Chicana/o,
American Indian, and Asian American Movements are not addressed at any depth.
16

This dissertation examines a social movement, within and beyond this period,
that challenges and defies these established binaries. There is not room for Chicana/o
and Latina/o history within United States histories that adhere to strict black/white
and north/south binaries. Latina/os and Chicana/os are multiracial, and do not trace
their history to the Civil War and slavery in the United States, but to westward
expansion and international colonization by the United States. Latina/os are now the
largest minority and immigrant group, and their population growth continuous to out
pace that of Euro-Americans and African Americans, thus the United States’ future

16
For an example this trend, see Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, America Divided: The Civil
War of the 1960s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
12

will not make sense through these binaries either. Unlike the African American and
Euro-American segment of the United States population, Latina/os count on a large
sector of their community being foreign born, possibly undocumented, and
pertaining to a multitude of fairly strong ethnicities. The study of Latina/os informs
our understanding of indigenous groups, people of color, immigrants, women, and
sexual minorities in ways that take us beyond black/white and north/south notions of
United States history.
Chicana/o Movement Studies
Chicana/o Movement studies tend to take one of two positions: 1) Chicana/o
youth played a central role in the Chicana/o Movement; or 2) the thirty and over
crowd were the defining and central force of the movement.
17
Ignacio M. García in
Chicanismo argues that a deep analysis of the movement reveals that adults were
key, while Guadalupe San Miguel portrays students in Brown, Not White as loose
cannons that endangered the true movement efforts of adults. Nevertheless, the
majority of work falls into the former camp. Juan Goméz-Quiñones, Carlos Muñoz,
Armando Navarro, and Jesús Salvador Treviño contend that youth and students in
particular were central to the Chicana/o Movement, and to all oppositional politics of
the late 1960s and early 1970s. They argue that the Chicano student movement

17
Studies that fall into the first camp are: Juan Goméz-Quiñones, Chicano Politics: Reality and
Promise 1940-1990 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990); Carlos, Muñoz Jr., Youth,
Identity, and Power: The Chicano Movement (London: Verso, 1989); Armando Navarro, Mexican
American Youth Organization: Avant-garde of the Chicano Movement in Texas (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1995); and Jesús Salvador Treviño, Eyewitness: A Filmmaker's Memoir of the Chicano
Movement (Houston, Texas: Arte Público Press, 2001). Studies in the latter camps are: Ignacio M.
García, Chicanismo: The Forging of a Militant Ethos Among Mexican Americans (Tucson: University
of Arizona Press, 1997); and Guadalupe San Miguel, Brown, Not White: School Integration and the
Chicano Movement in Houston (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2001).
13

heavily contributed to the formation, development, and direction of the Chicana/o
Movement. In their view, students were responsible for the development of
Chicanismo and provided the basis of unity that tied Chicana/os across region.
Student activists readily identified as Chicana/o instead of regional ethnic Mexican
variations such as Manito and Tejano. Their understanding of national politics and
leaders allowed them to create a sense of a national Chicana/o community.
18
Muñoz
points out that the overwhelming majority of those that identified with the Chicana/o
Movement in the 1960s and 1970s were under the age of thirty.
19

My dissertation argues that interpretations of the Movement do not have to be an
either or stance, since students always worked closely with adult mentors and
leaders. Adults inspired youth to take action, and some like Beto, Rodolfo “Corky”
Gonzalez and Professor Rodolfo Acuña played pivotal roles shaping students sense
of identity and history. Nevertheless, students and youth have always been the
backbone and most enthusiastic supporters of the Chicana/o movement. Due to their
limited resources, youth and students were less likely to be fulltime organizers and
community leaders. However, they volunteered and were always present in large
numbers at Chicana/o Movement events.
Most studies of the Chicana/o Movement use the term Chicana/o interchangeably
with Mexican American. Chicana/o activists of the 1960s and 1970s adopted and
redefined the term Chicana/o, partially because they found the term Mexican

18
García, Chicanismo, 6-7; Muñoz, Youth, Identity, Power, (1989) 1, 78.

19
Muñoz, 6.
14

American insulting. They associated Mexican American to politics of assimilation
and accommodation, which studies of the movement have attributed to the “Mexican
American Generation.” Chicana/os activists used the term Chicana/o broadly when
referring to the people of their community in hopes that other Latina/os in the barrio
and on campus would embrace the term and struggle. Scholars of the Movement and
the field of Chicana/o Studies use the term as a stand-in for Mexican American, and
at times for ethnic Mexicans. However, this use of term dilutes its political,
ideological, and internationalist significance as well as its continuously evolving and
contested meaning. My dissertation contributes to our understanding of the identity
and ethnic labels by demonstrating that similar to other categories and labels of
identification, the meaning of Chicana/o is always contested and shifts over time.
20

Several studies have critiqued the sexism in the Chicano Movement as well as
the exclusion of Chicanas in scholarship on the Movement and Chicano history in
general, such as the collection of articles in Chicana Feminist Thought edited by
Alma García and Vicki L. Ruiz’s From Out of the Shadow.
21
This dissertation goes
beyond incorporating women into the story by analyzing the ever contested
constructions of gender and sexuality within the movement. It addresses how gender

20
I attempt to consistently use the term Chicana/o in reference to those that ascribed to the term and
the Movement, but also in reference to the community that Chicana/os claimed as their people and
Raza. I use ethnic Mexican and Mexican American when referring to Mexicans born or living in the
United States, and Latina/o for people of Latin American descent living in the United States. I refuse
to use the term Hispanic because of its United States’ bureaucratic origin and for its European,
corporate, and assimilationist connotations.

21
Alma M García, ed. Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings (New York:
Routlegde, 1997); Vicki L. Ruiz, From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century
America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

15

and sexuality norms, as well as sexism and homophobia impacted individuals’
identification and understanding of Chicana/o identity, ideology, and the Movement.
These perceptions of gender and sexuality shaped and helped define the direction of
the Chicana/o Movement as a whole. This study explores the conscious and
unconscious gendered privileges enjoyed by heterosexual Chicanos in MEChA and
contrasts their experience with that of Chicanas and sexual minorities in the
movement and community.
In Chicanismo, Ignacio M. García criticized the studies of Rodolfo Acuña, Mario
Barrera, Goméz-Quiñones, and Carlos Muñoz for failing to synthesize the Mexican
community's political ethos of challenging their poor stature in society and for
limiting their conceptualization of the Chicano Movement to the Southwest in late
1960s and 1970s.
22
According to García, the Chicana/o Movement was a full-fledged
transformation of the way Mexicans in the United States thought, performed politics,
and regarded their culture. Activists embraced Chicana/o identity, followed
Chicanismo as a philosophy, and created a political ethos, through which they
justified and rationalized their political participation in society.
23

Although my study focuses on California, I agree with García that the Movement
encompassed activists beyond the Southwest and that scholars must examine
Chicana/o activism beyond the 1960s and 1970s, to understand its significance,

22
García, Chicanismo, 5, 7-9. For Rodolfo Acuña's views of the Chicana/o Movement, see Rodolfo
Acuña, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, 3 ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1988). For
Mario Barrera's views of the Chicana/o Movement, see Mario Barrera, Beyond Aztlán: Ethnic
Autonomy in Comparative Perspective (New York: Praeger, 1988).

23
García, Chicanismo, 8.
16

impact, and legacies. MEChA is a national organization with chapters in the
Northeast, Southwest, Midwest, and East Coast. Many of these chapters have been
active since 1969, while others developed since then, and have become a part of the
organizations national structure. Scholars must examine the regional context of
Chicana/o activism to better explain their specific understanding of the Movement
and community needs, which conflict with those of activists from other regions. My
dissertation analyses several MEChA and Chicana/o youth conferences to examine
these inter-regional exchanges and conflicts, along with the shifts in meaning they
produce within the organization and Movement.
Like García, I argue for a longer periodization of the Chicana/o Movement.
While most studies of the Movement are limited to the years between 1965 and
1978, my study spans from 1967 to 1999. Maria Eva Valle’s dissertation, “MEChA
and the Transformation of Chicano Student Activism: Generational Change,
Conflict, and Continuity” takes a similar route.
24
Valle compares the experience,
culture, political outlook, identity and activism of Chicana/o students involved in
MEChA from 1969 to 1971 to those involved from 1989 to 1994 at Arizona State
University.

Valle contributes to our understanding of Chicana/o student activism and
the Chicana/o Movement by comparing two cohorts of activists within a state that
has received relatively little scholarly scrutiny from Chicana/o Studies scholars.
Valle finds that the early generation of activism set up an institutional and political
foothold within the university and state government that benefited the later

24
Maria Eva Valle, “MEChA and The Transformation of Chicano Student Activism: Generational
Change, Conflict, and Continuity,” (Ph D. diss., University of California San Diego, 1996).
17

generation who was better able to partake in the university’s mainstream politics and
public life. She contends that this, combined with the changing demographics of the
Mexican/Latina/o community (in terms of ethnic background and social mobility)
and the lack of a wide scale mass mobilizing social movement, made the MEChA
chapter of the 1990s less militant, less ideologically dogmatic, and more tolerant of
diversity and members “working within the system.” My study augments our
understanding of Chicana/o student activism by connecting and comparing the
experience and ideas of activist cohorts in MEChA since the late 1960s.
I agree with Ernesto Chávez’ study "Mi Raza Primero!" (My People First!) in
that it emphasizes the dynamic relationship between barrio conditions, Chicana/o
identity, and ideology.
25
He argues that to understand the Chicana/o Movement and
its ideology, you have to understand the barrio conditions that shaped them. Chávez
does an excellent analysis of East Los Angeles barrio conditions in the post-war and
Civil Rights Movement era. My dissertation argues that Chicana/o ideology and
identity evolves over time in response to changing barrio and on-campus conditions.
This study examines how national and local shifts in politics and demographics
impact the identity and ideology of MEChA members in California. Like Chávez
and George Mariscal, I make it a point to address and demonstrate the diversity of
perspectives within the Chicana/o Movement by showing the wide spectrum of
views, beliefs, and experiences found within one Movement organization. It

25
Ernesto Chávez, "Mi Raza Primero!" (My People First!): Nationalism, Identity, and Insurgency in
the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles, 1966-1978, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
18

highlights the diversity found between chapters, regions, and cohorts, but also
between individual members.
Recent studies of the Chicana/o Movement have made it a point to analyze the
relationship of Chicana/o activists and organizations to other social movements,
international struggles, and the political climate of the time. Mariscal in Brown-Eyed
Children of the Sun examines the internationalist aspects of the Chicana/o
Movement, including the image and influence of Ernesto “Che” Guevara and the
Cuban Revolution, and the Movement’s relationship to African American activists.
26

Laura Pulido compares and examines several radical activist groups in Los Angeles
of different “racial” backgrounds, and Lorena Oropeza in ¡Raza Si, Guerra No!,
argues that Chicana/o identification with the people of Vietnam contributed to their
self-perception as people of color and Chicana/o anti-war activism redefined their
sense of masculinity.
27
This study argues that Chicana/o solidarity efforts with the
leftist and indigenous peoples of Latin America, and their activism in defense of
undocumented immigrants, contributed to Chicana/o activists’ self-perception as a
trans-national community and people.
My dissertation is organized into four chapters that individually focus on a
specific aspect of MEChA and Chicana/o student activism in California history.
Chapter one analyzes the development of Chicana/o cultural nationalism within the

26
George Mariscal, Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun: Lessons from the Chicano Movement, 1965-
1975 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005).

27
Laura Pulido, Black, Brown, Yellow, & Left: Radical Activism in Los Angeles (Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 2006); Lorena Oropeza, ¡Raza Si! ¡Guerra No!: Chicano Protest and
Patriotism During the Viet Nam War Era (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005).
19

emerging Chicana/o student movement of the late 1960s, paying particular attention
to the United Mexican American Students, the Mexican American Student
Confederation, and MEChA. It examines how Chicanismo framed Chicana/o
student activists’ understanding and critique of United States government’s policy
and social stratification in the country. I argue that Chicana/o student activists
viewed the United States power structure as racist, oppressive, and colonial, and they
believed Chicana/o liberation required unity, cultural preservation, and active
resistance. The Movement declined due to ideological infighting and government
counter-insurgency measures that disrupted movement leadership and cost the
Movement community support. MEChA’s attempts to counter student apathy and
adopt new strategies only further alienated students.
Chapter two analyzes the role Marxist-Leninists played in MEChA after the
decline of the Chicana/o Movement. I argue that Marxist-Leninism made major
inroads into MEChA, but nationalism resurged with the end of the Cold War. This
ideological influence contributed to a more class-based, internationalist, and anti-
capitalist view of community and activism in the 1970s and 1980s within MEChA.
Chapter three scrutinizes notions of gender and sexuality within MEChA, and
tracks how Chicanas carved their own space within the organization and how they
challenged the hetero-normative and sexist attitudes of Chicana/o student activists. I
argue that Chicanas progressively established an understanding within MEChA that
Chicana/o liberation also required confronting sexism and heterosexism.
20

The fourth chapter examines why Chicana/o student activists took up immigrant
rights issues and international solidarity efforts. I argue that members of MEChA
and Chicana/o movement leaders held internationalist notions of their people, La
Raza, prompting them to defend Latin American immigrants since the 1970s and
joining solidarity efforts in the 1980s and 1990s. These conceptualizations of their
people and struggle have been tinged by mestizaje, Chicanismo, Marxist-Leninism,
and indigenismo.

21

Chapter 1—Chicanismo and Chicana/o Student Activism
in California, 1967-1972.

Chicanismo
Heals wounds
Inflicted by a
Cold American Society,
And acts as a
Natural barrier
Insolating brown
Souls from the
Meaninglessness
Of inhuman indifference.
1

This poem by Chicano activists Manuel Ordonez embodies a major tenet of the
Chicana/o Movement: that immersing oneself in Chicana/o history, culture, and
community would counter the inhumane and alienating aspects of United States’
society.
2
Chicanismo became the umbrella term for the Chicana/o Movement’s
ideology and philosophy of cultural nationalism. Although adherents of Chicanismo
did not agree on many things, they did agree that the key to Chicana/o liberation
depended on preserving and learning from Chicana/o history and communal wisdom,
as well as creating and embracing Chicana/o culture and solidarity. Chicanismo was
also infused with the belief that people of Mexican and Latin American descent in
the United States were oppressed by the country’s political and economic structure

1
I made the first letter of each phrase bold. Manuel Ordonez, “Chicanismo,” El Popo 3 no. 2: 7, The
El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center,
California State University, Northridge (CSUN).

2
Chicana/o is short for Chicana and Chicano. Although Chicano in Spanish can refer to both men
and women, it is a male term that has been critiqued by activists and scholars as patriarchal and
symbolically diminishing the role of women. Thus I will attempt to us Chicana/o when referring to
Chicana and Chicano. I will add an s to the end of the word when referring to Chicanas and Chicanos
in plural. Chicano and Chicanos will be used to refer to males only, Chicana and Chicanas to females
only. I will do the same with Latina/o and Latina/os.
22

and that social change required militant rhetoric and direct action. These tenets
proved to remake the way Chicana/os did politics in the United States.
This chapter documents how the first wave of the Chicana/o student activists
embraced and implemented Chicanismo in their organizational structure, goals, and
actions. It also establishes a historical point of departure for the rest of my
dissertation that begins in the 1970s and explores themes of ideology and identity
within California MEChA through the 1990s. This chapter examines the
development of Chicana/o identity and Chicanismo in the 1960s and early 1970s by
analyzing poetry, journalism, manifestos, and other primary and secondary sources.
The main focus is the ideology, goals, and tactics adopted by Chicana/o students in
California’s activist network Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlan (Chicano
Student Movement of Aztlan), MEChA, and its precursors, the United Mexican
American Students and the Mexican American Student Confederation.
This chapter briefly examines the national political climate that created a shift in
Mexican American politics, as well as the advent of nationally recognized Mexican
American leaders that inspired Chicana/o students to take action. I argue that the
national and local political context as well as the internal synergy within the
Chicana/o community, in response to local conditions, stimulated the rise of the
Chicana/o Movement and helped shape activists’ ideology and identity. Analyzing
Chicana/o student plans of action, activism, and political commentary helps us better
understand their motivations and worldview.
23

This chapter concludes with the decline of the first wave of Chicana/o activism in
the early 1970s. The decline was due to the changing image of movement
organizations in the Chicana/o community, increased government repression and
conservatism, and the inability of movement activists to overcome a national
leadership and ideology crisis that splintered the movement at the national and local
level.
Disenchanted Mexican Americans
A long history of Mexican struggle against racial and class oppression in the
United States and Mexico, combined with Third World and domestic liberation
movements in the 1950s and 1960s, produced a generation of Chicana/o student
activists demanding greater self-determination and autonomy.
3
Like their Euro-
American, African American, Native American, and Asian American peers, Latina/o
youth came to believe that it was up to their generation to make things “right” in the
world. They believed that it was possible to make radical changes in society.
Although some Latina/o youth and adults worked in the black civil rights movement
and the white new left movement, most Chicana/o student activists in the Southwest
decided that that these movements did not have their community’s interest in mind,
and that a distinctly Chicana/o Movement was required to make meaningful change
for their community.
In the 1960s, Mexican American political leaders and organizations grew weary
of the Democratic Party and the Democratic presidential administrations of John

3
For a broad view of the 1960s in the United States, see Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin,
America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
24

Fitzgerald Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson. Mexican Americans participated
in national politics in unprecedented numbers during the John F. Kennedy
presidential campaign. They took on staff and leadership roles in both the national
campaign and the “Viva Kennedy” clubs Mexican Americans established across the
Southwest.
4
Their support of his candidacy, along with Kennedy’s promises and
Catholic background, made Mexican Americans confident that they would be
incorporated into the new administration. They were disappointed when these
government appointments in his administration did not materialize. Johnson also
raised the expectations of Mexican Americans through his extension of Great Society
and War on Poverty programs, and Johnson’s acknowledgement that his primary
exposure to poverty was that amongst Mexican Americans in Texas. Mexican
American leaders felt slighted when too few Mexican American appointments
materialized in the Johnson administration and as War on Poverty programs seemed
to prioritize white and African American communities over Mexican American ones.
Their dissatisfaction with the administration, as well as the relative success of more
assertive African American groups, caused middle-class Mexican American leaders
to become more militant and action oriented.
5
This change of tenor reverberated
throughout the community, and some of the children of these groups were amongst
the few Latina/os on college campuses.

4
Armando Navarro, Mexicano Political Experience in Occupied Aztlán: Struggles and Change,
(Oxford: Altamira Press, 2005), 274-277.

5
Ibid, 326-327. For more on the disillusionment of Mexican American politicians in the 1960s, see
Lorena Oropeza, !Raza Si! !Guerra No! Chicano Protest and Patriotism During the Vietnam War
Era, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005, 47-79.
25

In 1962, César Chávez, Dolores Huerta, Helen Chávez and others founded the
United Farm Workers (UFW) to unionize farm workers in the central valley of
California who were primarily of Latin American and Asian descent.
6
This workers’
union made a significant imprint in Chicana/o activism due to its use of Mexican
culture, traditions, and icons and by waging unionization efforts within the context of
struggling for a just society. The UFW made La Causa (the cause) the symbolic
struggle of all people of Mexican descent in the United States.
7
This is part of the
reason why the UFW logo and the image of farm workers appears in countless
murals and political posters created by Chicana/o artists since the 1960s. The UFW
and César Chávez gained national notoriety through media coverage of their
boycotts, statewide pilgrimages, hunger strikes, and other forms of nonviolent
resistance. Chávez himself landed on the cover of Time Magazine on 4 July 1964.
Students became especially endeared to the union because hundreds of them directly
served as volunteers for the union, while others supported La Causa by picketing
supermarkets that violated UFW boycotts. Thus, many Chicana/o students of the

6
The United Farm Workers had several precursors: the Farm Workers Association, the National Farm
Workers Association, the Agriculture Workers Organizing Committee, and the United
Farm Workers Organizing Committee. For simplicity I will refer to them all as the United Farm
Workers or UFW.

7
It was symbolic, because the majority of people of Mexican descent in the United States by the
1960s were urban dwellers, not rural migrant farm laborers. The UFW up to the mid 1970s vocally
opposed undocumented immigration and at times used the United States’ Immigration and
Naturalization Service to eliminate undocumented scab labor through deportation. Mexicans made up
the majority of the undocumented scab labor susceptible to deportation. See David G. Gutiérrez,
Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity (Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1995), 197-199; Carlos Muñoz, Youth, Identity, and Power:
The Chicano Movement, Revised and Expanded Edition (London: Verso, 2007), 75; Lorena Oropeza,
!Raza Si! !Guerra No! Chicano Protest and Patriotism During the Vietnam War Era (Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 2005), 86.
26

1960s attributed their first political acts to the UFW. As a result, the farm worker
struggle became permanently intertwined with Chicana/o student activism.
8

Reies López Tijerina and La Alianza Federal de Pueblos Libres (The Federal
Alliance of Free Peoples) of New Mexico also made national headlines and captured
the imaginations of Chicana/o students, but they did so through armed struggle and
militant calls for the return of Mexican and Spanish land grants to their
constituency.
9
La Alianza demanded the return of one million acres of New Mexican
land to the descendants of Spanish and Mexican land grant recipients. They argued
that the United States government and individual United States’ citizens violated the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo, the peace treaty that ended the Mexico-United States
war of 1848, by dispossessing Mexicans of their land in the second half of the
nineteenth century.
10
La Alianza actions reignited interest in the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo and helped Chicana/os re-imagine themselves as the rightful heirs of the
Southwest and the victims of conquest and colonization by the United States
government and citizenry. Students supported La Alianza and Reies Tijerina

8
I agree with Carlos Muñoz that César Chávez was not a Chicana/o Movement activist or leader. He
did not identify as a Chicano or ascribe to the movement’s ideology. Chávez was a labor leader that
recognized and used the ethnic traditions of his labor constituency to inspire workers to join his union
and demand better labor terms. Politically, he was a staunch democrat and had no illusions of a
Chicana/o homeland or a Chicana/o political party. See Carlos Munoz, Youth, Identity, and Power:
The Chicano Movement, Revised and Expanded Edition (London: Verso, 2007), 75; and Carlos
Munoz, Youth, Identity, and Power: The Chicano Movement (London: Verso, 1989), 7.

9
I will refer to La Alianza Federal de Pueblos Libres as La Alianza for short.

10
La Alianza took over a part of a national forest in 1966 and conducted an armed raid of Tierra
Amarilla courthouse in New Mexico in 1967. The latter incident, ignited a shoot-out with local
authorities. The state of New Mexico deployed its National Guard to conduct a nationally publicized
two-day military manhunt for Tijerina. See Armando Navarro, Mexican American Youth
Organization: Avant-garde of the Chicano Movement in Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press,
1995), 23-28.
27

specifically, by sponsoring Tijerina speak tours on college and university campuses
and by demanding authorities to release him from jail when he was imprisoned.
Some regarded him as a political prisoner of the Chicana/o anti-colonial struggle.
11

Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzáles partially embodies the shift in political philosophy
amongst Mexican Americans that became part of the Chicana/o Movement in the
1960s. Gonzáles was a prize fighter turned politician. He was part of the
Democratic Party in Denver Colorado, and took political positions within the party,
such as administering local Great Society and War on Poverty programs for the
Johnson administration. Gonzáles grew disenchanted with the Democratic Party
because he believed it did not have the Chicana/o community’s best interest in mind
and did not support Mexican Americans in their campaigns for political office.
While he also participated in Civil Rights Movement and Anti-War Movement
demonstrations, he realized that Chicana/o issues and goals were marginal the
leadership of these movements. He concluded Chicana/os would have to create their
own Movement. Gonzáles co-founded the first Chicana/o civil rights organization,
the Crusade for Justice which focused on the welfare of Chicana/os in Denver, and
attempted to forge a national Chicana/o Movement and consciousness.

11
“Alianza Leader Suffers From Malignant Tumor,” El Popo 1 no. 2: 2; and “Reies Tijerina” El Popo
3 no. 2: 6, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban
Archives Center, CSUN.
28

Chicanismo
Gonzáles became an early intellectual of the movement and important architect
of Chicanismo, promoting Chicana/o nationalism through his activism, speeches, and
poems. He described the Crusade for Justice as,
…a human rights, civil rights, social services, and cultural organization involving
the whole family unit, from the smallest baby to the oldest person in the
organization. There’s no generation gap; we develop leadership from every
level, from grade school to high school to college to the adult.
12

Unlike the New Left, the Chicana/o Movement did not necessitate a generational
divide. There was no equivalent slogan in the Chicana/o Movement of distrusting
anyone over thirty, and Gonzáles was the greatest example of this difference. There
was a shift in political direction, style, and perspective that differentiated Chicana/o
activists from their older Mexican American counterparts. Yet, unlike the older
generation of Euro-Americans that was running the United States government and
major corporations, only a few Mexican Americans had gained political office or
were running major companies.
Gonzáles promoted Chicana/o family structure and culture as the basis of
cultural nationalism and political organization. Unfortunately, the Chicana/o family
structure was patriarchal and much of their cultural traditions were infused with
sexism and homophobia. Gonzáles and many in the movement did not initially
allow these tendencies to be challenged.

12
Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzáles and José “Cha Cha” Jiménez, “Chicanos: Identity Recovered by Corky
Gonzáles and Cha Cha Jiménez” interview by Karen Wald, Tricontinental, 158, Box 1 / Folder 15,
Chicano Moratorium Vertical Files Collection, Chicano Studies Research Center, University of
California, Los Angeles.
29

Yet, the major emphasis remained on the youth, which the Crusade for Justice
targeted through conferences and the formation of Escuela Tlatelolco a school for
Chicana/o children. This alternative school for youth of Latin American descent
catered to their particular ethnic interests, traditions, and needs, while emphasizing
hands on learning within the barrio.
13
Gonzáles strongly believed in community
control of institutions found in barrios as well as the development of new and
autonomous ones. Thus, the Crusade for Justice operated according to this tenet.
No government money comes to our organization, we don’t get any money from
the Church, we don’t get any money from any rich angels, because we refuse to
allow anybody to direct or control us. The people that work make the decisions
and the people are the ones who support the organization with their own sweat
and blood and activities.
14

Gonzáles demanded civil, cultural, social, economic, and political equality, and if the
United States was not ready for it, he was willing to call for the secession of the
Southwest and the formation of a Chicana/o nation.
15
He unsuccessfully petitioned
the United Nations to hold a plebiscite, to determine if Chicana/os wanted
independence from the United States.
16

An early contribution by Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzáles to the rise of the Chicana/o
Movement was his 1967 poem, I Am Joaquín: An Epic Poem. The poems’ themes

13
Emilio A. Orozco, "Denver's Crusade for Justice: Legacy of a Chicano Activist," El Popo 21 no. 2
(Spring 1992): 4, 7, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department,
Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

14
Gonzáles and Jiménez, “Chicanos: Identity Recovered by Corky Gonzáles and Cha Cha Jiménez,”
159.

15
Ibid, 151.

16
Navarro, Mexican American Youth Organization, 39.
30

and perspective served as a precursor to the identity, Chicanismo, and action that
Movement activists would come to embrace. The epic is permeated with calls to
revolt, fight tyranny, and honor martyrs, but foremost, is the assertion of an identity
based on a duality that reveals the complexity of mestizaje—the mixing of
Indigenous and Spanish peoples and cultures. The assertive role of masculinity in
the fight for freedom and the passive and supportive role of femininity, is telling of
problems to come within the movement.
I Am Joaquin, formulates the basis for a Chicana/o nation by forging an origin
myth, creating a sense of collective memory and peoplehood, and identifying a
common enemy and struggle for Chicana/os.
17
Gonzáles draws from Mexican
history to identify with both Indigenous leaders, such as Mexican President Benito
Juarez and Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, and Spanish conquistadors like
Hernan Cortez. The message is clear: Mexican Americans are mestizos of mixed
Mesoamerican and Spanish descent, both heroes and villains of Mexican history.
Unlike Mexicans, Mexican Americans undergo a second wave of conquest and
victimhood at the hands of the United States’ government and citizenry. In this part
of history, the “villains” and oppressive forces remain external to the Mexican
American populace and Gonzáles projects them as the common enemies of Mexican
Americans. “La Raza! Mejicano! Español! Latino! Hispano! Chicano! or whatever I

17
Forming a Chicana/o nation meant getting people of Mexican and to a certain extant Latin
American origin to identify as a single people. Although, the Chicana/o movement would came to
declare United States’ Southwest as theirs, as Aztlan, there were no major plans amongst Movement
activist to actually secede from the United States. What they did want was to control local
government and institutions in areas with a significant Latina/o population. They attempted to do this
through electoral gain, reform, and demonstrations.
31

call myself, I look the same I feel the same I Cry and Sing the same I am the masses
of my people….”
18
Gonzáles argues that regardless of varying identity labels, due to
regional, generational, and political diversity, peoples of Mexican descent in the
Southwest are a people.
Having identified a people and an enemy, Gonzáles proceeds to set the
parameters of struggle and the goals of a nation. He refuses to be absorbed by
United States’ society, which he defines as a colonial culture of greed and avarice.
Gonzáles rejects middle class Mexican American efforts to attain social mobility and
civil rights through appeals to United States patriotism, assimilation, and whiteness.
"I look at myself and see part of me who rejects my father and my mother and
dissolves into the melting pot to disappear in shame."
19
Finally, he argues that
culture is the key to liberation and claims a lost homeland, "The music of the people
stirs the Revolution…. THE GROUND WAS MINE….This Land This Earth is
Ours…"
20

I Am Joaquin provides clear gender roles for the men and women of the
movement. Women play a secondary role and Gonzalez relegates them to praying,
nurturing, and supporting men. They are the object of men who pray to, rape, or kill
women. Women’s gender and sexuality is codified in the poem by images of
loyalty, spirituality, and domesticity: a "black shawled" woman that is praying; the

18
Rodolfo Gonzáles, Message to Aztlán: Selected Writings of Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzáles, ed. Antonio
Esquibel, (Houston, Tex.: Arte Público Press, 2001), 29.

19
Ibid., 23.

20
Ibid., 17,20,21,28.
32

Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe; the Aztec goddesses Tonantzin; and heterosexual
wives. These conceptualizations are indicative of the limited role Gonzalez and
others envisioned women playing in a liberation movement, based on traditional
family values that are sexist and hetero-normative. Although women were
encouraged to get an education, be active in the community, and possibly pursue a
career, they were still expected to fulfill traditional gender roles as mothers and
wives.
21

For Gonzáles and many Chicano activists of this period, machismo was a source
of strength and a badge of honor that one earned through fearless and self-sacrificing
resistance. He claimed to be "bold with Machismo.
22
" Finally, the prototype of the
Chicano emerges, legendary Joaquin Murieta, a nineteenth century Mexican in
California who took the law into his own hands to avenge wrongs he believed were
committed to his wife, family, and people by an unjust United States government and
white citizenry.
23
Thus Gonzáles regards Murieta as a hero and prototype for
Chicano militancy, not as a criminal, but as one that is willing to put his life on the
line to fight against a system that oppresses his people. During the Chicana/o

21
“What is a Chicana?” El Popo 1, no. 1 (10 Mar 1970): 3, The El Popo Newspaper Collection,
Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

22
In the first issue of El Popo, CSUN MEChA’s newsletter, had several references to I Am Joaquin
and being “Macho.” See El Popo 1, no. 1 (10 Mar 1970): 2, The El Popo Newspaper Collection,
Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

23
Joaquín Murieta was an outlaw to white newcomers to California, but a folk hero for poor people of
Mexican and Latin American descent. For historical and fictional works on Murrieta, see Walter
Noble Burns, The Robin Hood of El Dorado: The Saga of Joaquin Murrieta, Famous Outlaw of
California's Age of Gold, (New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 1999); and Ireneo Paz,
Vida y aventuras del más célebre bandido sonorense Joaquin Murrieta: sus grandes proezas en
California, (Mexico, 1904; reprint, Houston, Tex.: Arte Público Press, 1999).
33

Movement youth involved in gangs were welcome to become the “warriors” of the
movement, to defend their people and barrio.
Internal Colony Model
The Black Power movement’s claim that the Black ghetto was an internal colony
of the United States' white power structure heavily influenced the contours of
Chicanismo and the Chicana/o Movement. The idea of domestic colonialism
emerged in the 1950s and in the early 1960s African American scholars began to call
African American communities domestic colonies.
24
Stokely Carmichael (a.k.a.
Kwame Ture) and Charles V. Hamilton described the black colonial situation in their
1967 book, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation.
25
They argued that the black
ghetto was a colony because political and economic decisions were made directly or
indirectly by the white power structure. Blacks, in local government, were tokens
and puppets co-opted, silenced, and manipulated into reifying the status quo.
Carmichael and Hamilton claimed blacks were the economic salvation of whites.
Nevertheless, whites kept blacks in a cycle of poverty that only allowed a few
African Americans, who were willing to reject their blackness and assimilate into
white society, to escape. In the view of Carmichael and Hamilton, whites
perpetuated colonization by maintain a racial hierarchy and hegemony that

24
For studies from the early 1960s that argued that black ghettos in the United States were domestic
colonies, see Harold Cruse, Rebellion or Revolution (New York: Morrow, 1968); and Kenneth Clark,
Youth in the Ghetto (New York: Morrow, 1968). For an analysis of the internal colony model as its
been applied to Latina/os and ethnic Mexicans in the United States, see Armando Navarro, Mexicano
Political Experience in Occupied Aztlan: Struggles and Change (Oxford: Altamira Press, 2005), 1-29.

25
Carmichael was the former chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and he
would become the honorary Prime Minister of the Black Panther Party. Charles V. Hamilton was a
political scientist and university professor, critical of the United States’ government.
34

naturalized white privilege and marginalized blacks. Furthermore, whites entered
the ghetto to extract profits and goods, colonial economic practices that did not
benefit blacks or improve their socioeconomic condition. According to Carmichael
and Hamilton, the relationship between black ghettos and white United States
citizens was no different from that of European colonial powers and African
colonies.
26

California State University Northridge professor Rodolfo Acuña made a big
impression on Chicana/o activists and Chicano Studies when he applied the internal
colony model to Chicana/o history in his 1972 study, Occupied America: The
Chicano's Struggle Toward Liberation.
27
This work provided scholastic support to
the convictions of Chicana/o Movement activists of the early 1970s. Acuña argued
that:
…the experience of Chicanos in the United States parallels that of the other Third
World people who have suffered under the colonialism of technologically
superior nations. Thus the thesis of this monograph is that Chicanos in the United
States are a colonized people.
28

26
Kwane Ture and Charles V. Hamilton, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation, (New York:
Random House, 1967; reprint, New York: Vintage Books, 1992), 2-32 (page citations are to the
reprint edition).

27
The internal colony model as it relates to Chicana/o history has been criticized and dismissed by
most Chicana/o scholars today. For such critiques of the internal colony model in Chicana/o
historiography, see Tomás Almaguer, “Ideological Distortions in Recent Chicano Historiography: The
Internal Model and Chicano Historical Interpretation,” Aztlan: International Journal of Chicano
Studies Research 18 (Spring, 1987): 7-28; Alex M. Saragoza, “Recent Chicano Historiography: An
Interpretive Essay,” Aztlan: International Journal of Chicano Studies Research 19 (1988-1990) 1-71;
Yves-Charles Grandjeat, “Conflicts and Cohesiveness: The Elusive Quest for a Chicano History,”
Aztlan: International Journal of Chicano Studies Research 18 (Spring, 1987): 45-58. For a study that
still employs aspects of the internal colony model and provides an analyses of the model as it has been
employed and critiqued by Chicana/o scholars, see Armando Navarro, Mexicano Political Experience
in Occupied Aztlán: Struggles and Change (Oxford: Altamira Press, 2005).

35

Acuña contended that Chicana/os experienced traditional colonization in the
nineteenth century. The United States army and citizenry invaded Mexico and
brutally conquered, dominated, and exploited Mexicans and Native Americans living
in what was Northern Mexico. He claimed that people of Mexican descent in the
United States experienced internal colonization in the twentieth century. Federal and
local authorities relegated them to a submerged caste, denying them political and
economic self determination. This study supported the symbolism of I Am Joaquin
with professional research.
29

Mexican American Student Activism in California
This section focuses on the first major networks of Chicana/o student
organizations in California’s higher education system and the series of events that
contextualize the formation of MEChA. Mexican American student organizations
existed in the past, the most prominent of which being the Mexican American
Movement of the 1930s and 1940s, but theses were primarily found in K-12
institutions.
30
Some precursor Mexican American organizations formed in college
campuses such as Student Initiative in California State University (CSU) San Jose
and the Mexican American Student Association of East Los Angeles College. Yet,

28
Rodolfo “Rudy” Acuña, Occupied America: The Chicano's Struggle Toward Liberation (San
Francisco: Canfield Press, 1972), iii.

29
For a single study that applies the model to several minority groups in the United States, see Robert
Blauner, Racial Oppression in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1972).

30
Carlos Muñoz, Jr. Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement, 1
st
ed. (London: Verso, 1989),
19-44; George J. Sánchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture and Identity in Chicano
Los Angeles, 1900-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 253-269.
36

they were isolated organizations. The formation of the United Mexican American
Students and the Mexican American Student Confederation in 1967 marked the
beginning of Mexican American college student organizations that were
interconnected across campuses to form a network of activists. They had an
immediate impact on their respective college campuses, accelerating the
implementation of affirmative action programs that exponentially increased the
Latina/o presence on campus and the establishment of Mexican American Studies
departments, programs, and courses. These college organizations also contributed to
community struggles by encouraging and supporting barrio student walkouts
protesting the learning conditions and policies in K-12 schools, volunteering and
demonstrating for the United Farm Workers as well as for other worker struggles,
and participating in a myriad of barrio related social justice issues. Their efforts
contributed to the rise of the Chicana/o student movement and the formation of
MEChA.
Inspired by the activism of their student peers, community leaders, and
international movements, approximately five hundred college students of Mexican
and Latin American descent converged on the downtown Los Angeles campus of
Loyola University on 7 May 1967 to coordinate the efforts of Mexican American and
Latino college student activists in the state of California.
31
Some students were
already involved in Mexican American organizations like those from East Los
Angeles College who were in the Mexican American Student Association (MASA),

31
In 1973, Loyola University merged with Marymount College to form Loyola Marymount
University. The Loyola University campus became the Loyola Law School.
37

but most were not. Students in attendance adopted a “statewide” structure under a
new organization, the United Mexican American Students (UMAS). Although
UMAS was statewide on paper, it was more accurately representative of Los Angeles
County and to some extent Southern California. Its founding meeting was held in
Los Angeles. Al Juarez, UMAS’ first California chair, attended the University of
California Los Angeles. Lucille Roybal, its first California co-chair, attended the
California State University Los Angeles.
32
Los Angeles county college campuses
became a hub of Chicana/o student activism in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They
inspired Chicana/o students in other parts of California, the Southwest, and the
nation, to take action and form UMAS chapters of their own.
33

UMAS’ main goal was to reform the educational system to better serve the
Mexican American community on and off campus. They focused on creating
campus outreach, retention, curriculum, research, and cultural celebrations dedicated
to Mexican Americans. UMAS attempted to increase the number of Mexican
American students, faculty, and administrators on college campuses, and took on
social justice issues in barrios and colonias.
34
UMAS employed an amicable tone

32
Lucille Roybal is the daughter of Congressman Edward Roybal, who served as congressman from
1962 to 1992, and in 1949 he became the first Mexican American city councilman of the City of Los
Angeles. Lucille Roybal went on to become a member of the California State Assembly from 1986 to
1992 and has been a member of the United States’ House of Representatives since 1993.

33
MEChA Members at Arizona State University were directly influenced by the activities of MEChA
Members in LA County, see Maria Eva Valle, “MEChA and The Transformation of Chicano Student
Activism: Generational Change, Conflict, and Continuity,” (Ph D. Dissertation in Sociology,
University of California San Diego, 1996), 126. UMAS spread into Colorado, Gonzáles and Jiménez
“Chicanos: Identity Recovered by Corky Gonzáles and Cha Cha Jiménez,” 158. An UMAS chapter
emerged in the Midwest, at Notre Dame University, in the state of Illinois, see Muñoz (1989), 58.

38

and strategy to convince administrators that these reforms were beneficial and
necessary, but they were also willing to take on a more militant and action oriented
tone when they deemed it necessary.
35

At times, UMAS collaborated with black student organizations, such as the Black
Student Union (BSU), to pressure institutions of higher education into instituting
their demands.
36
After a series of events in the fall of 1968, black students led the
charge against racism at California State University Northridge (CSUN), through
demonstrations and making several demands on the university administration.
CSUN’s BSU and UMAS formed a coalition, with the latter adding its own set of
demands. Together, they successfully pressured the university to increase the
number of people of color on campus as students, faculty, staff, and administrators,
as well as establish departments for both Mexican American and African American
Studies.
37
At the University of Southern California (USC), BSU and UMAS jointly
ran a tutoring program focused on the retention of black and Latina/o students at the

34
Daniel E. Contreras, “How Did We Get Chicano Studies?” El Popo 10, no. 1 (Sep/Oct 1976): 5,
Box 1 / Folder 24, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department,
Urban Archives Center, CSUN; Teresa McKenna, interview by author, digital audio recording, Los
Angeles, CA, 24 November 2007.

35
Beto, interviewed by author, 16 January 2007, South Pasadena, Calif., digital audio recording;
Muñoz, 1989, 67.

36
Chicana/os and African Americans were also known to fight over these and other resources
provided by universities, colleges, and the government to ameliorate the effects of discrimination and
poverty.

37
Daniel E. Contreras, “How Did We Get Chicano Studies?” El Popo 10, no. 1 (Sep/Oct 1976): 6,
Box 1 / Folder 24; El Popo 3, no. 2: 2 , Box 1/ Folder 9, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana
and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
39

university.
38
Thus, UMAS supported many of the efforts of African American
student organizations, and some students of Mexican descent were BSU members,
but UMAS used these collaborative works to make sure their community’s issues
were addressed.
39

Teresa McKenna was both a BSU and UMAS member as an undergraduate
student at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Her parents are
Mexican immigrants who raised six United States born children in Wilmington,
California.
40
McKenna’s father and both of her grandmothers were union members.
They exposed McKenna to pro-labor politics and the Democratic Party at a young
age. McKenna became politically active herself during her first semester at UCLA.
She joined the BSU first and by the end of the semester, McKenna joined UMAS as
well. She remembers mourning the death of Martin Luther King Jr. with other BSU
members, and feeling compelled to keep up his work and struggle. McKenna also
participated in the Viva Kennedy campaign for Robert F. Kennedy, and she was at
the Ambassador Hotel when he was assassinated.
41

The Mexican American Student Confederation (MASC) became the principle
organization amongst Mexican American college students in Northern and Central
California. Akin to UMAS, MASC was founded to coordinate the efforts of

38
Mary Ann Pacheco, interview by author, 29 November 2004, Whittier, Calif., digital audio
recording.

39
Teresa McKenna, interview by author, 24 November 2007, Los Angeles, digital audio recording.

40
Wilmington is a working class city, south of the City of Los Angeles, close to the Port of Los
Angeles.

41
Teresa McKenna, interview by author, 24 November 2007, Los Angeles, digital audio recording.
40

Mexican American students in the region and represent a united front. Mexican
American college students formed MASC chapters from the Bay Area to Monterey
County. They spread east into Fresno County and the San Joaquin Valley, and as far
south as Bakersfield.
42

In March of 1968, the MASC chapter of the California State University of San
Jose (CSUSJ) published an indictment of United States’ authorities in their
newsletter La Palabra de MASC:
The materialistic, racist pig who has oppressed and exploited minorities for four
centuries must be sensitized to pain; and it is the function of “MASC” to see that
this is done, either through psychological sabotage or whatever means necessary
in order to establish a society in which justice is truly possible.
43

MASC not only demanded educational reform and a just society, but claimed that it
was necessary for them to punish the oppressive forces of society whose trail of
crimes began in the sixteenth century. This statement stands out amongst Chicana/o
student organizations of the time because it considers other minorities, looks beyond
1848 as the origin of oppression, and openly refers to the possibility of violence,
sabotage, and the dispensing of “justice.”
MASC was well acquainted with and collaborated with other people of color
organizations in the region. MASC participated in the Third World Liberation Front
student strikes of 1968 and 1969 in the Bay Area. Several MASC chapters were
located in the political hotbeds of Berkeley, San Francisco, and Oakland, and they

42
Juan Olivérez, “Chicano Student Activism At San Jose State College, 1967-1972: An Analysis of
Ideology, Leadership and Change” (Ph D dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, 1991), 49,
122.

43
Ibid., 49.
41

participated in the mass student demonstrations of the region. While UMAS did
work with other student of color groups, the Third World Liberation Front created a
spirit of unity and a specific type of third world politics and rhetoric that did not have
a counterpart in Southern California.
44
These regional differences in political
experience would come to frustrate future attempts at uniting Chicana/o student
activists. Regardless of the rhetorical and possible ideological differences, MASC
and UMAS had similar goals and tactics, and both were non-violent.
Regardless of commonalities in plight and sporadic alliances for change,
Mexican Americans in the late 1960s were wary of their concerns being overlooked
for the plight of African Americans even in areas where people of Mexican descent
made up the majority of those afflicted by poverty and discrimination. This fear
began with War on Poverty programs that primarily targeted blacks and carried over
to affirmative action programs and services meant to address discrimination in higher
education. On 1 November 1967, CSU San Jose MASC protested the film “Day of
Concern” produced by liberal faculty members attempting to address racism and
discrimination on campus and in San Jose. Although Mexican Americans made up
twenty percent of the total population in San Jose compared to blacks who made up
two percent, the film did not address the Chicana/o experience. CSUSJ MASC
successfully protested to include the Chicana/o experience in the film and help raise
awareness of their community’s plight.
45

44
Muñoz, 1989, 69-70.

42

Chicana/o student activists made national headlines for the first time with the
East Los Angeles blowouts in March of 1968. This was first Chicana/o run mass
protest against racism in the United States, with thousands of high school students
walking out of class participating in a week of demonstrations.
46
Carlos Muñoz, an
UMAS member at the time and supporter of the walkouts, argues that “…the strike's
major purpose was to protest racist teachers and school policies, the lack of freedom
of speech, the lack of teachers of Mexican descent, and the absence of classes on
Mexican and Mexican American culture and history.”
47
These walkouts and protests
were driven by the leadership and numbers of high school students, but UMAS
members and community youth in the Brown Berets played supporting roles. They
provided high school students advice, logistical support, and attempted to monitor
and prevent police brutality.
The Brown Berets became the Chicana/o Movement’s symbol of self-defense
against government suppression and police brutality. It was founded as a politically
moderate youth group by East Los Angeles students in 1966, but persistent police
harassment of members, radicalized the organization into becoming a militant
Chicana/o Movement youth troop set on defending the Chicana/o community from
government abuse.
48
The Brown Berets modeled their dress, comportment, and

45
Juan Olivérez, “Chicano Student Activism At San Jose State College, 1967-1972: An Analysis of
Ideology, Leadership and Change,” 36.

46
Muñoz, 1989, 64.

47
Ibid., xi.

43

organizational structure after the Black Panther Party, which they occasionally
worked with, however they did not adopt the party’s Marxist-Leninist views. The
Brown Berets’ Prime Minister, David Sanchez, held an anti-communist stance
similar to that of middle class Mexican American organizations, and he was known
to come down on Marxist-Leninist members of the group.
49
The Brown Berets
gained notoriety as the security guards of the community during the East Los
Angeles blowouts and for their role in co-organizing the East Los Angeles Chicano
Moratorium of 1970. Unlike the Black Panthers in the early days of their organizing,
Brown Berets did not brazen weapons and their methods were non-violent.
The national media attention dedicated to the walkouts and associated protests
inspired other Chicana/o high school students to stage walkouts throughout the
Southwest. This was the birth of the Chicana/o student movement. Soon after the
week of blowouts in East Los Angeles, authorities arrested thirteen activists and
charged them with conspiracy to commit crimes. Ten out of the thirteen arrested
were students, and two of them were UMAS members: Moctezuma Esparza from
UCLA and Carlos Muñoz from CSULA.
50
The arrest of the “East L.A. 13” became a

48
Ernesto Chávez, My People First “!Mi Raza Primero!” Nationalism, Identity, and Insurgency in
the Chicano Student Movement in Los Angeles, 1966-1978 (Los Angels: University of California
Press, 2002), 44-45.

49
By this, I mean the organizations associated to the “Mexican American Generation” of the late
1920s through the 1950s, such as the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Mexican
American Movement, and the American G.I. Forum. See George J. Sánchez, Becoming Mexican
American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1993), 253-270; Lorena Oropeza, Raza sí!, guerra no!: Chicano Protest and
Patriotism During the Viet Nam War Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 11-46.

50
Muñoz, 1989, 68.
44

cause of protest in itself, spawning a new round of demonstrations in Los Angeles.
Chicano/a high school and junior high school students began walking out of classes
through the Southwest with the help of older student and youth organizations. MASC
helped organize student walkouts in Northern California. The Mexican American
Youth Organization of Texas helped stage walkouts there, while the Crusade for
Justice helped coordinate student walkouts in Colorado.
51
These actions not only
politicized Mexican American and Latino youth but increased the number and
strength of these student organizations as well as the sense and need of a united
Chicana/o student movement.
The National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference was the first effort to
nationalize the local and regional efforts of Mexican American and Latina/o youth
and student activist organizations. The Crusade for Justice hosted the conference in
Denver, which lasted from March 17 to March 31, 1969. Approximately one-
thousand five-hundred organizers representing over one-hundred Latina/o youth
organizations from across the nation gathered to discuss issues affecting their
communities and to formalize the Chicana/o Movement.
52
California Chicana/o
youth activists were well organized by this time and made up the largest statewide

51
Juan Olivérez, “Chicano Student Activism At San Jose State College, 1967-1972: An Analysis of
Ideology, Leadership and Change,” 45-46; Muñoz, 1989, 70; Gonzáles and Jiménez, 158; Ignacio M.
García, United We Stand: The Rise and Fall of La Raza Unida Party (Tucson: University of Arizona
Press, 1989), 28-50.

52
Ignacio M. García, Chicanismo: The Forging of a Militant Ethos Among Mexican American
(Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997), 93. The Crusade for Justice invited Puerto Rican youth
groups like the Young lords and they attended the conference from cities like Chicago and New York.
For more on the relationship between the Crusade for Justice and the Young Lords, see Gonzáles and
Jiménez, 150-166.
45

contingent represented at the conference. Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzáles took full
advantage of the occasion to spread his thoughts on Chicanismo and encourage
participants to adopt a Chicana/o identity. Gonzáles declared the United States
Southwest Aztlán, Chicana/os ancestral homeland, and challenged participants to
reclaim it.
Aztlán became a battle cry, for it represented Chicano roots that extended deep
into the history of the land. This land was the land of the ancestors, and those
who crossed the river came not as strangers but as the sons and daughters of the
former Aztecs, seeking to reclaim what was once theirs.
53

The concept of Aztlán provided Mexican Americans with a common origin and
nationhood, as well as a sense of entitlement to the land, resources, and power in the
Southwest.
From this conference emerged El Plan de Aztlán (EPDA) one of the most
significant documents produced by the Chicana/o Movement.
54
Drawing on the
Mexican tradition of declaring goals of revolts through a plan, participants used the
EPDA to declare their resolve and strategy for Chicana/o liberation.
55
The EPDA
opens with a poem written by poet Alurista, called El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán.
Like I Am Joaquín, this poem drew on nation building themes. It declared
Chicana/os were a "bronze” people, with a “bronze” culture, descendants of the

53
García, Chicanismo, 95.

54
The El Plan de Aztlan is commonly mistaken as MEChA’s founding document, but it predates the
organization. MEChA recognizes the plan as a guiding document. El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan, the
preamble of El Plan de Aztlan, receives the most attention and that is why the whole document is
commonly referred to by that title.

55
Historically, Mexicans have written plans of action to announce their grievances and intentions to
remedy them through rebellion. See Acuña, Occupied America: The Chicano Struggle Toward
Liberation, 230.
46

Aztecs, and true owners of Aztlán (the Southwest) which is occupied by a European /
gringo / gabacho enemy.
56
El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan is controversial because it
concludes with a declaration of independence.
With our heart in our hands and our hands in the soil, we declare the
independence of our mestizo nation…Before the world, before North America,
before all our brothers and sisters in the bronze continent, we are a nation, we are
a union of free pueblos, we are Aztlán.
57

Alurista heavily emphasized the indigenous roots of Chicanos, especially those that
tied Chicana/os to Aztlán. According to El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan Chicana/o
identity came from their blood and history, and it bestowed them with a
responsibility and destiny. This declaration also reinforces the idea that Chicana/os
are a farm working people that are entitled to land tenure due to their labor and
ancestry.
El Plan de Aztlan also contained a list of goals, principles, and set actions to
come, but from these, the most representative of the emerging Chicano movement
were the organizational goals. The first goal was to use nationalism (Chicanismo) as
the basis of unity and action. They argued that Chicanismo would serve as the
common denominator of all "la Raza," regardless of "religious, political, class, and
economic factions or boundaries."
58
Gonzáles stated after the conference,

56
Gringo and Gabacho are Spanish references to Euro-Americans of the United States. Depending
on the context of use, these labels can be derogatory.

57
Francisco A. Rosales, ed., Testimonio: A Documentary History of the Mexican American Struggle
for Civil Rights, (Houston, Texas: Arte Público Press, 2000) 361.

58
Ibid. La Raza literally means the race, but like several names of indigenous nations, La Raza meant
the people. Chicana/os commonly used the phrase to refer to all people of Mexican and Latin
47

When we wrote the Plan we didn’t want to make it a plan of any one city, we
wanted it to be a regional thing so that we could all identify with it, instead of
trying to identify with one certain place, so we bring our minds and our bodies
together. We wanted the Indians to identify with it too.
59

Thus the conference, El Plan de Aztlan, Chicana/o identity, and Chicanismo were all
meant to solidify local organizations and campaign into a united movement and
cause, the liberation la Raza of Aztlan.
Although the conference was a success, there were underlying tensions and
conflicting views that hampered the experience of some conference participants and
help explain some of the ambiguities and contradictions found in El Plan de Aztlan.
While some Chicanas hoped that sexism and patriarchy would be addressed at the
conference and that they would become an issue addressed by the movement, these
Chicanas were disappointed to find that the “Chicana workshop” voted to set those
issues aside for unity’s sake.
60
Although, El Plan de Aztlan condemns capitalism and
calls for the expulsion of people and institutions that exploit the community, they
refuse to call for a Marxist-Leninist revolution and economic system. Instead they
called for communal ownership, autonomy, and humane economic development.
61

While some Chicana/os were influenced by or/and worked with New Left, Marxist-
Leninist, and women’s liberation groups, the overriding sentiment amongst

American descent. I discuss the meaning and use of the phrase La Raza in chapter 4 of this
dissertation.

59
Gonzáles and Jiménez, 155.

60
Enriqueta Vasquez, “The Woman of La Raza, Part 1” (6 July 1969): 116-121, In Enriqueta Vasquez
and the Chicano Movement: Readings from El Grito del Norte, ed. Lorena Oropeza and Dionne
Espinoza (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 2006); Muñoz, 2007, 93.

61
Rosales, Testimonio, 363.
48

conference goers was suspicion for these groups and their ideology, which they
regarded as a middle-class “white thing.” Despite the fact that El Plan Espiritual de
Aztlan declares independence from the United States, the goal section of El Plan de
Aztlan calls for the formation of an alternative Chicana/o political party within the
United States electoral system.
62
This highlights the lack of consensus and
heterogeneity of views that existed on the issue of self-determination and autonomy.
While some called for secession from the United States, most believed that a
Chicana/o third party was a more viable venue for change.
63

Eager to put El Plan de Aztlan into practice, over one hundred Chicana/o
students, faculty, and staff convened at the University of California Santa Barbara in
April 1969 to create a statewide Chicana/o plan for educational reform in
California’s colleges and universities. The Chicano Coordinating Counsel of Higher
Education (CCCHE) organized the conference to develop Chicana/o based
curriculum and services to provide barrio residents greater access to the resources
and education available on college and university campuses, and to give them greater
decision making power on these campuses. Conference participants created El Plan
de Santa Barbara: A Chicano Plan for Higher Education. This document
recognized for its pivotal role in the establishment of Chicano/a Studies and the
founding of largest and longest lasting network of Chicana/o student activists,

62
Ibid.

63
According to Martin Sánchez Janknoski, separatists were a minority amongst those that came to
identify as Chicana/o nationalist, see Martin Sánchez Janknoski, “Thoughts-Where have all the
nationalists gone?,” in Chicano Politics and Society in the Late Twentieth Century, ed. David
Montejano (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999), 201-233.
49

Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA).
64
Representatives from student
organizations agreed to drop their old names like United Mexican American
Students, Mexican American Student Confederation, and Mexican American Youth
Association and adopt a new one that emphasized Chicana/o identity, conscious, and
unity.
65
For students in attendance, the spread and growing use of the term Chicana/o
marked an increasing consciousness and solidarity amongst Chicana/os working for
a common cause.
66

MEChA is a first step to tying the student groups through-out the Southwest into
a vibrant and responsive network of activists that will respond as a unit to the
oppression and racism that will work in harmony when initiating and carrying
out campaigns of liberation for our people.
67

MEChA was commissioned to be an all-in-one Chicana/o Movement campus
organization, making it impossible for chapters to live up to the expectations
delineated in El Plan de Santa Barbara. It was supposed to politicize, organize, and
integrate Latino students into the Chicana/o Movement and the struggle for
Chicana/o political, economic, and cultural self-determination. MEChA was
expected to ingrain the tenets of Chicanismo into every student on campus and in the
barrio.

64
El Plan de Santa Barbara: A Chicano Plan for Higher Education (Oakland, Calif.: La Causa
Publications, 1969), 51.

65
Muñoz, 1989, 79. This name change was not automatic as organizations had to individually vote
whether or not to adopt the new name. While some did not, most in California did. MEChA chapters
soon emerged in colleges and universities with sizable student populations of ethnic Mexicans.

66
El Plan de Santa Barbara, 9.

67
Ibid., 54.
50

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.
68

It was meant to simulate a sense of agency and urgency in students of Mexican and
Latin American descent as well as counteract negative psychological effects of a
capitalist and imperialist society. Furthermore, MEChA was expected to establish
space on campus for Chicana/o intellectual, social, cultural, and political exchange.
69

Finally, MEChA was supposed to be a bridge between the barrio and institutions of
higher education, opening these institutions to barrio residents and their input, while
remaining an organic part of the barrio.
USC MEChA
Due to its broad mandate and non-centralized organizational structure, MEChA
chapters remained autonomous and highly responsive to their local conditions and
priorities. While there was coordination for certain campaigns, and communication
was maintained through city, county, region, and statewide meetings, MEChA’s
acted as independent allied organizations. Thus, resolutions at conferences were
taken as suggested positions and directions and further ensuring a wide range of
goals, tactics, and actions some chapters sprang up with little communication with
the MEChA network.
The experience of Mary Ann Pacheco at the University of Southern California
(USC) is a fine example of the experience of MEChA members during this time

68
Ibid.

69
Ibid., 55.
51

period in a private university. She is the United States born daughter of a New
Mexican father whose family goes back several generations in that state, and of a
Sonoran mother whose family migrated to the United States during the Mexican
Revolution. Pacheco’s family was well acquainted with higher education. Her
mother took community college classes when Pacheco was eight, and several of her
older siblings attended colleges and universities. She was predisposed to leftist
politics by the teachings of her Democratic parents and the encouragement of one of
her older sisters that was involved with the UMAS chapter at CSU Los Angeles.
Pacheco joined USC UMAS, as a freshman, in the fall of 1969 and served as
both the secretary of the BSU-UMAS tutoring program and the liaison for both
organizations. UMAS and later MEChA—USC UMAS adopted the new name in the
fall of 1969—provided Chicana/o students a sense of belonging, helping them meet
other students that shared their cultural traditions and to a certain extant their
political philosophy. Pacheco’s activism, on campus, varied from becoming an
Ethnic Studies co-major—to support the fledgling program—to picketing the USC
School of Education for retaliating against USC Chicana/o students in the Migrant
Teacher Core that decided to work with the United Farm Workers (UFW) union.
70

Pacheco rose up the ranks of USC MEChA and played leading roles in the
establishment of USC’s El Centro Chicano and the organization El Festival de Flor

70
The Migrant Teaching Core was a program developed to train university students to become
teachers in migrant labor camps. Participants gained hands on experience teaching at labor camps,
but the university administration punished USC students that used this program to directly support the
UFW’s unionization efforts. Mary Ann Pacheco, interview by author, 29 November 2004, Whittier,
Calif., digital audio recording.
52

y Canto. USC MEChA underwent a campaign to gain adequate office space after
their initial requests were not met. Members held a series of meetings with several
university officials as well as demonstrations to put pressure on the university.
Pacheco was the chair of USC MEChA and she served as the spokeswomen for the
group when dealing with the administration. Although she had the respect and
loyalty of USC MEChA members, she recalls a community supporter asked at an
emergency USC MEChA meeting she was leading, “who’s the chick and why is she
doing all the talking?”
71
Members defended her role as a leader, but in most
MEChA chapters men dominated leadership roles and questioned the ability of
women to lead political action. USC MEChA successfully convinced university
administrators to help students solicit a major private grant to establish El Centro
Chicano. MEChA gained an office, space for Latino students to congregate and hold
events, and a center dedicated to Latino programming at USC staffed by paid
personnel.
The rise of the Chicana/o Movement spurred a Chicana/o cultural renaissance
that USC MEChA showcased in a weekend long open microphone event, El Festival
de Flor y Canto. Movement leaders believed Chicana/o culture was the key to unity
and resistance, and Chicana/o artists responded with a flood of new Chicana/o
themed artwork, theatre acts, and creative writing. USC MEChA followed up the
establishment of El Centro Chicano with a weekend long event that showcased
talented Chicana/o artists from across the country to who came to USC to present

71
Mary Ann Pacheco, interview by author, 29 November 2004, Whittier, Calif., digital audio
recording.
53

their work. The large turnout of artists and attendees was well beyond Pacheco’s
expectations. The University of Southern California Press agreed to record the event
and printed an anthology of the pieces presented, which Pacheco edited.
72
El Festival
de Flor y Canto became a roving annual event that was hosted by several campuses
throughout the Southwest.
73

CSUN MEChA
MEChA chapters varied their activities and outlook due to their local conditions,
such as population size, institution type, political climate, racial tensions, and student
background. Community colleges and California State University system schools
had the largest Chicano/student populations, especially those found in close
proximity to barrios. The California State University at Northridge (CSUN) had a
relatively large Latino student population, especially after the establishment of
special admissions criteria through the Equal Opportunity Program in 1968,
guaranteeing that at least three hundred and fifty Latino students would be admitted
each year between 1969 and 1974.
74
At the other end of the spectrum were private
universities like USC and Stanford University and the upper tier public University of
California (UC) system. In 1967 there were approximately seventy Mexican

72
Alurista, F.A. Cervantes, Juan Gómez-Quiñones, Mary Ann Pacheco, Gustavo Segade, ed., festival
de flor y canto: An Anthology of Chicano Literature (Los Angeles: University of Southern California
Press, 1976).

73
Mary Ann Pacheco, interview by author, 29 November 2004, Whittier, Calif., digital audio
recording.

74
Rafael Marentes, “Minority enrollment declines at CSUN” El Popo 13, no. 3 (March 1979):4, The
El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center,
CSUN.
54

American students at UCLA, while Mary Ann Pacheco recalls a much smaller
number at USC with her incoming class including approximately ten Latino
students.
75
Nevertheless MEChA chapters found their way onto the full spectrum of
California institutions of higher education.
CSUN MEChA provides a representative and well documented experience of
Chicana/o student activism at the peak of the Chicana/o Movement. As a CSU
campus it was more accessible to Latino students, especially those from near by
barrios like Pacoima and the City of San Fernando. The San Fernando Valley was
reputed as a white conservative suburb of Los Angeles, but in the 1960s Latina/o
immigration and white flight shifted the demographic and political contours of the
county and CSUN MEChA experienced the ramifications of the shift.
CSUN MEChA provides an excellent window to this politically turbulent phase
of Chicana/o student activism because members documented their views and actions
on well preserved pages of their newsletter, El Popo. The paper documented the
views of Chicana/o and Latina/o students at CSUN with an alternative media and
Chicana/o movement perspective since 1970. El Popo was part of a broader network
of Chicana/o publications inspired by the Chicana/o Movement and meant to serve
Chicana/os on and off campus across the country. The Chicano Press Association, as
this media network was named, included dozens of Chicano newsletters, newspapers,

75
Mary Ann Pacheco, interview by author, 29 November 2004, Whittier, Calif., digital audio
recording; Lorena Oropeza, !Raza Si! !Guerra No! Chicano Protest and Patriotism During the
Vietnam War Era (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), 223; United States
Commission on Civil Rights, California Advisory Committee, Education and the Mexican American
Community in Los Angeles County, 4.
55

journals, and magazines.
76
El Popo staff envisioned their newsletter becoming the
San Fernando Valley and Ventura County barrio residents’ newspaper of choice.
77

As mandated by the Plan de Santa Barbara, CSUN MEChA members fought to
make their university accessible to their community. In the 1970s, this meant
defending gains made in the late 1960s. When California State Harmer Bill (SB
1072) threatened Equal Opportunity Programs, El Popo staff writers indicted
politicians and called the Chicana/o community into attention:
…the racist institutions of this nation have systematically excluded the great
majority of Chicano students from…a college education. The EOP programs
have just barely begun to right the imbalance of decades of injustices. But the
many covert racists, in and out of public office, dislike even the little bit already
being done, so Chicano students must be on guard….More important, the
Mexican American community must be on guard. They must oppose the racist
intentions of close-minded Anglo politicians and educators to keep them in their
position as society’s lower class workers…We must, in fact, reform the
educational system starting at the kindergarten level, in order to make it more
responsive to our community.
78

CSUN MEChA members believed that eliminating or reducing EOP programs was a
step back to the old status quo which inhibited their community’s social mobility.
They countered that educational reform had not gone deep enough, and should be
taken to the lower levels of education to make these institutions serve the Chicana/o
community.

76
El Popo 3, no. 3: 7, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department,
Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

77
At this point CSUN was called San Fernando Valley State University. It changed names in the
1970s, but for the sake of clarity I use CSUN throughout. “El Popo—Why?--?Por que?,” El Popo 1,
no. 1 (March, 1970): 2, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies
Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

78
El Popo 1, no. 3 (5 May 1970): 10, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano
Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
56

CSUN MEChA and activist Chicana/o faculty envisioned an educational system
that prioritized creating community and civic leaders with the tools to improve
barrio conditions, instead of cogs for an economic and political system that exploited
and oppressed people of Mexican descent. Chicana/o Studies was in this transition
from a university that produced Mexican Americans, to one that produced
Chicana/os.
…“Mexican American” in contemporary Chicano thought is that of a Mexican
who seeks acculturation…This desire for assimilation features certain aspects
which are of negative value for positive self-identity and self-respect. One aspect
is that the Mexican American either rejects his Mexican heritage or else places it
in a role of secondary importance to Anglo culture. In effect, what the Mexican
American is doing when he devaluates (sic) his heritage, is admitting the
inferiority of his parents; the living symbol of Chicano heritage. Because the
Mexican American seeks acculturation, his commitment to the Chicano cause
can only be a contradiction to his now distorted values.
79

In their view, Mexican American graduates prioritized individual social mobility and
societal acceptance over any commitment to their community. These products of
unreformed higher education attributed barrio poverty to Mexican culture and lack
of work ethic, instead of racism. This view of Mexican Americans illustrates how
Chicana/o student activists saw professional Mexican Americans and their middle
class organizations. Chicana/os activists would later attribute similar characteristics
to the term Hispanic.
Attaining and defending Chicana/o spaces and physical markers on campus was a
common cause for MEChA members who regarded them as a symbol of their
success as activists and the university community’s acceptance and goodwill towards

79
El Popo 1, no. 3 (May 5
th
, 1970): 10, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano
Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
57

Chicana/os. On the other hand, MEChA members interpreted lack of Chicana/o
spaces and markers as a rejection of their Chicano community. Thus, Chicana/o
students were in an uproar when CSUN’s Chicano House, a multi-purpose service
center for Chicana/o students, burned down on 5 May 1970. Making matters worse,
police officers brutally arrested two Chicana student onlookers. Chicana/o activist
believed the fire was an act of arson planned specifically on the Mexican and
Chicano holiday, Cinco de Mayo. This solidified a “them” versus “US” sentiment
amongst several CSUN MEChA members who concluded:
educational reform in which the chicano would have self determination is at the
present impossible…many state and school officials have determined that our
students fail before they begin… the Chicano on campus is alone. Anglos on
campus only think in White and Black wave lengths, and while we deeply care
about other students who are harrassed, they only care about their own… San
Fernando Valley State College considers the Chicano community alien and only
relates to White Northridge…With these realizations in mind, we can only rely
on the support of our fellow Mexicanos.
80

Feeling isolated in their time of need, CSUN MEChA members turned to their on
and off campus community for support. They raised bail money to release the
arrested Chicana students and organized one hundred plus person demonstration on
campus condemning the act of arson and demanding the university replace their
Chicano House. This whole episode united Chicana/o students and galvanized
activism a racist and violent enemy, “the chicano community is once again reminded

80
“!JUNTA IMPORTANTE,” El Popo 1, Special Issue (May 6, 1970): 3, Southern California
Periodicals Collection, Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles.
58

that to be equal in the land of the free necessitates a struggle equal to that aimed at
keeping us in bondage.”
81

The Fragmentation of the Chicana/o Movement
The Crusade for Justice hosted a second National Chicana/o Youth Liberation
Conference in March of 1970 attracting more than three thousand youth from Los
Angeles to New York with several representatives of MEChA chapters present.
Conference participants decided to create a Chicana/o third party that would function
within the United States electoral system, yet form the basis for Aztlan’s
government. They resolved to create a Congress of Aztlan that would govern the
political party and address political issues concerning the nation of Aztlan.
82

Chicana/o student activists were the foot soldiers of the campaign to make this a
reality in California. The San Fernando Valley chapter of La Raza Unida enjoyed
the support of CSUN MEChA members and Raul Ruiz, a Chicano Studies professor
at CSUN, unsuccessfully ran for local office on the party ticket. MEChA members
helped organize political campaigns and conferences to develop the party’s platform
and win elections. José Ángel Gutiérrez, the most successful party leader,
recognized California student efforts and constantly traveled from Texas to address
California MEChA chapters. In the spring of 1971, Gutiérrez spoke at CSUN about
the party’s successes in Texas and especially in Crystal City.

81
El Popo 1, Special Issue (6 May 1970): 1, 4, Southern California Periodicals Collection, Southern
California Library of Social Science and Research, Los Angeles.

82
El Popo 1, no. 2 (April 7, 1970): 6, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano
Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
59

Crystal is a symbol, a model for Aztlan, of Chicanos moving towards liberation.
The gringos created myths about the Chicano as a political animal, saying that he
cannot be organized and is apathetic and only votes for the man who buys the
beer. All these myths have been exploded here…We used what is natural to our
culture—the family—to organize. If one person is badly treated by the gringos,
everybody is. By moving in this spirit, we can all move together against the
ranchers and the rinches (Texas Rangers). We must create many more
Cristales.
83

In the small town of Crystal City, the ethnic Mexican majority united to gain a
foothold of political power long dominated by the white minority. Although the first
successful coalition fell apart, the Texas La Raza Unida Party repeated the feat of the
mid 1960s and took it a step further. They elected a Chicana/o majority to both the
school board and city council, enacting a series of laws and educational reforms
meant to address the needs of the working-class Chicana/o majority. Their success
provided a model for Chicana/os to gain political power in areas where they were the
majority. Nevertheless California Chicana/o activists’ efforts were unsuccessful.
La Raza Unida Party as a viable national party and model for Chicana/o
empowerment suffered a crippling blow at its 1972 national convention. Rodolfo
“Corky” Gonzáles and José Ángel Gutiérrez engaged in a feud for leadership over
the party and the Congress of Aztlan. While Gutierrez believed Chicana/os could
use the party effectively to gain political power within the electoral system, Gonzáles
preferred using the party to radicalize and inform the community through political
campaigns he did not expect to win. The former’s perspective was shaped by his
electoral victories in Southern Texas, while the latter’s views where based on his

83
El Popo 3, no. 3: 3, El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department,
Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
60

electoral losses in Colorado and the sway his ideas held with movement youth. When
Gutierrez won the seat of leadership at the national convention, Gonzáles withdrew
his support for the national party and withheld participation in further Congress of
Aztlan sessions. The national party was further strained by the ideological disputes
that divided the party in California and the party’s inability to win victories beyond
the local level.
84

Another major Chicana/o Movement campaign that California Chicana/o
students played a significant role in was the Chicana/o anti-war movement. Rosalio
Muñoz is one of the most prominent leaders to emerge from this movement. As a
UCLA student, Muñoz became the first Mexican American president of the
Associated Student Body and used his political clout to support UCLA UMAS
efforts to gain funding for programming, protest the University for violating the
UFW grape boycott, and protest racist fraternity parties.
85
As an alumnus, he was
drafted to fight in the Vietnam War but he resisted. Muñoz argued that the Vietnam
War was a form of genocide against Mexican Americans who as a whole were
disproportionately drafted to fight and die. Together with the Brown Berets
organization, he formed an antiwar coalition of Chicana/o organizations under the

84
García, United We Win, 91-148.

85
Oropeza, !Raza Si! !Guerra No!, 118-9; Teresa McKenna, interview by author, digital audio
recording, Los Angeles, CA, 24 November 2007; El Popo 1, no. 2 (April 7, 1970):6, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
61

Chicano Moratorium Committee and set out to challenge the government’s war from
a Chicana/o perspective.
86

Chicana/o students in MEChA opposed the war on their own terms, analyzing the
war effort through Chicanismo. MEChA members participated in a series of
marches against the war organized by the Chicano Moratorium Committee.
Reporting on one of these marches, on 28 February 1970 El Popo noted:
The war the Chicanos must fight is not in Vietnam…it is right here on his own
land…the Southwest. Since the conquest of Northern Mexico. the Chicano has
been exploited by the gringo, who first robbed him of his land then of his culture,
at the same time ignoring his “god-given inalienable rights”….These are the
reasons Chicanos owe no allegiance to this country. He is not going to Vietnam
to liberate the people there from communism, rather he is going there to enslave
the people to American style economy. Why should Chicanos fight in order to
remain slaves at home?
87

Using an internal colony model analysis, Chicano demonstrators refused to cross the
Pacific to fight for a country that stole their land and exploited their labor, all the
while enduring oppression at home. The Vietnamese were under attack from an
imperial power that continued to spread its domination, and Chicana/o activists
believed it was their responsibility to fight the United States and not the Vietcong or
communism.
This type of militancy, calls for the war at home, and Chicano Moratorium
Committee’s ability to organize Chicana/o activists from throughout the country for

86
For a more extensive analysis of the Chicano Moratorium Committee, see Oropeza, !Raza Si!
!Guerra No!; Ernesto Chávez, !Mi Raza Primero! (My People First): Nationalism, Identity, and
Insurgency in the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles, 1966-1978 (Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 2002), 80-97.

87
El Popo 1, no. 1 (March 10, 1970): 5, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano
Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
62

a single cause, resulted in a preemptive attack by the United States government and
local authorities that derailed this movement. Chicano anti-war activism began in
the late 1960s and hit its peak on 29 August 1970 when over 20,000 Chicana/os from
across the country convened in East Los Angeles for the National Chicano
Moratorium march and rally. This event was the largest anti-war march by an ethnic
group in United States, the largest anti-Vietnam war demonstration in Los Angeles,
and the single largest Chicana/o mass demonstration in the country up to that point.
Unfortunately, it also marked the beginning of a series of violent confrontations with
local and federal authorities that resulted in several deaths, including that of
nationally recognized Mexican American journalist Ruben Salazar.
The tentative unity created by the Chicano Moratorium Committee, fell apart
under the constant pressure of United States law enforcement agencies. Organizers
turned against one another due to police harassment, police provocateurs, the
imprisonment of some movement leaders, and the ideological splits that widened
with the assault. Furthermore, ongoing public confrontations with police
undermined the Committee’s influence and diminished the Chicana/o Movement’s
legitimacy amongst barrio residents.
88

Although Chicanismo reached a peak amongst youth in the early 1970s its
ideological hold and the popularity of the Movement was beginning to wane,
especially amongst the larger classes of incoming Latina/o students that benefitted
from Equal Opportunity Programs. By 1971, MEChA members noticed that while

88
Oropeza, !Raza Si! !Guerra No!, 180-182, 185.
63

the Latino population on campus was growing, it was getting harder to retain and
recruit members. Their inability to get a significant percentage of Latina/o students
on campus involved in MEChA sent MEChA members into a tail spin of self-
criticism. They began to focus more on what was wrong with the on campus Latino
community and with the members of the organization, than with proactive activism
on campus and in the barrio. This led to a series of calls to action that were more a
condemnation of what they saw as an increasing apathetic Latino student population,
than a rallying cry against a perverse external enemy. Many that remained involved
engaged in duels to outdo each others’ revolutionary credentials, leading to personal
and ideological disputes that further frustrated MEChA’s recruitment and retention
efforts.
In the spring of 1972, the chair of CSUN MEChA, Ben Saiz, lashed out against
the on campus Chicana/o community. He argued that most people took the
Chicana/o Movement as a fad that they liked to talk about, but few actually did as
much as they could to contribute to the effort. Saiz reminded Chicana/os that they
did not make it to college by individual achievement alone, they had Chicana/o
student activists before them who engaged in collective struggle to help get them into
CSUN and now it was their turn as students to open the doors of the university even
further. Saiz suggested ways of getting involved like joining a MEChA committee,
or becoming a LRUP deputy registrar, but he noted that low participation rates at
CSUN demoralized and angered him.
64

But you can’t help but feel this way when only a few are working and the rest are
playing and you begin to wonder is it worth it? Is it worth working for something
you believe in? Is it worth giving up your time for the movement? Is the
movement worth fighting for? These are some of the questions that can only be
answered by yourselves, for there will no longer be a “middle of the road” course
for anyone to take.
89

Saiz attempts to get people to listen to their conscience, but it seems that he had
asked himself the very same questions he wanted people to answer. The last
sentence reflects the growing radicalization of frustrated MEChA leaders and their
increasing intolerance for seemingly apathetic community members.
If I had it my way every mother fucker or father-fucker who wasn’t working for
the movement would be ripped off of E.O.P. and then we’d see how many
Chicanos would be on campus…I’d rather see 70 committed people than 1,130
opportunists saying they are Chicano.
90

According to his own estimate, less than 10% of the Chicana/o student population at
CSUN was involved in MEChA by the spring of 1972.
Conclusion
In the 1960s, a sector of the Mexican American community grew weary of
traditional modes of politics in the United States and following the political trends of
the times, they decided to employ more assertive tactics and rhetoric. The activism
and ideas of these disenchanted leaders and their organizations stirred the
imagination and hearts of Mexican American youth that created their own action
oriented organizations. Mexican American students and youth formed alliances and

89
Ben Saiz, “Concerned Chicano Addresses All Other Chicanos on Campus: With Slight, Obvious
Variations, this is also directed to all the other campuses where this problem exists,” El Popo 4, No. 3:
2, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

90
El Popo 4, no. 3: 2, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department,
Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
65

networks to collaboratively take action and share ideas with one another. The
cultural nationalist ideas and leadership of Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzáles and that of
other Mexican American intellectuals, as well as the example of the Black Power
Movement, produced a Movement united by the tenets of Chicanismo, plans of
action, and organizational networks.
MEChA was both the product of and an active participant in the Chicana/o
Movement, members contributed through their ideas, educational reform, and
support for community struggle. Produced with the Plan de Santa Barbara in 1969,
activists envisioned an all in one clearing house of Chicana/o student activism for the
movement and barrio, setting a high bar for this fledging network of students in
higher education. Due to its egalitarian and decentralized structure chapters decided
what issues they would tackle on and off campus depending on local conditions and
priorities. MEChA members struggled to open the doors of institutions of higher
education, reform the curriculum, create Chicana/o centered programs and spaces on
campus, and combat instances of discrimination and racism against Latina/o
students. They also actively supported and participated in the United Farm Workers
union, Chicano Press Association, La Raza Unida Party, and the Chicano
Moratorium Committee.
The creators of MEChA and MEChA members set their hopes too high for the
organization and when things did not go as expected they destructively lashed out
against the on campus Latina/o community further isolating the organization. When
UMAS, MASC, and MEChA pressured universities and colleges for greater outreach
66

and retention efforts they expected these new students to naturally become a part of
their organization and the Chicana/o Movement. This did not occur and as the on
campus Latina/o population grew a small and smaller percentage of these students
became part of MEChA. Frustrated by movement failures and what they saw as on
campus apathy, MEChA members became increasingly judgmental, calling out
students and faculty to step out of their conformity and struggle against the powers
that be. These efforts did not increase MEChA membership and instead planted
seeds of resentment on campus communities.
The Chicana/o Movement peaked and set into rapid decline during this same
period. Movement activists suffered from federal and local police repression on a
daily basis, but a series of public and violent confrontations associated to the
Chicano Moratorium march cost activists the support of the broader Mexican
American community and internal movement unity began to unravel. La Raza Unida
Party provided hope to movement activists. MEChA members supported and
campaigned for party candidates, but these efforts were fruitless and the California
chapters of La Raza Unida Party were ideologically divided and unable to unite as a
statewide party. Putting a nail in the coffin of the movement and the viability of La
Raza Unida Party was a power struggle between Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzáles and José
Ángel Gutiérrez. When the latter was elected to lead the national party, Gonzáles
withdrew his support, crippling efforts at national unification.
Frustrated by the movements inability to maintain a steady level of support and
recruits from the Latina/o community, as well as by their inability to fight off police
67

repression and infiltration, movement members began to look for alternative means
to achieve their social justice end. The decline of the movement dealt a blow to
Chicanismo, allowing Marxist-Leninists to make inroads in the Chicano/a
community as they had earlier in the New Left and Black Power Movement. My
next chapter examines the Marxist-Leninist challenge to Chicanismo within MEChA
and the other remnants of the Chicana/o Movement.
68

Chapter 2—Marxist-Leninism and Ideological Factionalism
in MEChA, 1970-1992.

In the late 1960s, Chicanismo captured the hearts and minds of thousands of
Latina/o student activists who formed the student branch of the Chicana/o
Movement. By the early 1970s, other ideologies and philosophies drew some
Latina/o student activists away from Chicanismo causing internal struggles over the
ideology, tactics, goals, and leadership of the Chicana/o Movement and of
California’s largest Chicana/o student organization, Movimiento Estudiantil
Chicana/o de Aztlán (MEChA). This chapter documents, contextualizes, and
analyzes part of these ideological struggles involving adherents of Chicanismo and
Marxist-Leninism within MEChA from the early 1970s to the early 1990s.

Cultural nationalists enjoyed a hegemonic hold of the Chicana/o Movement in
the late 1960s and early 1970s, but the Movement faced setbacks that caused it to
decline creating the space for a wider variety of ideologies within MEChA. Some
students reasoned that MEChA was losing members and the Movement failed to
meet its goals because they shared a flawed ideology or at least one that needed to be
supplemented by another. Marxist-Leninism or a combination of Chicanismo and
Marxist-Leninism became the answer for many students in MEChA.
There are inherent ideological tensions between cultural nationalists and Marxist-
Leninists. The former argues that attacking the racist colonial system, uniting
Chicana/os, and embracing one’s culture will liberate. The latter contends that
liberation requires class consciousness, working-class unity, annihilating the
69

country’s political and economic system, and replacing it with a communist one.
Marxist-Leninists argued that nationalists had an insufficient and narrow analysis,
and Chicana/o nationalists countered that Marxist-Leninism was a foreign ideology
pushed by Europeans and Euro-Americans to subvert the nationalist agenda of the
Chicana/o Movement.
Contending groups agreed that Latina/os in the United States were oppressed and
that liberation required action from student activists. Nonetheless, groups vying for
power and influence focused on their ideological and tactical differences to stand
above their political competitors. Within this discourse of difference, Marxist-
Leninist groups agreed that nationalism alone was not the answer.
1
Yet, Marxist-
Leninist groups fought one another more intensely and consistently than they fought
nationalist groups, and in the 1980s some Marxist-Leninists allied with nationalists
in MEChA to defeat other Marxist-Leninists in MEChA.
Four phases of Marxist-Leninist struggle within MEChA frame the organization
of this chapter. This is not a linear story of struggle due to the high turnover rate of
college student activists and the inherent difficulties of passing on information from
one cohort of student leaders to the next. The first section argues that during the
early 1970s Marxist-Leninist thought spread amongst many Chicana/o student

1
By Marxist-Leninist, I mean groups and individuals that self identify as socialist or communist and
claim to understand and want to apply a combination of theories by nineteenth century British
historian Karl Marx and twentieth century Russian leader Vladimir Lenin. Groups and individuals
that study the work and models of Marx and Lenin and attempt to put them into practice, consider
themselves Marxist-Leninists, but due to the wide spectrum of interpretations, applications, and
modifications of Marx and Lenin, individuals and groups disagree with one another and at times fight
over the “right” interpretation. See Laura Pulido, Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left: Radical Activism in
Los Angeles (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006).
70

activists, providing them with a new political lens to analyze the social ills of the
United States. This caused some to disagree with the Movement’s cultural
nationalist analysis, and they engaged in ideological conflicts over the direction of
MEChA. During this period, Chicana/o Movement leaders unapologetically asserted
the ideological dominance of Chicanismo and at best, tolerated Marxist-Leninist
thought. Nonetheless, police violence after the Chicano Moratorium march of 1970
and the inability of La Raza Unida Party to achieve inter-regional unity and electoral
success beyond Southern Texas set the Chicana/o Movement into decline and
provided Marxist-Leninists with an opportunity to advance an ideological alternative
to Chicanismo amongst Chicana/o activists.
2

The second section focuses on the rise of two Chicana/o Marxist organizations,
their feuds to reinvigorate the Chicana/o Movement and redirect it towards Marxist-
Leninism, and the growing influence Marxist-Leninism enjoyed within MEChA.
Centro de Acción Social Autónoma-Hermandad General de Trabajadores (CASA)

2
The Chicano Moratorium protest march was the culmination of Chicana/o Movement anti-Vietnam
War efforts, but what organizers regarded as a success, extreme police repression turned into chaos.
For more on the Chicano Moratorium and police repression of the Chicana/o Movement, see Lorena
Oropeza, !Raza Si! !Guerra No! Chicano Protest and Patriotism during the Vietnam War Era (Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 2005); Carlos Muñoz, Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano
Movement, Revised and Expanded Edition, (London: Verso, 2007); Ernesto Chávez, "¡Mi Raza
Primero!" (My People First!): Nationalism, Identity, and Insurgency in the Chicano Movement in Los
Angeles, 1966-1978 (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002). La Raza Unida Party first
emerged in Southern Texas where it had electoral success at the local and county level. Chapters
emerged throughout Texas, Colorado, and California, but they were not as successful. For more on
La Raza Unida Party, see Carlos Muñoz, Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement, Revised
and Expanded Edition, (London: Verso, 2007); Ernesto Chávez, "¡Mi Raza Primero!" (My People
First!): Nationalism, Identity, and Insurgency in the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles, 1966-1978
(Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002); Armando Navarro, La Raza Unida Party: A
Chicano Challenge to the U.S. Two-party Dictatorship (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
2000); and Ignacio M. García, United We Win: The Rise and Fall of La Raza Unida Party (Tucson:
University of Arizona Press, 1989).
71

and the August Twenty-ninth Movement (Marxism-Leninism) (ATM) both
subscribed to a hybrid ideology grounded in Marxist-Leninism and nationalism.
However, they campaigned against one another with aspirations of becoming the
vanguard of the Chicana/o Movement.
3
CASA and ATM targeted MEChA due to its
established reputation as a Chicana/o student organization, and the potential size and
reach it could achieve if directed by the “right” ideology. Southern California
MEChA literature from the mid-1970s reflects a turn toward Marxist views and
rhetoric similar to those of CASA and ATM. CASA exerted overt influence over
MEChA chapters, while ATM’s influence was clandestine, but no less significant.
The third section begins with the merger of ATM with other Marxist-Leninist
people of color organizations from across the country to form the League of
Revolutionary Struggle (LRS). It describes the structure, ideology, and tactics of
LRS and argues that LRS was able to dominate MEChA due to its secret tactics,
effective organizing skills, and the appeal of its ideology and program. This section
analyzes how MEChA chapters influenced by LRS marginalized its political
adversaries within MEChA and restructured the organization in an attempt to
safeguard their gains.
The final section focuses on the decline of LRS due to international events that
shook the faith of its membership and how anti-LRS MEChA chapters staged a coup

3
For other studies on CASA, see Laura Pulido, Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left, (Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 2006); Ernesto Chávez, "¡Mi Raza Primero!" (My People First!):
Nationalism, Identity, and Insurgency in the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles, 1966-1978 (Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 2002); and David G. Gutiérrez, “CASA in the Chicano
Movement: Ideology and Organizational Politics in the Chicano community, 1968-1978,” (Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford Center for Chicano Research, 1984).
72

within the California MEChA network to implement reforms that would safeguard
against further infiltration and assert the centrality of Chicanismo in MEChA.
China’s brutal repression of internal dissent and widespread liberal reforms within
socialist countries like the Soviet Union, as well as infighting over tactics and
ideology caused LRS members to disband the organization in the early 1990s.
Simultaneously, anti-LRS MEChA chapters took over the California MEChA
network to replace documents passed by MEChA chapters suspected of being
infiltrated by LRS, with documents that emphasized the cultural nationalist roots of
MEChA and the importance of organizational autonomy. Anti-LRS MEChA
chapters restructured the California MEChA network to protect against outside
infiltration by limiting the ability to vote on MEChA policy to members of MEChA
chapters that abided by MEChA’s founding documents, philosophy papers, and
ascribed to Chicanismo.
Shaking the Pillars of Chicanismo
The Chicana/o Movement emerged in the mid-1960s from labor struggles in
Central California and land-tenure struggles in New Mexico, both of which inspired
mass urban Latina/o youth activism across the Southwest with large contingents in
California, Texas, and Colorado. The United Farm Worker’s (UFW) struggle to
unionize predominantly Latina/o and Asian American farm workers combined with
the more militant tactics taken by the Spanish/Mexican land grant recovery
movement, Alianza Federal de Mercedes, inspired Latina/o students to actively
demand community liberation and greater access to quality education. Community
73

leaders and campus faculty helped Latina/o youth organize action committees in
their schools and communities. Latina/o student activists in the Southwest
prominently espoused Chicanismo, a new found pride in their heritage, culture, and
people, in their efforts to confront and change a society and educational system that
assumed that ethnic and racial minorities were inferior and that their respective
cultures should be rooted out. Similar to the contemporaneous Black Power
Movement, Latina/o student activists believed that their community was oppressed
by a racist system that exploited their labor and deprived them of economic and
social mobility. Thus, their demands and political manifestos condemned racism and
colonization, while emphasizing the virtues of their peoples’ culture, wisdom, and
history.
In 1969, MEChA was created from the merger of several California Latina/o
student organizations that dedicated themselves to reforming institutions of higher
education to produce knowledge, leadership, and resources geared towards the
liberation of the Latina/o community. The tenets of MEChA’s ideology, tactics,
structure, and purpose were codified in its founding document, El Plan de Santa
Barbara, a blueprint to reform higher education in California to meet the needs of
students of Mexican descent.
4
The El Plan de Santa Barbara outlined the need for
Latina/o-centered community run programs in universities. The founding of
Chicana/o Studies programs was chief among the goals espoused by the El Plan de

4
El Plan de Santa Barbara: A Chicano Plan for Higher Education (Oakland: La Causa Publications,
1969).
74

Santa Barbara, and MEChA was bestowed the responsibility of maintaining the
focus of these programs on the community.
5

Chicanismo was not the only philosophy that caught the attention of Chicana/o
student activists, as they were exposed to and cognizant of the potential use of other
ideologies like Marxism-Leninism. Domestic and international forces made an
impression on Chicana/o student activists who began to take note of Marxist-
Leninism. Chicana/os recognized that the Vietnamese, Chinese, Cubans and other
third world peoples had successfully used Marxist-Leninism to defy and get
independence from first and second world colonial powers.
6
Domestically, Chicana/o
student activists admired organizations like the Black Panthers and Students for a
Democratic Society whose leadership was heavily influenced by Marxist-Leninism.
7

Furthermore, Latina/o activists were courted by overtly Marxist-Leninist
organizations like the Socialist Workers Party and the Progressive Labor Party, and
Marxist literature was readily accessible to college students.
8
Beto, a former UCLA-

5
For more on the early years of the Chicana/o Student Movement in California and the founding of
MEChA, see chapter 1 of this dissertation as well as Carlos Muñoz, Youth, Identity, Power: The
Chicano Movement (London: Verso, 1989), and Ignacio M. García, Chicanismo: The Forging of a
Militant Ethos Among Mexican Americans (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997).

6
Lorena Oropeza, !Raza Si! !Guerra No! Chicano Protest and Patriotism during the Vietnam War
Era (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), 80-111; George Mariscal, Brown-Eyed
Children of the Sun: Lessons from the Chicano Movement, 1965-1975 (Albuquerque: University of
New Mexico Press, 2005), 53-139.

7
For a more extensive study of the ties between the Chicana/o Movement and the Black Power
Movement, see Mariscal, Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun, 171-209.

8
The Progressive Labor Party took an abrasive stance toward the Chicana/o Movement, disrupting
meetings and events to publically attack cultural nationalism, thus guaranteeing few converts. The
Socialist Workers Party also criticized cultural nationalism. However, it took a more cooperative
approach toward Chicana/o organizations and was open to the idea that Chicana/os could be both
75

UMAS member, recalled that in the late 1960s Mao Zedong’s “Little Red Book” was
in “everybody’s hand” at UCLA as thousands of free copies were distributed to
students.
9
The teachings of Mao Zedong were appealing to some Chicana/o activists
because it applied Marxist-Leninist thought to the struggle of people of color in the
Third World and advocated grassroots community based tactics.
10

By 1970, some Chicana/o student activists adopted Marxist-Leninism and
attempted to recruit others into their trend of thought. Nevertheless, Movement
activists and their media vigorously rejected and criticized these students and their
non-Latina/o associates. In its coverage of the second National Chicano Youth
Liberation Conference in Denver 1970, and particularly commenting on efforts to
create a Chicana/o third party, an El Popo editorialist wrote, “A few radical gabachos
and Chicanos on their own trip soon found out that’s what the Chicano party is all
about-“independent”. the only “ismo” about the Chicano movement and party will
be Carnalismo and Chicanismo!”
11
The writer believed the majority of conference

nationalist and Marxist-Leninist. They were relatively more successful in recruitment efforts than the
Progressive Labor Party. For the most part, Chicana/o activists treated these primarily white
organizations with caution and suspicion. Many saw white people as part of the system that
oppressed them. Lorena Oropeza, !Raza Si! !Guerra No! Chicano Protest and Patriotism during the
Vietnam War Era (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), 133, 154, 156.

9
Beto, interview by author, 16 January 2007, South Pasadena, Calif., digital audio recording. Mao
Zedong’s “Little Red Book” was meant to inform and teach key Marxist-Leninist principles and
Mao’s own ideological philosophy to the Chinese populace. Those that embraced the teachings of
Mao, known as Maoists, translated the manual into several languages and widely distributed it around
the world.

10
Mao Zedong, leader of communist China took Marxist Leninist theory and amended it to fit the
conditions of China. His theories are commonly referred to as Mao Zedong Thought. Outside of
China, the combination of Mao Zedong Thought and Marxism-Leninism is commonly referred simply
as Maoism.

76

participants rejected the advances of white and Chicana/o Marxist-Leninists and
affirmed their desire to form a Chicana/o political party independent of both
mainstream political parties and radical parties.
12

Some movement leaders recognized the brewing ideological conflict within the
ranks of Chicana/o student activists. Nonetheless, they underestimated the conflicts’
serious nature. Jose Angel Gutierrez, the co-founder of the Mexican American
Youth Organization and La Raza Unida Party in Texas, gave a speech at California
State University Northridge (CSUN) in the spring of 1970.
13
He asked California
Chicana/o students activists to stop their “petty” infighting, over who’s a sellout and
who has the right ideology, and unite to fight the “the gringos” who ran the racist
colonial system that oppressed Chicana/os.
14
The fact that a nationally recognized
Chicana/o activist visiting from Texas knew about the ideological infighting in
California and thought it a priority to address reflects the visibility of these

11
El Popo 1, no. 2 (7 April 1970): 6, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano
Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

12
“ismo” is Spanish for ism, in reference here to socialism and communism. According to Ignacio
M. García, the Socialist Workers Party was present at this conference. I believe this reference was
directed at them, see Ignacio M. García, United We Win: The Rise and Fall of La Raza Unida Party
(Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989), 96. In 1970, the Movement was dominated by males
who rejected women’s liberation and feminism as a white middle-class phenomenon. They pushed
Chicanas to avoid gender politics within the Movement, which these males believed would only
divide them. Thus, this rejection of other “ismos” and the mention of Carnalismo could also be read
as an indirect reference to feminism as well. I focus on the struggle for gender equality in, “Sexo en
Aztlan: Gender Norms in California MEChA, Late 1960s-1990s,” the third chapter of this
dissertation.

13
CSUN was then named San Fernando Valley State University.

14
El Popo 1, no. 3 (5 May 1970): 5, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano
Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
77

ideological struggles amongst Chicana/o youth, and the concern that it raised
amongst national leaders of the Chicana/o Movement.
In 1970, most Chicana/o Movement organizations supported the Chicano
Moratorium Committee’s (CMC) anti-Vietnam War efforts. Nevertheless, the police
repression it experienced and the Movement’s inability to unite and stop it, cost the
Movement many adherents and community support.
15
MEChA members and alumni
actively participated in the CMC and its series of antiwar demonstrations, which
culminated into the nearly 30,000 people strong National Chicano Moratorium
march and rally on 29 August 1970.
16
Although Chicanismo seemed to be at its peak,
due to the large turn out, the police riot and government repression of Chicana/o
activists that followed hurt the legitimacy of the Movement in the greater Latina/o
community and diminished the ability of leaders to resort to Chicanismo to inspire
activism.
17
For some Marxist-Leninist Chicanos, this repression meant that reform
efforts were futile and it was time to organize the community for a socialist
revolution.
18
Thus, Marxist-Leninist Chicana/os were emboldened by police violence

15
Oropeza argues that the violence directed against community activists after the large CMC march,
“help explain the trajectory of the Chicano movement after 1970. Most prominently, cultural
nationalism began to lose ground to socialism,” see Oropeza, 187.

16
Oropeza, 155.

17
At California State University, Northridge (CSUN) MEChA leaders used El Popo to lecture Latino
students about their debt to the Latino community and to the Latino students that came before them
that had made the large numbers of Latino admits and the existence of the CSUN Chicano Studies
Department possible. The number of individuals in MEChA and the movement overall declined, and
CSUN MEChA’s calls for action fell flat, causing resentment amongst the greater Latino student
community that felt judged by MEChA. See, El Popo 3, no. 2, 3, 6-7; El Popo 4, no. 2, 4-5; El Popo
4, no. 3, 2, 10-11; El Popo 5, no. 1, 2, 4-5, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano
Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

78

to re-organize the Latina/o community according to Marxist-Leninist protocol and to
fight to take over Chicana/o organizations.
Another major setback that shook the pillars of Chicanismo was the failure of La
Raza Unida Party (LRUP) to unite at the national level. LRUP first emerged in
Texas in 1970 when it replaced the Mexican American Youth Organization. It
successfully won several local elections under the leadership of Jose Angel
Gutiérrez, who saw the party as a vehicle for winning elections where Mexicans
were a majority. Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzáles, prominent Chicano activist and
cofounder of Crusade for Justice in Denver, became the leader of LRUP chapters in
Colorado. He argued that the party should be geared toward educating and
radicalizing the Latina/o community. Chapters also sprung up across California and
were primarily run by students, but their ideological diversity and lack of a statewide
leader prevented them uniting at the state level.
19
Gonzáles and Gutierrez engaged in
a power struggle at the 1972 LRUP national convention in Texas that split the party
and crippled its national aspirations. The inability of LRUP leaders to unite
Chicana/o activists and the electoral losses that followed, made many activists
question the ability of cultural nationalism to serve as a common denominator to
unite the community and sustain a movement.
The ideological fragmentation within MEChA finally ruptured Chicana/o unity at
the 1973 California MEChA Statewide conference at the University of California,

18
Beto, 2007.

19
Ignacio M. García, United We Win: The Rise and Fall of La Raza Unida Party (Tucson: University
of Arizona Press, 1989) 101.
79

Riverside. By this point, Marxist-Leninist MEChA members were convinced they
had adopted the right ideology and they were determined to reveal the holes in
cultural nationalism and MEChA’s organizational structure. Marxist Chicana/os
argued that Chicanismo was capitalistic separatism, that it did not take into account
the inter-connectedness of the world, and that it incorrectly focused on racism, when
capitalism was the true source of their oppression. These Chicana/o Marxists
condemned MEChA as a bureaucratic and reactionary organization, walked out of
the MEChA California statewide conference, and renounced their membership.
20

Rise of Chicana/o Marxist-Leninist Organizations
In the 1970s, Latina/o youth and student activists played a larger role in the
direction and creation of Marxist-Leninist organizations in California. They joined
multiracial and multiethnic Marxist-Leninist organizations like the Communist
Labor Party, the October League, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Communist
Party USA. Latina/o activists also created primarily Latina/o Marxist-Leninist
organizations like the August Twenty-ninth Movement (ATM) and converted
primarily Latina/o organizations into Marxist-Leninist ones, like CASA.
21
Although
some of the non-Latina/o Marxist-Leninist organizations attempted to woo the
Latina/o community, I focus on the feud between ATM and CASA because they had
the largest impact on Chicana/o student activism in California.
22

20
Carlos Muñoz, Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement (London: Verso, 1989), 91-92.

21
Laura Pulido, Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left: Radical Activism in Los Angeles (Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 2006), 25.

80

Los Angeles area activists formed CASA in 1968 to provide social services and
legal defense to urban Latina/o workers. Nevertheless, CASA became a Marxist-
Leninist organization in the mid-1970s. In its early years, CASA’s dues paying
membership grew into the thousands, prompting organizers to form chapters across
the Southwest and Chicago.
23
CASA’s national headquarters in Los Angeles changed
management in 1974 and the new administration cut down social services and
focused on Marxist-Leninist study groups, political advocacy, and community/labor
organizing. This caused CASA’s membership to dramatically decline.
24
Some of the
students that left MEChA in 1973 joined the Marxist-Leninist student group El
Comité Estudiantil del Pueblo (The Peoples’ Student Committee), an organization
that merged with the new CASA.
25
Members of CASA claimed that Mexican
nationals and people of Mexican descent in the United States were one people, thus
their central tenet of Sin Fronteras (without borders). They advocated trans-national

22
According to Armando Navarro, the Socialist Workers Party was also battling to become the “main
influence” of MEChA and the Chicano student movement. Armando Navarro, Mexicano Political
Experience in Occupied Aztlán: Struggles and Change (Walnut Creek, Calif.: Alta Mira Press, 2005),
385.

23
David G. Gutiérrez, “CASA in the Chicano Movement: Ideology and Organizational Politics in the
Chicano Community, 1968-1978,” Working Paper Series 5 (Stanford Center for Chicano Research,
1984): 10.

24
Ibid., 13

25
Muñoz, 1989, 94. For more on the CEP-CASA merger and their ideology, see Mario T. García,
Memories of Chicano History: The Life and Narrative of Bert Corona (Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1994), 308-315; Ernesto Chávez, My People First! “!Mi Raza Primero!”
Nationalism, Identity, and Insurgency in the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles, 1966-1978
(University of California Press, Los Angeles, 2002), 106-108.
81

workers’ unity and defending undocumented immigrant laborers became their raison
d’être in the mid-1970s.
26

Several predominantly urban Latina/o study groups and collectives from across
the Southwest, such as the Los Angeles La Raza Unida Party’s Labor Committee,
adopted Marxist-Leninism and merged to form the August Twenty-ninth Movement.
This Marxist-Leninist organization criticized Chicanismo as short sighted and
emphasized the potential strength of multi-racial working-class solidarity. In spite of
this, its Latina/o membership still considered itself part of the Chicana/o Movement.
They named the group after the spirit of Chicana/o resistance to government
repression at the 29 August 1970 National Chicano Moratorium protest.
27

ATM delineated its position on key issues and differentiated itself from political
rivals in Fan the Flames, the most prominent piece of literature created by ATM.
Based on Lenin’s views on ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union ATM made the
case that Americans of Mexican descent were an oppressed nation within the United
States with the right to “self-determination.”
28
They urged communists to redouble
their efforts in building a revolutionary communist party to, “lead the Chicano
national movement and the movements of other oppressed nationalities and to unite

26
Pulido, Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left, 129.

27
August 29th Movement, “CASA ATTACKS THE CHICANO MOVEMENT: AUGUST 29
th

MOVEMENT (M-L) RESPONDS,” Chicano Moratorium Vertical Files Collection, Chicano Studies
Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles.

28
August Twenty-Ninth Movement, “Fan the Flames,” 1976, Mike Conan Collection: The New
Communist Movement, Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles.
82

these struggles under the leadership of the multinational proletariat of the U.S.”
29

ATM thought Marxist-Leninists could curve the sexism and isolationism of
Chicanismo by developing the most democratic cultural aspects of Americans of
Mexican descent.
30
The group criticized other Marxist-Leninist organizations for
denying Chicana/os’ right to self-determination, for not giving the Chicano
community deep thought, and for providing reformist solutions to Latina/os’
problems.
31

Although CASA was visibly more influential in MEChA and in the Chicana/o
Movement than ATM, it is misleading to use visibility as a unit of measurement in
comparing the influence of CASA and ATM. In the approximately 100 issues of
CSUN’s Chicana/o student newsletter El Popo that I read for this study, ATM was
only mentioned once. In an obscure announcement for a talk ATM cosponsored for
the Iranian Student Movement in the 1970s. ATM’s presence in MEChA and the
Movement is difficult to detect from a primary source like El Popo because of the
organizations’ secrecy and the similarities between their views and that of MEChA
members at the time. It is also possible that ATM may not have been as active at
CSUN as it was in other MEChA chapters.

29
I italicized words in the quote for emphasis. August Twenty-Ninth Movement, “Fan the Flames,”
1976.

30
It was implicit that they believed Chicano cultural nationalism was sexist and isolationist, but that
combining it with a dominant Marxist-Leninist perspective fixed this limitation.

31
August Twenty-ninth Movement, “Fan the Flames,” 1976.
83

In contrast, CASA’s presence and influence over MEChA is easy to detect. This
is due to its overt relationship to MEChA chapters and the visibility of its trademark
catch phrases in the issues of El Popo. California State University at Los Angeles
(CSULA) MEChA hosted a two-day Latina/o student conference in February of
1975, with over 500 activists in attendance. CASA’s influence over conference
participants is undeniable. Attendees passed resolutions to support CASA’s
“National Campaign of Solidarity with the Immigrant Workers.” Conference
organizers filled the conference’s speakers list with known CASA allies, such as the
Socialist Puerto Rican University Students, la Alianza Unidad Obrero-Estudiantil
(Student-Worker Unity alliance), Comité Estudiantil del Pueblo (The People’s
Student Committee), and the National Committee to Free Los Tres.
32

Aspects of CASA’s sin fronteras trend of thought also appeared on the pages of
El Popo in the mid-1970s. Juan Cardenas, a CSUN MEChA Member, stated in an El
Popo article, “…it takes Chicanos and Mexicanos both to make up La Raza….it
doesn’t make any difference what side of the border you’re born on. We are still the
same people.”
33
In another example, Rudy Cardona named his El Popo article,
“Estudiantes: luchas sin fronteras” (Students: Struggles without Borders), and

32
The latter two merged with CASA. “Student Conference Supports CASA Campaign,” El Popo 8,
no. 3, 3, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban
Archives Center, CSUN.

33
Juan Cardenas, “Don’t Insult Yourselves,” El Popo 12, no. 2 (May 1978): 11, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
84

emphasized the similarities between student and working-class movements in
Mexico and the US, and demanded student-worker unity.
34

International models, professors, domestic issues, and the existence of Chicana/o
Marxist-Leninist organizations feuding to become the vanguard of the Chicana/o
Movement help explain the increased popularity of Marxist-Leninist thought and
rhetoric amongst Latina/o student activists in MEChA from the mid-1970s. In 1975,
influential Chicana/o studies Professor Raul Ruiz spent two weeks in Cuba and upon
his return to CSUN he praised the virtues of the Cuban revolution and Marxist-
Leninism to students.
35
Ruiz argued that Americans of Mexican descent should
follow the Cuban model of liberation, “It was a colony and we have been colonized.
It suffered American imperialism and we have also. The language and Latin
American culture is the same. It’s our model.”
36

The struggle for immigration reform and the fight to oppose the anti-affirmative
action Bakke decision in the second half of the 1970s caused a resurgence of
activism among Chicana/o activists. Latina/o Marxist-Leninist organizations
embraced these struggles to promote internationalism, working-class solidarity, and

34
I italicized for emphasis. Rudy Cardona, “Estudiantes: luchas sin fronteras,” El Popo 13, no. 1
(Sept.-Oct. 1978): 4, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department,
Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

35
Ruiz had a known record of community activism. He was a political candidate for La Raza Unida
Party in the San Fernando Valley. In 1970, he photographed the post-Chicano Moratorium police
siege of the Silver Dollar Café, where officers murdered LA Times reporter Ruben Salazar. Ruiz’s
influence among Latina/o student activists at CSUN at the time may have been second only to that of
CSUN Chicano Studies Department founder professor Rodolfo “Rudy” Acuña.

36
John Cardenas, “Ruiz Reflects on Cuba” El Popo 8, no. 4: 6, 8, Southern California Periodicals
Collection, Southern California Library for Social Science and Research, Los Angeles.
85

multi-racial/multi-ethnic alliances, while painting Chicanismo as narrow and
counterproductive to achieving a victory in these struggles. Although activists
swelled the ranks of MEChA and the Chicana/o Movement, and they attempted to
forge a wide-scale united front, infighting continued to hamper their efforts.
37

ATM provided a glimpse of the feud for power within the Chicana/o Movement
through a position paper it produced in the summer of 1977. The position paper
characterizes CASA as a reformist, manipulative, and divisive force within the
Chicana/o Movement and MEChA. On the other hand, it describes ATM as a
legitimate revolutionary force and defender of MEChA’s right to democratic
decision making. The document reveals that the ATM-CASA feud was part of an
international struggle between Marxist-Leninist groups that supported the policies
and direction of the Soviet Union like CASA and those that supported the policies
and direction of China like ATM.
38
In this position paper, ATM explains why the
battle to influence MEChA was so important to them. “The struggle within MEChA,
then, is not a power struggle between two groups. It is ultimately a struggle for the
direction [sic] for the Chicano and working class movements...”
39

37
August 29
th
Movement, “CASA ATTACKS THE CHICANO MOVEMENT: AUGUST 29
th

MOVEMENT (M-L) RESPONDS,” Chicano Moratorium Vertical Files Collection, Chicano Studies
Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles; Union del Barrio, “Self-determination for the
Chicano Movement: A Critique of the League of Revolutionary Struggle,” Mike Conan Collection,
Southern California Library for Social Science and Research, Los Angeles.

38
August 29
th
Movement, “CASA ATTACKS THE CHICANO MOVEMENT: AUGUST 29
th

MOVEMENT (M-L) RESPONDS,” Chicano Moratorium Vertical Files Collection, Chicano Studies
Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles.

39
Ibid.
86

ATM accused CASA and its allies of attempting to convince CSULA MEChA
members to expel suspected ATM members, and of interfering with CSULA
MEChA’s decision making by crowding meetings with CASA supporters from other
campuses. ATM claimed that CASA and its supporters resorted to threats and
physical intimidation to get their way, such as starting fights, following people after
meetings, and making sexist remarks to female MEChA members. Both camps
professed to treat women as equals to men and attributed sexist attitudes to their
Marxist-Leninist and cultural nationalist adversaries in an attempt to recruit female
activists to their respective organization.
40
ATM argued that CASA’s acts of bad
faith setback the establishment of unity amongst progressive and revolutionary
groups because they made MEChA members weary of working with other groups.
Conversely, ATM asserted its right to take a position on issues that impacted
MEChA as well as their right to democratically urge MEChA members to adopt
ATM’s position. They denied charges of infiltration by claiming, “ATM (ML)
upholds the right of every MECHA to its organizational independence and integrity.
Every MECHA has the right to decide its internal affairs by majority vote, free from
coercion, unprincipled movidas [actions or tricks], and stacking by non-members.”
41

Furthermore, ATM attempted to discredit CASA by bring up CASA’s attempt to

40
This also reflected the moral gains Chicana feminists made both in the Chicana/o Movement and in
Chicana/o Studies. For more on gender issues, see chapter 3 of this dissertation.

41
Ibid. The ML stood for Marxism Leninism, many groups state their ideology after their name in
this fashion.
87

replace MEChA with the Committee Estudiantil del Pueblo and that CASA did not
believe in the right to self-determination of Americans of Mexican descent.
CASA’s leadership was unable to sustain the organization beyond 1979, due to
years of conflict with other groups and the ideological alienation of its base
membership. When CASA became Marxist-Leninist, its national membership
plummeted from an estimated four thousand to three hundred, with only fifty active
members. CASA leaderships’ decision to adopt democratic centralism (forcing
chapters across the country to follow decisions made by the Los Angeles national
headquarters), their dogmatic adherence to ideology, and their struggles to develop
and defend the “correct political line” alienated CASA’s mass membership and
destroyed its relationship with the community.
42

Historians Ernesto Chávez and David Gutiérrez argue that Marxist-Leninism had
limited appeal to working-class Americans of Mexican descent causing CASA’s
membership to decline, but that Marxist-Leninism had a larger appeal amongst a
small professional class in the community that included students. This helps explain
why a mass organization like CASA failed, while a smaller, cadre driven
organization like ATM was able to sustain itself, and why both organizations
prioritized influencing student activists and recruiting MEChA members.
43

42
David G. Gutiérrez, “CASA in the Chicano Movement: Ideology and Organizational Politics in the
Chicano Community, 1968-1978,” 15, 27.

43
For more on the decline of CASA, see Ernesto Chávez, "Mi Raza Primero!" (My People First!):
Nationalism, Identity, and Insurgency in the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles, 1966-1978
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 107-116; and David G. Gutiérrez, “CASA in the
Chicano Movement: Ideology and Organizational Politics in the Chicano Community, 1968-1978,”
27.
88

The Rise of LRS in MEChA
In the late 1970s, ATM merged with an Asian American organization (I Wor
Kuen), and an African American organization (Revolutionary Communist League,
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) to form the Marxist-Leninist, League of Revolutionary
Struggle (LRS).
44
This new organization wanted to achieve political unity and
develop the “correct” ideological analysis “based on the integration of Marxism-
Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought with the concrete conditions of the U.S….”to form a
single united communist party in the United States.
45
LRS continued ATM’s policy
of maintaining a clandestine membership and operating in secrecy to avoid
government repression.
46
A few high ranking LRS leaders revealed their membership
to communicate with media outlets, gain the public’s trust, and recruit new
members.
47
LRS had a prolonged, secretive, and selective recruitment process that
involved identifying potential neophytes, inviting them to LRS study groups and
public events, and finally having the neophytes solicit membership through a written
personal statement.
48

44
Michael Friedly, “Nationwide organization active here, students say,” Stanford Daily (18 May
1990): 10.

45
League of Revolutionary Struggle, “Interview with William Gallegos of the League of
Revolutionary Struggle on some question of party building” Unity, (18 Jan. 1980): 4, Mike Conan
Collection: The New Communist Movement, Southern California Library for Social Studies and
Research, Los Angeles.

46
Friedly, “Nationwide organization active here, students say,” 10.

47
Beto, 2007.

48
Michael Friedly, “League recruitment deterred many: Secretive process alienated dozens who were
approached,” Stanford Daily (30 May 1990): 12.
89

The organization was run on democratic centralism and party discipline.
Discussions took place at all levels of the organization, but once a majority decision
was reached, members had to abide by it without voicing further dissent. LRS was
structurally organized into a pyramid of committees. Low level members in unit
committees served as information gatherers and order implementers, while high level
members served in the central committee that was at the top of the pyramid, making
decisions and giving orders.
49

Even after the decline of CASA, LRS was not the only Marxist-Leninist
organization proposing solutions to the “Chicano national question” and attempting
to influence the direction of Chicana/o organizations such as MEChA. The October
League passed a position paper entitled “Chicano Liberation” that recognized
Americans of Mexican descent as an oppressed people and nation within the United
Stated. Moreover, the October League proposed overthrowing the United States’
government, establishing a socialist state, and granting Chicana/os regional
autonomy in areas of high Chicana/o concentration.
50
The Revolutionary Socialist
League passed a similar resolution at their national convention on 19-21 June 1981,
declaring uncompromising support for Latina/os’ democratic rights and recognizing

49
Beto, 2007. MEChA had a network of MEChA committees as well. They were made up of
representatives from MEChA chapters at the county, region, and state level. However, MEChA was
not based on democratic centralism and party discipline. Individual chapters were autonomous
entities and decisions made at the county, regional, state, and national level were taken as suggestions.
In the 1990s, MEChA members made the organization’s structure stricter and more disciplined. They
established a MEChA National Coordinating Council to facilitate national communication and
coordination between regions. Although this council could potentially speak for MEChA nationally,
it did it not have the power to dictate MEChA policy to chapters.

50
October League, “Chicano Liberation,” Mike Conan Collection: The New Communist Movement,
Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles.
90

Chicana/o and Mexican rights to nationalist self-determination. Nevertheless, their
support was tentative on, “[the] actual circumstances of the class struggle” and what
the Revolutionary Socialist League believed was in, “the best interests of the
international working class.”
51

Although, it did not support nationalism, LRS argued that Chicana/os were an
oppressed nation with the right to self-determination. It claimed that it was in the
best interest of Marxist-Leninists to support the Chicana/o liberation struggle. LRS
contended that a Chicana/o victory would deal a blow to their common enemy, the
United States’ government, and strengthen the possibility of a successful Marxist-
Leninist revolution. LRS engaged in Chicana/o liberation struggle intent on
eliminating nationalistic chauvinism and racism amongst the white working-class
and Chicana/os, and to encourage Chicana/o leaders to adopt Marxist-Leninist-
Maoist trends of thought.
52

In 1982, LRS Central Committee member and nationally acclaimed poet, Amiri
Baraka argued, “we support nationalists to the extent to which they fight
imperialism, but there is no support whatsoever for nationalism, per se!”
53
Baraka
delineated the limitations of nationalism and called on Marxist-Leninists to challenge
nationalists at every turn for the leadership of national liberation movements. He

51
Revolutionary Socialist League Program (21 June 1981), Mike Conan Collection: The New
Communist Movement, Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles.

52
League of Revolutionary Struggle, "The Struggle for Chicano Liberation," Forward: Journal of
Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, no. 2 (August 1979).

53
Amiri Baraka, Unity, Mike Conan Collection: The New Communist Movement, Southern
California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles
91

wanted Marxist-Leninists to convince people in mass liberation movements that only
an alliance of the multi-national working-class and oppressed peoples could defeat
their common enemy. This meant LRS members would challenge and attempt to
subvert Chicanismo in Chicana/o organizations like MEChA.
LRS became a dominant force within the California MEChA statewide structure
in the 1980s. However, individual chapter autonomy prevented it from controlling
all chapters. Furthermore, some MEChA members began a campaign to purge LRS
from MEChA. Through their clandestine methods of organization and recruitment,
LRS systematically took over positions of power within MEChA chapters in
California. They convinced MEChA members to vote their way and incorporated
willing MEChA leaders into LRS. Nevertheless, some MEChA members and
community groups resisted the advances of LRS and challenged individuals they
suspected were part of that organization within MEChA. The struggle between these
competing camps split several MEChA chapters and the California MEChA
statewide structure as a whole in the mid-1980s. At a 1985 La Raza Unida Party
summit, University of California (UC) Los Angeles and UC Berkeley MEChA
chapters denounced LRS activities in MEChA.
54
That same year, Union del Barrio
produced a position paper tracing the divisive history of ATM and LRS in the
Chicana/o Movement and demanded LRS respect the autonomy of MEChA.
55

54
Ibid.

55
According to this position paper, La Unión del Barrio was founded in 1981, by “veteran” grassroots
activists formerly involved in the Brown Berets, MEChA, La Raza Unida Party, United Farm
Workers union, Mexican American Political Association, Chicano Park Steering Committee, and the
92

UC Berkeley MEChA hosted the National Chicano Student Conference in the
spring of 1986, and anti-LRS MEChA members took the offensive. According to
Carlos Muñoz: “The conference was plagued with ideological struggle between two
factions of MEChA….The conference was disrupted by the nationalist faction and
ended on a divisive note.”
56
These “disruptive” MEChA chapters were all from
Southern California and they claimed to be, “defending the self-determination of all
Mechistas de Corazon….”
57
They argued that LRS was using MEChA, manipulating
its democratic decision-making, and suppressing freedom of speech and information
in a quest to achieve unity at any cost. In 1973, Marxist Chicana/os walked out of a
MEChA conference and left the organization. In contrast, by 1986 MEChA chapters
influenced by LRS and Marxist-Leninism were in the majority at conferences. This
time around, chapters against LRS and sympathetic to Chicanismo left the Chicana/o
student conference and the California MEChA statewide structure.
Pro-LRS MEChA chapters used their numerical advantage to institutionalize
their perspective within California MEChA’s structure over the following three

Committee on Chicano Rights. Their mission was to “halt the colonization of our gente” and “bring
the day of Aztlán’s self-determination that much closer” by promoting the Chicano community’s
history, culture, and movement; establishing community control of institutions that serve them;
addressing the concerns of barrio residents; and educating and organizing the youth of the
community. See, Union del Barrio, “Self-determination for the Chicano Movement: A Critique of the
League of Revolutionary Struggle,” Mike Conan Collection, Southern California Library for Social
Science and Research, Los Angeles.

56
Muñoz, Youth, Identity, Power, (1989), 185.

57
All the MEChA chapters involved in the disruption were from Southern California, five from San
Diego county, four from Orange County, and two from Los Angeles County. They were from UCLA,
CSUF, SWC, OCC, Mesa College, SAC, UCI, UCSD, UCCC, SDSU, and LaRUE. See, untitled
manuscript (15 March 1986), author’s personal collection.
93

years. These chapters developed a California MEChA Statewide Constitution and
guidelines in 1986, and introduced a new guiding document, El Plan de MEChA
(EPM) by 1989.
58
Like previous MEChA documents, the EPM recognized MEChA’s
commitment to educational reform, described Chicanismo as “the clearest expression
of national consciousness,” and stated that MEChA members, “continue to fight for
political power and for the self-determination of our oppressed nation, Aztlán.”
59

Nevertheless, the EPM added a new emphasis on MEChA’s “tradition” of supporting
worker causes, and the gains MEChA made through alliances with African
Americans and Asian Americans.
60
Furthermore, the EPM described the Socialist
Workers Party and the Revolutionary Communist Party as, “racist white groups who
refused to respect the goals, purpose and autonomy of MEChA as an integral part of
the Chicano movement for self-determination,” and accused them of attempting to
infiltrate MEChA.
61
It also argued that California MEChA adopted guidelines and a
constitution to counter “a minority of ultra-nationalistic Mechistas” that attempted to
push their own agenda and ideology on MEChA through threats, red-baiting, and
disruptive tactics.

58
Support for LRS was more abundant amongst Northern California MEChA chapters, while
resistance to LRS primarily came from Southern California Chapters. California MEChA Statewide,
El Plan de MEChA (Apr. 1989): 24-25, 28; Milo Alvarez, “MEChA: A Recent History of Conflict
and Change, 1986-1991,” 7, author’s personal collection.

59
Alvarez, 7.

60
Ibid, 4, 5, 9.

61
California MEChA Statewide, El Plan de MEChA, 15.
94

The creators of the EPM contended MEChA should be open to all people
working for the betterment of the Chicana/o community regardless of their political
ideology or outside affiliations.
62
The EPM provided LRS-members working within
MEChA with a shield against red-baiting, it also marginalized its “ultra-nationalist”
and Marxist-Leninist detractors, and played up the role of labor struggle and multi-
racial alliances within MEChA’s history to further align MEChA with LRS’s
trajectory. As seen in the 1970s, it was not ATM’s or LRS’s style to visibly push
their ideology on MEChA. Instead, they relied on clandestine infiltration.
The Rise of Summit MEChA
The MEChA chapters that caused the disturbance of 1986 continued to work on
purging LRS from MEChA, by creating their own set of position papers and forming
an alternative MEChA statewide structure they called MEChA Summit. Unlike
Marxist Chicana/os that left MEChA in 1973 and formed or joined other
organizations, these Summit MEChA members planned to reintegrate into the
MEChA statewide structure and they argued that it was they who were the “real”
MEChA members. These chapters identified their allies as those involved in Summit
meetings and chapters “loyal” to MEChA’s founding document, El Plan de Santa
Barbara, as opposed to those that followed El Plan de MEChA.
63
Summit MEChA
chapters produced several position papers on MEChA philosophy, structure,
relationship to outside organizations, goals and objectives, which in 1992 they

62
Ibid, 16-17.

63
Milo Alvarez, “MEChA: A Recent History of Conflict and Change, 1986-1991” (1992): 3.
95

merged into a single document, the Philosophy of MEChA (PoM).
64
In the PoM,
Summit MEChA chapters asserted the centrality of Chicanismo to MEChA. They
did this through references to El Plan de Santa Barbara, El Plan de Aztlan, and the
early years of the Chicana/o Movement.
65
These chapters claimed that ideology was
key in countering LRS infiltration:
Recently and historically, opportunistic outside organizations have utilized the
legitimacy of M.E.Ch.A. as a voice of the Chicano/Chicana Movement to
promote their own agendas inside of our movement. Such groups…began to
promote class-wide multi-nationalism that sought to displace Chicano
nationalism as the central focus for our Movement.
66

With the PoM and other documents, anti-LRS MEChA members planned to set up a
decision making system at MEChA conferences that limited participation to MEChA
members from MEChA chapters that were “recognized” and approved of by their
local and regional MEChA networks. This recognition depended on a chapter’s

64
The MEChA Philosophy Papers were merged, revised, and adopted by California MEChA at the
Spring MEChA Statewide conference at CSU Fullerton on 18 January 1992 and were renamed
Philosophy of MEChA (PoM). The PoM went through more revisions to make it more inclusive and
less reactionary from 1997-1999 and was adopted by National MEChA on 21 March 1999 at the
Phoenix College MEChA National Conference. The PoM is still commonly referred to at the
MEChA Philosophy Papers.

65
In 1969, Chicana/o youth activists drafted El Plan de Aztlan at the National Chicano Youth
Liberation Conference hosted by the Crusade for Justice of Denver. It declared Chicana/os wish to
unite as a people and liberate Aztlan, the United States Southwest from those that oppressed the
Chicana/o community. El Plan de Aztlan had a radical and separatist tone, but its goals were more
pragmatic, like using Chicanismo to unite Chicana/os across the Southwest and forming a Chicano
third party. For more information on this document and the conference, see Carlos Muñoz, Youth,
Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement (London: Verso, 1989); Ignacio M. García, Chicanismo: The
Forging of a Militant Ethos Among Mexican Americans (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997).
MEChA Summit, “The Philosophy of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan,” (18 Jan. 1992): 2.

66
Ibid, 13-14. In the early 1990s, MEChA reasserted its right to autonomy and self-determination not
only from LRS, but also from the National Chicano Moratorium Committee who was Chicano
Nationalist and anti-LRS. In 1996, MEChA did the same against one of the remaining branches of the
Brown Berets after they were accused of infiltrating Michigan State MEChA and hijacking the 1996
MEChA National Conference at Michigan State University.
96

activity in their regional body and their following the tenets of the PoM and Plan de
Santa Barbara. Summit MEChA chapters believed this measure would eliminate the
infiltration of MEChA and help avoid ideological splits. To implement this policy,
Summit chapters had to rejoin the official California MEChA statewide structure and
wrestle power away from chapters they believed were infiltrated by LRS.
67

MEChA Summit chapters embarked on this a campaign to “reclaim” the
California MEChA statewide network. First they took over Southern California
MEChA networks and restructured them by implementing the PoM. Then, they
focused on finding allies within the Northern California MEChA networks, which
they suspected was more infiltrated by LRS.
68
On 1 December 1990, seven MEChA
Summit chapters gained a voting majority at a Los Angeles County MEChA Central
meeting held at California State University (CSU) at Northridge. At this meeting,
they implemented aspects of the PoM and forced all MEChA chapters present to
disclose their connections and loyalties to outside organizations.
69
CSULA MEChA
attempted to block the MEChA Summit takeover by quoting stipulations of the EPM
and the MEChA statewide constitution, but their protest fell on deaf ears.
70

Summit MEChA chapters fortified their network by restructuring county level
MEChA Centrales in Southern California, improving communication amongst

67
MEChA Summit, “The Philosophy of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan” (18 Jan. 1992):
5, 7.

68
Alvarez, “MEChA: A Recent History of Conflict and Change, 1986-1991,” 7, 10.

69
Ibid, 11. According to Alvarez, during the meeting a known LRS member in MEChA claimed that
LRS had disbanded but few actually believed him.

70
CSULA MEChA, untitled manuscript (1991): 1-2.
97

MEChA Summit chapters, and identifying MEChA chapters outside of Southern
California who were willing to join their efforts.
71
These MEChA chapters used El
Plan de Santa Barbara as their flag and banner. Their goal was to expel LRS,
eliminate the EPM, and implement PoM documents.
Summit MEChA chapters made their first attempt to retake the statewide
structure on Cinco de Mayo 1991 at the California MEChA Statewide conference
hosted by CSU Fresno. The Four-hundred and fifty students that attended the
conference represented sixty-three MEChA chapters. Summit chapters failed to
achieve their goals at this conference because chapters in attendance engaged in
heated arguments over El Plan de Santa Barbara (EPDSB) and the California
MEChA structure. CSU Fresno MEChA felt the situation was beyond their control,
so they called campus security to end the conference before anything was voted on.
Outside of the building, where the conference was being held, MEChA members
formed two camps. This is when it became apparent Summit MEChA chapters held
the numerical majority.
72

Summit chapters continued their offensive at the following California MEChA
Statewide Conferences, where they finally gained control and officially adopted the
El Plan de San Barbara and the Philosophy of MEChA (PoM). By the fall of 1991,
Summit MEChA chapters were better organized and more confident. UC Davis
MEChA in northern California was their ally and the host of that semester’s

71
Ibid, 11-12.

72
Ibid, 12-13.
98

California MEChA Statewide Conference. At the conference, an overwhelming
majority of MEChA chapters passed a resolution to officially adopt El Plan de San
Barbara and nullify El Plan de MEChA at the statewide level. They made their
conferences more exclusive and set out to implement the aspects of El Plan de San
Barbara. MEChA chapters demanded the establishment of Chicano Studies
programs and departments in institutions of higher education and demanded more
resources for these departments and programs where already existed. MEChA
members also agreed to advocate for greater student feedback and decision-making
powers in these programs and departments.
73
For many at the conference, passing
these resolutions was, “a victory for the resurgence of Chicana and Chicano
nationalism within the student movement.”
74
The final nail in the coffin for LRS in
MEChA was the adoption of the PoM at the spring California MEChA Statewide
Conference held at CSU Fullerton on 18 January 1992.
LRS began to self-destruct in the late-1980s and this facilitated the Summit
MEChA takeover of the California MEChA statewide structure. International events
caused LRS members to have second thoughts on the viability and desirability of a
Marxist-Leninist revolution. In 1989, the Chinese government resorted to violence
and media censorship, to stifle a pro-democracy and pro-economic liberalization
movement amongst Chinese students. Tiananmen Square massacre is the most
famous episode of this repression, where the Chinese army slaughtered protesters

73
Alvarez, 13-14.

74
Ibid, 14.
99

and a protester was video taped blocking the advance of a column of government
tanks. This violent repression of dissent in China delegitimized the country’s
government amongst Marxist-Leninists Maoists around the world who regarded the
Chinese government as a model of what they wanted to achieve. Further dampening
the allure of Marxist-Leninist revolution amongst international adherents was the fall
of the Berlin Wall in Germany, economic liberalization reforms in socialist
countries, and the break up of the Soviet Union. All these international events
signaled the retreat and decline of the socialist alternative to capitalism around the
world. LRS members voted to disband the organization at their national conference
on 8 September 1990. According to the official statement of dissolution, a large
majority of LRS members decided to move beyond a Marxist-Leninist framework
and organizational form due to personal experience and world events.
75

In reviewing the developments in the world, a large majority of us feel that there
are aspects of Marxism-Leninism and the practice carried out in its name that are
inappropriate, unsuitable, and even antithetical to the vision we hold of a
democratic and just society.
76

Beto, an ATM and LRS member, recalled he was uneasy about the elitism of the
Marxist-Leninist tactics that since the 1970s. He disagreed with the assumption that
knowledge of the “correct” ideology gave Marxist-Leninists the right to lead other
peoples’ struggles. His familiarity with the good intentions of ATM’s membership
as well as their unorthodox approach initially kept his concerns in check. However,
these concerns re-emerged for him when ATM merged to form LRS and the

75
LRS, “Statement on the Dissolution of the League of Revolutionary Struggle,” 1.

76
Ibid, 3.
100

organization’s membership, influence, and Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy grew
exponentially. Beto argues that by the late 1980s, LRS was more concerned with
wining power struggles and implementing central committee orders, than it was with
addressing the needs of the communities it claimed to be liberating.
77
This concern
among others caused infighting within LRS and when combined with international
events, members began to doubt the necessity of such an organization and a majority
decided to dissolve it. Thus, the well organized, but not so well informed Summit
MEChA chapters defeated the disoriented remnants of an organization that no longer
existed.
The Summit MEChA victory did not eliminate the legacy of LRS in MEChA, but
it did mark the last large scale attempt by a Marxist-Leninist organization to infiltrate
MEChA. The struggle over ideology and power in MEChA led to the annulment of
the Plan de MEChA, the adoption of the Philosophy of MEChA and the Plan de
Santa Barbara, as well as the restructuring of the California MEChA statewide
network. While Chicanismo reigned supreme once again in the early 1990s, the next
cohorts of MEChA members in California challenged the reactionary aspects of the
PoM and used anti-infiltration policies against outside organizations that
ideologically identified as Chicana/o nationalist.
78
The Soviet Union and China were
pushed aside by most MEChA Member’s as models of Marxist-Leninist resistance.

77
Beto, 2007. The same can be said of anti-LRS forces in MEChA.

78
I analyze efforts to reform the Philosophy of MEChA in chapters 3 and 4 of this dissertation.
MEChA chapters asserted their autonomy against the National Chicano Moratorium Committee and
the Brown Berets of Aztlan in the 1990s.
101

Yet, the prominence of Latin American models such the government of Cuba,
Mexico’s Zapatista Army of National Liberation, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and
Bolivia’s Evo Morales as well as the material conditions of Latin America and
United States’ barrios kept Marxist-Leninist thought alive within MEChA and the
Chicana/o Movement beyond the LRS years.
Conclusion
The fervor of the late 1960s Chicana/o Movement created MEChA and anchored
it in Chicanismo, but the organization in practice was defined by the outcome of
ideological struggles. Increased police repression after the Chicano Moratorium
march of 1970 and the failure of La Raza Unida Party to unite at the national level
shook the ideological hegemony of Chicanismo over the Chicana/o Movement and
MEChA, making way for Marxist-Leninism. MEChA became a central fomenting
ground for hybrid forms of Chicanismo and Marxist-Leninism and its membership
was heavily recruited by Marxist-Leninist organizations who valued the
organizations’ highly educated and politically motivated membership.
Ideological conflict began as an internal MEChA struggle, nevertheless, in the
mid-1970s Chicana/o activists formed Marxist-Leninist collectives and organizations
that continued to compete with one another to control MEChA and the Chicana/o
Movement. They attempted to develop an appropriate hybrid of Marxist-Leninism
and nationalism to address the problems of ethnic Mexicans and Latina/os in the
United States. CASA and ATM became prominent Marxist-Leninist organizations
in the Chicana/o Movement and although it is difficult to measure their respective
102

influence over MEChA, Marxist-Leninism as a whole became an acceptable and
influential form of analysis within MEChA. Nevertheless, the ATM-CASA feud
caused tension, paranoia, and damaging infighting within MEChA and the Chicana/o
Movement, widening the gap between activists and the community they claimed to
fight for.
In the 1980s, Chicana/o Marxist-Leninists became a dominant force in the
California MEChA statewide structure through their part in the infiltration efforts of
the national Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, League of Revolutionary Struggle (LRS).
Chicana/os in LRS became more Marxist-Leninist orthodox than when they were in
ATM. They came to tolerate nationalism only to the point that it was counter
imperialistic, but their ultimate goal was uniting people of color liberation
movements and the Euro-American working-class under a single socialist banner and
leadership. MEChA chapters influenced by LRS successfully marginalized their
political adversaries within the California MEChA statewide structure in the second-
half of the 1980s, and in their absence attempted to safeguard gains by
institutionalizing a freedom of ideology and freedom of political association rule in
MEChA. Nevertheless, international events and internal conflicts over tactics caused
LRS to dissolve as its political adversaries organized to purge them from MEChA.
Summit MEChA chapters overtook the remnants of the defunct LRS in the early
1990s, implementing reforms based on their Philosophy of MEChA and El Plan de
Santa Barbara, making MEChA more nationalist and hesitant to work with non-
MEChA members. These reforms also made the organization more paranoid of
103

infiltration and eager to assert its autonomy against any other organization that
attempted to influence its direction and ideology.
104

Chapter 3—Sexo en Aztlan:
Gender Norms in California MEChA, Late 1960s-1990s.

When the Chicana/o Movement emerged in the late 1960s, it was set on
liberating a people. However, eliminating gender privilege was not on its radar.
When Chicanas brought up these issues, they were glossed over and Chicanas were
criticized for “rocking the boat.” Thus, at the first National Chicano Youth
Liberation Conference in 1969, the Chicana workshop concluded that as far as
culturally ascribed gender roles and sexism were concerned, “It was the consensus of
the group that the Chicana woman does not want to be liberated.”
1
Like women in
the New Left and other people of color civil rights and power movements, Chicanas’
experienced sexism in the Chicana/o Movement.
2
Yet, through their activism in the
Movement, many Chicanas developed the skills, experience, and self-confidence to
oppose sexism, form their own space within the movement, and form their own
organizations outside of the movement.
3

In this chapter, I analyze the gender and sexual connotations of Chicana/o
Movement ideology, symbols, manifestos, and actions. These elements combined to
form a heterosexist and patriarchal consciousness within MEChA that pushed

1
Enriqueta Vasquez, “The Woman of La Raza, Part 1,” in Enriqueta Vasquez and the Chicano
Movement: Writings from El Grito del Norte, ed. Lorena Oropeza and Dionne Espinoza (Houston:
Arte Público Press, 2006), 116.

2
Alfredo Mirandé and Evengelina Enriquez, La Chicana: The Mexican-American Woman (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1979), 240.

3
Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina made this argument about her own experience as a
Chicana student activist in the early 1970s, see Luis H. Ramirez, “Councilwoman Gloria Molina
Speaks On Chicana Activities,” El Popo 21, no. 2 (May 1987): 6, The El Popo Newspaper Collection,
Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN. Labor activism has played
a similar role in the development of Chicana leadership and gender consciousness.
105

Chicanas into supportive roles. Nevertheless, Chicanas resisted gender norms and
roles to lead their community’s struggle. Although they initially remained silent for
unity’s sake, they slowly built up the momentum to create their own space and voice
within the organization and directly challenged the sexism of their peers. In the
process, Chicanas created a mandate of equality and sensibility to social stratification
within the organization. To trace this transition, I examine a wide variety of primary
sources associated to MEChA: art and poetry; official MEChA plans, position
papers, and newsletters; MEChA conference programs, workshops, resolutions;
MEChA meeting minutes, event flyers, and pictures; and the personal experience of
individuals.
University of Southern California (USC) MEChA
As a leader of USC MEChA in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mary Ann
Pacheco both accommodated gender roles and defied them. The first position she
held in the organization was clerical, but later as co-chair, Pacheco came to play a
leading role in struggles over space and place on campus. She came to run meetings,
plan demonstrations, and serve as a spokeswoman for USC MEChA when dealing
with the university’s administration. Pacheco likes to joke that there were not
enough MEChA members on campus to be sexist, but she recognizes that there was
sexism in the group dynamic. There were few women in USC MEChA and they
fulfilled gender expectations, serving as both clerical aids and food preparers.
Pacheco claims she embraced the maternal role. She felt compelled to take care of
the males in the group. Pacheco recalls keeping track of members’ draft status and
106

helping them with their paperwork to avoid military service. It was a matter of life
and death that she took seriously. USC MEChA was a family to Pacheco. MEChA
members pooled their resources for things like food and transportation, and they
supported one another.
4

In the early 1970s, USC MEChA was not divided by strife over sexism like other
chapters. Nevertheless, Chicanas did not receive the same amount of respect and
recognition as their male counterparts. Pacheco remembers a community member
questioning her role as leader of the group because of her gender. Chicanas also had
more obstacles to getting involved on-campus because their parents were more
hesitant to allow them to live on-campus. Pacheco was an exception in that her
parents allowed her to live on-campus, rather than force her to commute in her old
and unsafe vehicle.
5

Chicanas in USC MEChA were not prohibited from becoming leaders, but they
faced extra challenges and were expected to take care of the behind the scenes work
as well. Pacheco’s leadership was supported and defended by male members of the
group. However, this support was partially based on her meeting all their
expectations of a female member. Furthermore, sexism does not seem to have been
an issue that the organization addressed and the fact that she did not push the
organization to address it, may explain why the organization did not split up or turn
on her. This may have also been the result of Chicanas being the minority in USC

4
Mary Ann Pacheco, interview by author, 29 November 2004, Whittier, Calif., digital audio
recording.

5
Ibid.
107

MEChA in the late 1960s and early 1970s, making them decide against challenging
the norms of the group.
6
Nevertheless, Pacheco does not recall sexism being a major
facet of her USC MEChA experience. While being a leader in the Chicana/o student
struggle was.
El Popo 1970
The first issue of CSUN’s El Popo exemplifies the attitudes towards gender and
sexuality in MEChA and the Chicana/o Movement in the early 1970s. The
newsletter defines the expected role of women in the Movement and community, and
alludes to the characteristics of commendable masculinity. According to “What is a
Chicana?,” Chicanas are free to pursue an education, career, and political activism,
but they remain bond to their gender role and responsibilities to community and
family.
The Chicana is a teacher in many respects. She upholds the traditions and
customs of her people. She is a [sic] liason between the new ideas set forth by
the young and the ideals maintained by the old. The Chicana’s activities in the
barrio demand a twenty-four hour day, yet she continues to carry on her family
role…The Chicana understands the role of the Chicano and works alongside of
him. She is a woman she understands that she has to work twice as hard to prove
herself. She is capable of being an artist, a writer, a poet, a historian, and a
lawyer. She does not, however, forsake her role as a mother and a wife. She is a
Chicana!
7

Chicanas’ gender role is emphasized time and again, while the role of Chicanos does
not appear to necessitate definition, women are just supposed to know. The article’s
author recognizes that women have to work harder than men to earn respect, but

6
Pacheco only recalls three other Chicanas participating in USC MEChA while she was there.

7
El Popo 1, no. 1 (10 Mar 1970): 3, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano
Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
108

Chicanas are still ascribed the load of community activist, career women,
mother/wife, bearer of culture, and liaison between generations. This was more than
an ideal as some Chicanas, such as Mary Ann Pacheco at USC MEChA, lived this
role as a MEChA member. She was a hardy activist, a clerical aid, and acted out the
domestic role.
Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzáles’ I Am Joaquin is the theme of the first issue of El
Popo and like the poem, the paper is full of prescribed gender roles and sexuality
norms.
8
El Popo staff universalized the experience of Joaquin Murrieta, a Mexican
miner turned social bandit in California, to stand for the experience of the whole
Chicana/o community.
9
This issue contains a drawing of a Chicano worker with a
thick mustache proclaiming “Y….Yo…Soy…Muy….Macho!” (I am very manly)
and I am "bold with Machismo" (masculinity).
10
Chicanos at the height of the
Chicana/o Movement openly embraced Machismo. They argued that Machismo
gave them the strength to stand up to the system, “Like men!”
11
Thus, liberation
required Macho men and that is who Chicano leaders imagined would swell the
ranks of the Movement.
Reinforcing prototypes of masculinity and femininity, CSUN MEChA named
their newsletter after the male figure of a sexist Aztec legend. The paper is named

8
See chapter 1 of this dissertation for an analysis of I Am Joaquin.

9
El Popo 1, no. 1 (10 Mar 1970): 2, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano
Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

10
El Popo 1, no. 1 (10 Mar 1970): 2, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano
Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

11
Armando B. Rendón, Chicano Manifesto (New York: Macmillan, 1972), 104.
109

after Popocatepetl, a volcano in Mexico named after a mythical Aztec warrior
commonly depicted in Chicana/o and Mexican art work. Popocatepetl and
Iztaccihuatl, his female companion, appear on barrio walls, low-rider cars, and make
up a lions’ share of panaderia (bakery) calendar artwork. In Aztec lore, Iztaccihuatl
committed suicide out of love for Popocatepetl, who takes her limp body to the
mountains to mourn her death.
12
Their legend is embodied by an active volcano in
Mexico that represents Popocatepetl and next to it is a mountain range that resembles
a sleeping woman that represents Iztaccihuatl. Like in I Am Joaquin, the legend
associates masculinity with military prowess and action, and femininity with
passivity. Chicana/os drew from their history, traditions, and culture to inspire
activism and pride. Nevertheless, this practice had a demoralizing and damaging
affect on Chicana activists in the early 1970s, when movement leaders uncritically
drew from cultural lore and traditions despite of sexist connotations.

Figure 1: Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl

12
“El Popo marks tenth anniversary,” El Popo 14, no. 5 (May/June) 1980, The El Popo Newspaper
Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
110

The first issue of El Popo reflects the gender norms of the Movement through
articles, art work, themes, and the name of the newspaper itself. Chicanas were
expected to fulfill domestic sphere roles as mothers and wives, while fulfilling roles
as community activists, students, and career women as well. Chicanos on the other
hand, had to be machos, defying the United States’ authorities like social bandits and
Aztec warriors. These ascribed gender roles assumed heterosexual relations,
marking romantic, sexual, and marital relationship between men and women as the
acceptable norm.
Creating Their Own Space
Chicanos in the Movement acknowledged that women had unequal access to
activism and social mobility due to sexism, and this provided Chicanas a small
window of opportunity to create their own space within the Movement without
challenging gendered expectations.
13
Chicanas knew from experience that direct
opposition to sexism in the Movement, and attempts to gear it toward fighting
sexism, ignited hostile responses from Chicanos. Thus, Chicana workshop
organizers framed their criticism of sexism, in society and in the Movement, with a
pro-nationalist framework that emphasized greater access to activism, education, and
career choices for Chicanas. This was the common topic of discussion at the
“Chicana workshop” at Movement conferences in the early 1970s, along with how
Chicanas in the Movement were different from mainstream feminists.

13
"A Woman Speaks Out in Defense of New Chicanas," MEChA: Cal St. Los Angeles (November
1971): 3.
111

It was an understanding that Chicanos, as a whole people cannot be liberated if
one section of its whole is still in bonds. The question of La Chicana’s liberation
lies in the definition of this term. We are [sic] apeaking of the liberation which
gives the Chicana “a freedom of choice” in roles she plays within the society.
14

Through this strategy, Chicanas were able to address issues such as childcare and
healthcare that Chicano activists tended to overlook or deem unimportant.
Some Chicanos and Movement media sources closely monitored and scrutinized
Chicana workshops, limiting Chicanas’ ability to speak freely and directly challenge
sexism. This reduced some Chicana workshops early on to serve as rubber stamps
for mainstream trends in the Chicana/o Movement. The most nefarious example of
this latter phenomenon was the 1969 National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference
where the Chicana workshop concluded that Chicanas did not wish to be liberated
from sexism at the moment.
15

At the second annual National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference in 1970,
the Chicana workshop continued to reassure Chicanos that there was no gender
divide in the Movement.
Las Chicanitas had their voices heard at the Chicana Liberation Movement’s
workshop which also proved to be one of the most popular in discussion and in
numbers attending. To be sure, los Batos discovered las Chicanitas discussing
liberation but not the same vein as las gabachas women’s liberation. Los machos
soon found out there wasn’t anything to get uptight about.
16

14
El Popo 4, no. 2: 2, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department,
Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

15
Enriqueta Vasquez, “The Woman of La Raza, Part 1,” in Enriqueta Vasquez and the Chicano
Movement: Writings from El Grito del Norte, ed. Lorena Oropeza and Dionne Espinoza (Houston:
Arte Público Press, 2006), 116.

16
El Popo 1, no. 2 (April 7, 1970): 6, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano
Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
112

The sexist and male centered coverage of this Chicana workshop by El Popo
demonstrates the type of scrutiny and disparaging views that Chicanas dealt with in
the Movement, and the fine line they tread in running workshops that dealt with
gender and women’s issues. The article refers to Chicanas in the diminutive
Chicanitas (as in small Chicanas or little girls), while it refers to Chicanos as Batos
(as in vatos locos, street warriors) and as machos (masculine men). Due to the heavy
male gaze on Chicana workshop participants, they first had to deal with the concerns
of men. The most important of which was distancing themselves from the
mainstream Women’s Liberation Movement.
17
What kind of liberation could be
achieved under these conditions is questionable, especially since women were forced
to address and defend their gender consciousness while men took their male
privilege for granted. Nevertheless, these workshops served as a beachfront for
Chicanas to claim and reshape their realm of the Movement and connect with
Chicanas from other MEChA chapters, organizations, and regions. Some of whom
shared their concerns and experiences.
Chicanas successfully convinced Chicanos that gender equality was good in
theory, but Chicanos were more reluctant to put it into practice. Sexism and the role
of Chicanas in the Movement were discussed at the 1972 fall California MEChA
Statewide Conference hosted by CSUN MEChA. Among the resolutions passed by
participants, one demanded gender parity in MEChA leadership. The resolution
officially recognized that Chicanas experienced sexism and discrimination within

17
Alfredo Mirandé and Evengelina Enriquez, La Chicana: The Mexican-American Woman (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1979), 238.
113

MEChA and the Chicana/o Movement, and that this diminished their ability to
contribute to La Causa (the cause). This gave moral and authoritative backing to
Chicanas that little by little more openly criticized sexism in the Movement, but in
practice, the resolution had little impact on MEChA leadership.
Even though conference resolutions reflected the thoughts of the vocal majority,
once passed, there was no entity in MEChA that ensured chapters implemented
them. Further diminishing the resolution’s impact was the quick turnover rate of
Chicana/o student activists, which hampered the transfer of information from one
cohort to the next. Thus, this resolution was not enough for many Chicana
feminists. Some decided to start their own organizations and heavily criticized
MEChA and the Movement in the process. The image of a sexist MEChA and
Chicano Movement became a permanent fixture amongst Chicana feminists that left,
and amongst the emerging field of Chicana/o Studies.
18
Others decided to join the
Women’s Liberation Movement, which some found to be racist and insensitive to the
needs of women of color, while others formed organizations and alliances with
women of color.
19

18
Douglas R. Martinez, "El Movimiento Estudiantil- from the Sixties to the Seventies," Agenda
(May-June): 21; Carlos Muñoz, Youth, Identity, and Power: The Chicano Movement (London: Verso,
1989), 88-89. For an analysis of the role patriarchy and gender played in the Chicana/o Movement,
see Ramón A Gutiérrez, "Community, Patriarchy and Individualism: The Politics of Chicano History
and the Dream of Equality," American Quarterly 45 (March, 1993): 44-72. For a Chicana Feminist
critique of the movement and the experience of Chicanas in the Chicano Movement, see Alma M.
García, ed., Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings (New York: Routlegde, 1997);
Vicki L. Ruiz, "La Nueva Chicana: Women and the Movement," in From Out of the Shadows:
Mexican Women in the Twentieth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).

19
Alfredo Mirandé and Evengelina Enriquez, La Chicana: The Mexican-American Woman (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1979), 238, 239.
114

Two prominent camps emerged amongst Chicana activists, those that identified
as Chicana feminists and those they labeled “loyalists.”
20
Two Chicana CSUN
students exemplified these camps through a public debate on the role of feminism,
women’s liberation, and Chicanas in the Chicana/o Movement, through a series of El
Popo editorials. Yolanda Huerta, an El Popo editor, argued that it was unnecessary
to define the role of Chicanas in the Movement, because they could and should
contribute like everyone else. In her view, delving in women’s liberation issues and
rhetoric only served to divide the Chicana/o Movement. She claimed the Women’s
Liberation Movement was geared towards middle-class white women with little
relevancy to or concern for working-class Chicanas.
21

Rosa Maria Gonzalez agreed that the Chicana/o Movement should not be divided
and that the Women’s Liberation Movement ran on a white middle-class axis,
nevertheless she argued that the latter had a valid cause. According to Gonzalez,
Chicana feminism was geared toward a working-class women’s movement that took
race, class, and gender into consideration. Gonzalez claimed Chicanas had an equal
right to speak of Chicana power and seek reaffirmation for their private and public
contributions. Furthermore, Gonzalez contented that it was those against Chicanas’
full and equal participation in Chicana/o activism that divided and hampered the
Chicana/o Movement. Lastly, she highlighted the illegitimacy of a movement that
claimed to liberate La Raza, while simultaneously subjugating Chicanas of La

20
Ibid., 237, 238.

21
Guest Editorial by staff writer Rosa Maria Gonzalez, El Popo 7, no. 4: 3, Box 4 / Folder 11, Bert
Corona Papers, M0248, Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries.
115

Raza.
22
Although Chicana activists did not reach a consensus on the issue, these
editorials demonstrate their greater ability to discuss feminism, its role in the
Movement, and voice dissenting and critical views.
Chicanas who were critical of the sexism in the Movement and its iconography
were susceptible to criticism and isolation, and Chicana faculty members were no
exception. From December of 1973 to March of 1974, six Chicano student artists
painted murals covering the walls of a whole classroom at CSUN. The painters
believed they had created art that raised political awareness, instilled pride, and
expressed views of Chicana/os and other people of color oppressed within the United
States.
23
Although the murals were celebrated as an accomplishment at their
unveiling reception, CSUN Chicano Studies professor Ana Nieto-Gómez launched a
scathing critique of the murals. Nieto-Gómez argued that the murals reflected the
sexism and “cult of youth” among students who believe they epitomize the
Movement and the community. She noted that the naked women in the mural
seemed too young and their bodies’ too perfect to have ever experienced the
struggle, much less represent it. And that the semi-nude man in the mural looked
more like a middle-class body builder than an oppressed farm worker.
24

22
Ibid.

23
“Los Murales de la Gente,” El Popo 7, no. 4: 10-11, Box 4 / Folder 11, Bert Corona Papers, M0248,
Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries.

24
Lorraine Chaparror, “El Popo Interviews…” El Popo 7, no. 4: 11, Box 4 / Folder 11, Bert Corona
Papers, M0248, Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries.
116

Figure 2: Ana Nieto-Gómez criticized this section of CSUN’s Chicano Mural
25

In the spring of 1976, Professor Ana Nieto-Gómez was denied tenure and
recommended for termination by CSUN’s Chicano Studies Department, Chicano
Affairs, and Personnel Review Board. She attempted to fight the decision, arguing
that she had experienced sexism, harassment, and ostracism in the Chicano Studies
Department, and that the Personnel Review Board was dysfunctional due to conflicts
of interest. Gómez’ struggle to overturn this decision became a cause among
Chicana feminists, nonetheless, CSUN MEChA refused to support her. Instead, it
focused on Gómez’ “betrayal” of the CSUN Chicana/o family for soliciting outside
support and for not abiding by the decision of Chicano Affairs (made up of
Chicana/o administrators, faculty, and students). When she received support from
other Chicana/o student activists, including other MEChA chapters, CSUN MEChA
rebuked them. “The democratic processes were judiciously exhausted. Therefore, it
is incumbent on all other MEChA bodies and organizations to respect and support in

25
Photo taken by author in 2008.
117

solidarity the decision of this MEChA.”
26
Tellingly, CSUN MEChA attempted to
portray Gómez as a traitor, a “Malinche,” at a time when the historical figure had
already been redeemed as a proto Chicana feminist.
27

In 21 March 1977, Chicanas at CSUN formed the Chicana Information Center. It
was created as an alternative to the mainstream women’s center on campus. They
wanted to create a space where Chicanas felt comfortable talking about women’s
issues. The center as made an effort to inform Chicanas on campus about women’s
issues and press El Popo to incorporate Chicana issues and perspectives into its news
coverage. When the center lost its funding, Chicanas created Mujeres de Aztlán as a
standing committee in MEChA to maintain an open forum for Chicanas to discuss
issues they deemed pertinent.
28

In the 1970s, Chicanas asserted their right to address issues that concerned
women through workshops, conferences, and Chicana forums. Chicanas used

26
“On The Termination of Anna Nieto Gomez” and “MEChA Resolution” in El Popo 9, no. 4
(March, 1976): 2, Box 1 / Folder 21, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano
Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

27
Malinche was an enslaved woman that helped Hernan Cortez conquer the Aztecs. She is
recognized in Mexico as the mother of Mestizos, giving birth to a child fathered by Cortez. Like
Benedict Arnold in the United States, her name in Mexico is interchangeable with traitor. As a
female, she is seen as Eve from the Garden of Eden, responsible for the first sin. For Chicanas,
liberation required combating misogynist traditions amongst people of Mexican descent and she was
one of the first targets for revamping. They reconsidered the portrayal of Malinche, shedding the
traitor image and launching her as a strong and talented woman that used her intelligence to combat
an oppressive society. A society that enslaved her, one she owed no allegiance to. For more on
Malinche, as she relates to Chicanas and Mexican traditions, see Alfredo Mirandé and Evangelina
Enriquez, La Chicana: The Mexican American Woman (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1979), 24-31, 241-242; Emma Pérez, The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas into History
(Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999), xv, 102, 103, 106, 107, 122.

28
“Chicana Info. Center,” El Popo 10, no. 4 (Apr-May 1977): 20; Rebecca Haro, “Mujeres Unite:
Mujeres de Aztlán reach out to Latinas,” El Popo 24, no. 3 (Teotleco/Fall 1990): 3, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

118

“Chicana Workshops” to discuss the sexist barriers to greater activism, but they did
so under close scrutiny. Through these forums, Chicanas gained greater space to
address issues that would otherwise be overlooked by Chicanos. Chicanas did not
necessarily agree on the extent to which they wanted to embrace the Women’s
Liberation Movement because it did not directly address their concerns, but also
because of the isolation they could potentially face within the Chicano community.
29

Nevertheless, Chicana students gained the right to debate this issue publicly.
Unfortunately, “outspoken” Chicanas that criticized sexism in the Movement
remained vulnerable to the Chicana/o majority, as was the case with Professor Ana
Nieto-Gómez.
Chicanas, Sexism, and CSUN MEChA in the 1980s
The February-March 1980 issue of El Popo has a “Chicana Section,” making up
almost one third of the entire issue, which features articles and pictures focused on
women.
30
This section has its own editorial on International Women’s Day as well
as articles on abortion, the Chicana Information Center, and on United States’
companies dumping unsafe contraceptives in Third World markets.
The Chicana section featured an interview of Chicano Historian Rodolfo “Rudy”
Acuña, by Professor Mary Pardo, on revisions he made for the second edition of

29
Alfredo Mirandé and Evengelina Enriquez, La Chicana: The Mexican-American Woman (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1979), 237-240.

30
In the 1970s, several Chicana/o periodicals devoted special issues to Chicanas like: El Grito del
Norte, Regeneración, El Grito, and De Colores. There were also newsletters and a journal dedicated
completely to Chicanas. See, Alfredo Mirandé and Evengelina Enriquez, La Chicana: The Mexican-
American Woman (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979), 236.
119

Occupied America. Acuña admits he shortchanged Chicanas in the first edition,
however, he attributed it to naiveté and not a conscious effort. Acuña recognizes his
limitations and endeavors to rectify them, “…I don’t feel I am in a position to write a
history of the Chicana…I am still a chauvinist, but I am working on changing this.”
31

Acuña claimed that Chicana students sensitized him to women’s issues and
accomplishments, and that more extensive research has allowed him to incorporate
Chicana history in the second edition of Occupied America. Acuña recognizes the
validity and merit of Chicana feminist critics of the Chicana/o Movement, and the
need for more dialogue to address sexism. He argues that Chicanas have a positive
effect on CSUN MEChA, “The second MEChA chairperson was a woman—Maria
Teran. Women have been the key movers throughout the history of MEChA at
CSUN—the most consistent hardworking source.”
32
Acuña believed men and
women were ideologically similar in MEChA. Nevertheless, he contented its male
leadership relied more on intimidation, and its female leadership on diplomacy.
In the 1980s, Chicanas’ had a more prominent role in determining what was
published in El Popo. The faculty advisor of the paper, in the fall of 1981, admitted
that there was much debate amongst staff about censoring contributions they
believed were classist, racist, sexists, or in some way violated their “Principles of

31
Rodolfo “Rudy” Acuña, “Dr Rudy Acuña interviewed—Mexicana/Chicana: forgotten chapter of
history,” interviewed by Mary Pardo, El Popo 14, no. 4 (Feb.-March, 1980): 8, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

32
Ibid.
120

Unity.” “A problem has arisen in that what is sexist to one, is not sexist to another.”
33

In the end, El Popo staff decided to print submissions to the creative section of El
Popo regardless of whether they considered it offensive. Although offensive poems
were not censored, Chicanas were more likely to challenge sexist material in the
Chicana/o student newspaper.
El Popo now ran articles that criticized oppressive aspects of Chicana/o culture,
traditions, and religious beliefs. This once taboo practice could now be done
publicly, and be published in the student newsletter. El Popo put out a two-part
article on battered women that argued Latina/o culture and traditions could be
accomplices of insensitive United States’ institutions in the victimization of
Chicanas. El Popo staff writer Magdalena Hernández Beltrán interviewed Gloria de
la Cruz, director of Manos de Esperanza, at the local Van Nuys community mental
health center. De la Cruz argued that customs in Latina/o families encouraged
women to stay in marriages regardless of domestic abuse. According to her, this
tendency was fueled by gender norms, machismo, and religious notions of female
sexuality, fidelity, and Catholic abhorrence of divorce.
34
In the early 1970s, such a
critique of Chicana/o culture would have drawn disdain and charges of

33
Arnulfo Casillas, “To the readers of Creatividad,” El Popo 16, no. 1 (Sept./Oct. 1981): 4, The El
Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center,
CSUN.

34
Magdalena Hernández Beltrán, “Abused Chicanas: A Gloomy Picture,” El Popo 16, no. 1
(Sept./Oct. 1981): 1, 6, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies
Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
121

assimilationist propaganda. Now, Beltran could address these concerns even if they
were at odds with Chicana/o nationalist notions of culture and family.
Nevertheless, sexism was still primarily addressed by Chicanas and there
remained a fear amongst women on campus that challenging sexism could have
negative repercussions. CSUN’s Mujeres de Aztlan argued that MEChA and the
Chicana/o community needed to be as sensitive about sexism as they were about
racism. The subcommittee praised MEChA for challenging and condemning campus
theme parties by white students in fraternities that denigrated Mexican people or
Mexican history. However, Mujeres de Aztlan maintained MEChA turned a blind
eye to parties that demeaned women. They argued that racist and sexist images
served to instigate and justify the oppression of people, and should be of equal
concern to MEChA. Furthermore, Mujeres de Aztlan contended that sexism was
accepted and internalized by the Latina/o community to the point that some women
perpetuated it, and some Latinas feared challenging sexism could lead to social
isolation and being labeled overly sensitive.
35
Although Chicanas made gains, they
still dealt with insensitivity, their concerns were not equally addressed by MEChA,
and they still feared isolation and estrangement for challenging sexism.
In the late 1980s, several former Chicana student activists visited CSUN and
other college campuses. They served as Chicana role models for students and
encouraged them to remain active, take on leadership roles, challenge sexism, and
participate in broad struggles. In the spring of 1987, CSUN MEChA invited Los

35
Mujeres de Aztlan, “What are we advertising?” El Popo 20, no. 1 (October, 1985): 7, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
122

Angeles City Councilwoman Gloria Molina to speak on “women in politics” as part
of El Mes de la Mujer (Woman’s Month). MEChA chairwoman, Gina Rodriguez,
introduced Molina to an audience of fifty. Molina began her life of political
involvement in the late 1960s as a member of the Mexican American Student
Association (MASA). She recalled the gender disparities of the Chicana/o
Movement and stated that racism, not sexism, was the priority of the Movement.
“Men were in the leadership position and the women were the Tamaleras [Female
Tamale Makers] who did much of the work.”
36
Molina argued that Chicanas who
brought up sexism in the Movement, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, were verbally
attacked by men who claimed they were creating a “second agenda.” Nevertheless,
she was convinced that her involvement in the Chicana/o Movement gave her the
courage to mobilize around significant political issues.
37
Molina went on to become
a fulltime politician as did several other former Chicana/o student movement
activists. Nevertheless, her political ascendance to date has been exceptional for
Chicana/os.
On 31 October 1987, Angela Senbrano gave a powerful keynote address at the
“Revolucionarias Chicanas/Latinos in Transition” conference at CSUN. The speech
touched upon most of the key themes in Chicana/o student activism in the late

36
Tamaleras literally means female tamal makers, but in this context it was used to mean the lowly
domestic female workers. Luis H. Ramirez, “Councilwoman Gloria Molina Speaks On Chicana
Activities,” El Popo 21, no. 2 (May 1987): 6, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and
Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

37
Ibid.

123

1980s.
38
Senbrano was the executive director of the Committee in Solidarity With
the People of El Salvador (CISPES), an organization started in the early 1980s to
lobby the United States government to end its military intervention in El Salvador
and Central America. In the early 1970s, Senbrano was a Chicana student activist in
Southern California. She was a member of Chasey College MEChA and Claremont
College MEChA.
39
In her keynote address, she spoke of her admiration for the
women in the revolutionary groups of El Salvador, the injustices they suffered at the
hands of the Salvadorian government, and the women’s bravery to organize
resistance. Senbrano placed the struggle for women’s rights within the context of
class struggle, highlighting the Marxist trends of thought in vogue among leftists in
both Central America and Chicana/o organizations in the 1980s.
Senbrano called on Chicana/os to address sexism and gender norms “now.” She
claimed achieving gender equality would be a long process, and should not wait for
the end of the revolution to start. Senbrano argued that as the Chicana/o community
fights against sexism and chauvinism, it has to continue organizing for better labor
and housing conditions, immigration laws, and for international issues such as
stopping United States military intervention in Central America, eliminating nuclear
weapons, and ending the Cold War’s arms race. Senbrano concluded, “Long live the
struggle of women, long live the struggle of Chicanas, y que viva Aztlan, y que viva

38
“Angela Senbrano Speaks at Chicana Conference,” El Popo 22, no. 2 (December): 4, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

39
Ibid.
124

La Raza!”
40
Her speech revealed her Chicana/o nationalism and internationalism,
her solidarity with La Raza of the Americas and with women in general, and her will
to simultaneously combat multiple forms of oppression.
Senbrano also participated in a Chicana leadership panel at the conference that
encouraged Chicanas to take a more active role in community leadership. All four
panelists served as role models and examples of Chicana community leadership.
Juana Gutierrez was a cofounder of Mothers of East Los Angeles, an organization
associated to the Catholic Church that used the trope of motherhood to struggle
against environmental racism in East Los Angeles.
41
Paula Muñoz helped set up
Chicana/o Studies at the University of Wisconsin at White Water and was the
director of Equal Opportunity Programs at Venture Community College and a
community activist. Muñoz was also a CSUN MEChA alumnus who credited much
of her organizing skills to her experience in CSUN MEChA. All panelist
encouraged Chicanas to be self-confident, battle sexism, and take charge of
community organizing and struggles.
42
The “Revolucionarias Chicanas/Latinas in
Transion” conference provided Chicana student’s role models and examples of what
they could become if they strove for leadership and social change.

40
Ibid.

41
For a study on Mothers of East Los Angeles, see Mary S. Pardo, Mexican American Women
Activists: Identity and Resistance in Two Los Angeles Communities (Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1998).

42
Charles Wilken, “Activists Speak on Women as Agents of Change” El Popo 22, no. 2 (December):
4, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives
Center, CSUN.
125

Although Chicanas still found themselves at the forefront of addressing sexism in
the Chicana/o community in the 1980s, they were in a better position to speak out
against this sexism than Chicanas in the 1970s, and they had more Chicana
community and campus role models paving the way. CSUN Chicana students in the
1980s were able to publically address women’s issues, attack sexism, and criticize
the Chicana/o community’s insensitivity through El Popo, programming, and groups
specifically geared for Chicana forums. They had not only established their own
space within MEChA, but laid claim to leadership, and planed to more aggressively
attain more of it in their quest for racial and gender equality. Chicana students could
now see Chicanas exercising leadership roles as politicians, activists, and professors.
CSUN MEChA in the Early 1990s
Chicana/o student activism at CSUN underwent a lull in the last two years of the
1980s. During the hiatus, El Popo was not published and membership in Chicana/o
activist organizations like MEChA hit a low. In the spring of 1990, there was a
comeback fueled by a resurgence of Chicanismo, and the Chicana/o Movement was
once again in demand. El Popo editor, Jose Maldonado, called for Latina/o unity
because, “We are all one gente.”
43
Maldono wanted Chicana/o student activists to
bring MEChA and Mujerez de Aztlan back to visibility and activism on campus, and
to re-evaluate the goals of the Chicana/o Movement. Maldonado made it clear that
sexism was going to be addressed and look down upon in the reinvigorated
movement.

43
José Maldonado, “Una Gente” El Popo Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring, 1990) 2, The El Popo Newspaper
Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
126

Despite the strength of the women on our campus and their gradual acceptance
by men as equals, there is still sexism in our movimiento. Leadership in MEChA
is a monumental task in itself, but being a women [sic] chair presents problems
of its own…. We need to take the final step and leave the sexism and machismo
behind, and realize that we are all one gente.
44

With a renewed sense of nationalism, Maldona and others attempted to unite
Latina/os as equals regardless of gender and ethnicity.
By 1990, many Chicano leaders knew that things had already changed when it
came to gender relations amongst activists and that more change was still required
for parity. In the summer of 1990, the Chicana/o community prepared to
commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the East Los Angeles National Chicano
Moratorium March. CSUN Chicana/o Studies Professor, Rodolfo “Rudy” Acuña,
addressed the developments and changes in the Chicana/o Movement since its
inception for a Moratorium related newspaper. “…important in our development has
been the impact of the critique [by] la Chicana. They have impacted almost every
phase of Chicano ideology….We can never really become a moral force until we
resolve the contradiction of sexism….
45
Acuña recognized that Chicanas challenges
to the sexism in the Movement shaped its ideological development and that the
Movement could not be a moral force for change without addressing and eliminating
sexism. According to Acuña, this still remained to be done satisfactorily. The
commemorative march and rally had a significant female presence amongst marchers

44
Ibid.

45
Rodolfo “Rudy” Acuña, “500 Years of Struggle,” interview by Arnulfo Casillas LA Moratorium
(August 1990): 2, Box 1 / Folder 2, Chicano Moratorium Vertical Files Collection, Chicano Studies
Research Center, UCLA.
127

and speakers. Two of three keynote speakers were women, Dolores Huerta of the
United Farm Workers and Nita Gonzáles of the Crusade for Justice. The sole
representative of MEChA to speak at the event was female Petricia Marin.
46

In the fall of 1990, Mujeres de Aztlan reemerged as a Chicana student
subcommittee of CSUN MEChA under the faculty advisement of CSUN professors
Mary Pardo, Claudia Cuevas, and Toni García. The organization originally emerged
in the late 1970s when the CSUN Chicana Information Center lost its funding and
closed down, leaving a need for Chicana space and a Chicana forum on campus. The
1990 version of Mujeres de Aztlan specifically outreached to Latinas, but its
membership was open. It sponsored weekly discussions on women’s issues,
especially those related to Latina students in higher education. They also helped
organize events for women’s history month and internal women’s day, and ran
mentoring programs and scholarships for Latina students.
47

Chicana professors and intellectuals played a more prominent role in the 1990s in
setting the gender norms of community activism. Cherrie Moraga, prominent
Chicana/o Studies professor and well known writer, expressed the more assertive
role Chicana feminists planned to take in the anti-Persian Gulf War Movement.
48
She
argued that unlike the Chicana/o anti-war movement of the early 1970s, this time

46
“August 25
th
Program: Politics & Culture” LA Moratorium (August 1990): 1, Box 1 / Folder 2,
Chicano Moratorium Vertical Files Collection, Chicano Studies Research Center, UCLA.

47
Rebecca Haro, “Mujeres Unite: Mujeres de Aztlan reach out to Latinas,” El Popo 24, no. 3
(Teotleco, 1990): 3, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department,
Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

48
The United States led a multinational, United Nations approved, military force to eject Iraq from
Kuwait. The “Persian Gulf War” lasted from August 1990 to February 1991.
128

around, Chicanas would be the leaders of the movement and employ a feminist
analysis. Moraga argued that feminism would be used to question the gender
dynamics within the peace movement and the struggle for social justice, but also to
comprehend the war itself.
49
Such a stance illuminates the high level of
sophistication and entrenchment that feminism reached amongst Chicana activists
and women in general by the early 1990s.The experience of El Popo staff writer,
Irma Escobar, demonstrates how race and gender consciousness were coupled in
the politicization of Chicana/o students in the 1990s.
Personally, it was in college that I have learned that as a Salvadoreña, I have
every right to challenge the racism and sexism we are subjected to. I learned
about assertiveness, communication and the ability to say no without feeling
guilty. Most importantly, I’ve learned that my loyalty to my people—Latinos—
does not justify their readiness to degrade their own.
50

Escobar recognized the double burden of race and gender discrimination that Latinas
faced. Her experience also demonstrates the growing involvement and politicization
of non-Mexican Latina/o students, primarily Central Americans, whose families
migrated to get away from violence in Central America revolutions in the late 1970s
and early 1980s.
51
The absence of class in Escobar’s comments illustrates the
declining role that Marxist Leninism played in the politicization of Chicana/o
students in the post Cold War period as the League of Revolutionary Struggle

49
Cherrie Moraga, “Interview with Cherrie Moraga,” interview by Lurdes Guerrero and Mike
Chavez, El Popo 25, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 4, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and
Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

50
Irma Escobar, “Latinas endure double burden,” El Popo 21, no. 1 (Fall 1991) 3, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

51
I give a more in-depth look at the increase of Central American student activism and Chicana/o
solidarity efforts with the people of Central America in Chapter 4 of this dissertation.
129

disbanded. Finally, Escobar declares that her loyalty to her community does not
include accepting internal discrimination.
In the 1991-1992 school year, Queer Latinos Unidos formed as a CSUN MEChA
standing committee to combat homophobia and create a space for sexual minority
Chicana/o students. As part of their activities, they published a commentary in El
Popo that was one of the first direct assaults on homophobia in the newsletter.
Previous articles had mentioned homophobia, but it was primarily meant as a side
note to AIDS prevention. Queer Latinos Unidos demonized homophobia as a
relative of racism, and created a heightened awareness of the plight and experience
of Chicana/o sexual minorities.
I am glad I’m gay because it frees me from the war-loving, love-fearing, sex-
fearing, woman-hating, racist, heterosexist, homophobic, homo-hating, scape-
goating, ‘religious’ supremacist, competitive, self-righteous mindlessness,
bigotry and denial that keeps most Americans ‘strait’…jacketed!
52

This characterization of mainstream society is reminiscent of those made by
Chicana/o activists in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Similar to Chicana/os in the
1970s, Queer Latinos Unidos critiqued bigotry and imperialism, but they directed
their efforts toward sexuality consciousness and removing the heterosexist strangle
hold on society.
Queer Latinos Unidos maintained that the Chicana/o community contributed to
the heterosexist problem. The committee lamented that although the community was
family oriented, entrenched conservatism forced gay and lesbian Latina/os to hide

52
Juan Arellano and Gabriel Meza Buelna, “Homophobia: Prejudice among us,” El Popo 21, no. 2
(Spring 1992): 3 The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department,
Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
130

their sexuality. Sexual minorities feared their loved ones would reject and lose
respect for them. Juan Arellano and Gabriel Meza Buelna (CSUN MEChA chair at
the time) argued that as oppressed people, Chicana/os should be more sensitive to the
situation of gay and lesbian Latina/os.
As Latinos, even we, who frequently feel the pain of oppression because we are
culturally different, believe we have the right to impose brutal [sic] judgement
Latino and other people with different sexual orientations, without having a clue
as to who they are….This practice differs ever so slightly from pure,
unadulterated racism.
53

Like Chicanas who likened sexism to racism, sexual minorities highlighted the
similarities of homophobia and racism in making their case to other Chicana/o
student activists. That Queer Latinos Unidos emerged as a committee within CSUN
MEChA illustrates both the space that gay and lesbian Latina/o students had to voice
their concerns within the organization, but also that such a committee was required
so that MEChA would address homophobia.
By the 7 March 1992 national symposium on the Plan de Santa Barbara, it was
clear that Chicanas and the Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Latina/o community
would no longer be denied their place within the Chicana/o Movement. The
symposium was held at CSUN and workshops dissected and analyzed the different
parts of the document. Concerns not incorporated into the Plan were discussed in
three additional sessions that addressed graduate programs in Chicana/o Studies,

53
Ibid.
131

Chicanas, and sexual minorities.
54
The inclusion of the latter two workshops
legitimized the concerns of these sectors of the community and demonstrated that
conference organizers acknowledged diversity within the Chicana/o community.
Although the Plan de Santa Barbara was the founding document of MEChA, and
significant in the internal struggles of the California MEChA statewide structure in
the 1980s, most students at the symposium had never read the document. CSUN
MEChA chair, Gabriel Meza Buelna, encouraged all MEChA chapters to distribute
the document amongst their membership, analyze it, and attend future symposiums.
On 24 October 1992, Mujeres de Aztlan and Professor Mary Pardo hosted a
Chicana conference to raise Latina issues and discuss self and community
empowerment. Approximately 200 female college students, high school students,
college faculty and community members participated in the single day conference.
Its goal was to: discuss the obstacles Chicanas faced in institutions of higher
education, stress the need for such educational attainment, and highlight the
contributions of Chicana community activists. Workshops touched upon topics such
as violence against women and gender roles. New to this type of conference were
discussions of AIDS and sexuality, representing a new consciousness in the Chicana
community.
55
This conference also highlighted the new sense of indigenismo
amongst Chicano activists. Xicana was used instead of Chicana, in an effort to

54
Gabriel Meza Buelna, “Symposium: Plan de Santa Barbara” El Popo 21, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 6,
The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives
Center, CSUN.

55
Maria Lopez, “Chicana empowerment,” El Popo 23, no. 2 (Fall 1992): 8, The El Popo Newspaper
Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
132

emphasize that the Ch is Spanish and the X is how the Aztecs would have
pronounced it. Many of the events during the late 1980s and early 1990s showcased
Aztec dancers, and this conference was no exception.
The proximity to the 500
th
anniversary of Columbus’s landing, and the
organizing done in anticipation for this date contributed to a shift in thinking
amongst Chicana/os with regards to the start date of the colonization of their people.
By the early 1990s, it became commonplace for MEChA members to refer to 1492
instead of the 1848 as the year their people began to be colonized. “Ever since 1492
when our ancestor’s culture was tainted by the injustices of the “white-man’s”
policies we have resisted their biases and oppression as a people.”
56
Like the activists
who adopted the Plan de Aztlan in 1969, Chicana/o student activists in the 1990s
attempted to identify with other indigenous peoples of the Americas by
synchronizing their histories of colonization. Many MEChA members attempted to
“decolonize” their traditions and cultural perspectives by accentuating and
appropriating what they saw as pre-colonial culture and traditions. Where in the late
1960s and early 1970s cultural nationalists in the movement highlighted Mexican
culture and opposed assimilation to the United States. In the 1990s, cultural
nationalists focused on adopting pre-Columbian culture and knowledge, while “de-
colonizing” Latin American culture. Thus, Chicana/o student activists became more
critical of their cultural heritage and more selective in the traditions they embraced.

56
David García, “The Struggle continues,” El Popo 23, no. 2 (Fall 1992): 8, The El Popo Newspaper
Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
133

Students at CSUN continued to be exposed to Chicana role models in the early
1990s. In the fall of 1993, Professor Juana Mora became the first female chair of
CSUN’s Chicano Studies Department. She encouraged faculty to be gender
sensitive and include more women’s issues and perspectives in their classes.
57
As
chair, Mora official renamed the department to the Chicana/o Studies Department.
This change catered to feminists that rejected the use of the masculine term Chicano
to represent both men and women, as it is used in Spanish. In the spring of 1994,
professor and writer Cherrie Moraga participated in CSUN’s Chicana/o Studies
Department 25
th
anniversary celebration. She criticized the 1960s and 1970s brand
of Chicano nationalism and called for a new Chicano Movement that learned from
past activists, but was inclusive of all sexualities.
58

Elizabeth “Betita” Martinez, a movement activist since the 1960s and author of
500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures, also spoke at CSUN. She discussed “la
mujer,” the obstacles Latinas face, and how feminism could help them overcome
domination. Martinez pushed students and faculty to recognize the historical
contributions women made to the Chicana/o community. She recognized that
Chicanas were more active and vocal in the Chicana/o Movement of the 1990s, but

57
Indira Galvez, “Dr. Juana Mora Becomes First Woman Chair” El Popo, no. 3 (Spring 1994): 3, The
El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center,
CSUN. At this point El Popo stopped using volume numbers. They only provided issue number,
semester, and year.

58
Rodolfo Carbajal, “Cherrie Moraga Visits Northridge as Part of 25
th
Anniversary” El Popo, no. 3
(Spring 1994): 1, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department,
Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
134

she felt Chicana/os had a long way to go before reaching gender equality and
consciousness.
59

In the early 1990s, there was a resurgence of Chicana/o nationalism, but it was
different from that of the late 1960s. This nationalism recognized that sexism and
homophobia where problems that needed to be addressed before the Movement
could achieve its goals of racial equality. It did not mean that all Chicana/o activists
understood and fully supported these ideas, but they were principles held by the
leadership and Chicanas and sexual minorities were a vocal and active sector of this
renewed Chicanismo.
This nationalism was also different due to the influence of indigenismo: an
attempt to emphasize and appropriate indigenous history, traditions, and customs in
an attempt to counter the effects of European colonization and assimilation. While
Chicana/o activists in the first wave of Chicana/o student activism dwelled on 1848
as the symbolic year of Chicana/os’ colonization, in the 1990s they were more likely
to think of 1492 as the start of their people’s colonization. This meant that they were
pickier about the aspects of Mexican and Latin American culture that they embraced,
based on the idea of decolonization. Chicanas had more Chicana faculty members
they could turn too for advice and support and they were continuously exposed to
Chicanas that rebuked sexism and homophobia, making it clear that they were both
Chicanas and mujeres.

59
Norma Ramos, “Betita Talks to Students About Chicana/o Rights” El Popo, no. 3 (Spring 1994): 2,
The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives
Center, CSUN.
135

A Chicana in USC MEChA in the Early 1990s
Vivian grew up in a Mexican immigrant family that encouraged her to assimilate
and succeed academically. Her parents met in the United States, started a family,
and moved to the San Gabriel Valley. Vivian grew up in West Covina when it was
majority white, with few Latina/os. Her oldest siblings struggled due to their limited
English skills and they did not attend college. Thus, Vivian’s parents prioritized
teaching her English to excel academically and she followed two of her older
siblings into the University of Southern California. Although Vivian struggled with
Spanish, she was not ambiguous about her Mexican descent.
60

Vivian’s family steered her toward moderate to conservative politics, thus, she
was not in a rush to join the reputably radical USC MEChA. Her experience as a
resident of the Latino Floors caused her to reconsider joining MEChA. Latino
Floors was a dormitory and residency program established by the USC El Centro
Chicano in the 1970s to help Latina/o students transition into college life by living
with other Latina/o freshmen. As a resident, Vivian heard about MEChA and
Chicana/o activism, but she was not interested. She felt MEChA members were on
an identity quest; and she was confident about her own identity, and Vivian believed
that their politics were incompatible with hers. Vivian’s position in MEChA
changed when a USC administrator visited Latino Floors’ students to ask them about
the issues they were passionate about. Vivian was surprised that no one had
anything to say, so she brought up MEChA’s campaign to establish Chicana/o

60
Vivian, interview by author, November 2004, Downey, CA, digital audio recording. Vivian
preferred I not use her last name for privacy.
136

Studies at USC. The administrator refused to discuss that issue and Vivian was
frustrated that she was not better informed to push the matter further. This
experience convinced her to become more knowledgeable about campus issues, even
if it meant giving USC MEChA a chance.
61

Vivian was surprised to find how wide a spectrum of issues the organization
addressed. In the early 1990s, USC MEChA was working on: establishing a
Chicana/o Studies Department; increasing the number of Chicana/o students, faculty,
and staff beyond menial labor positions; outreaching to Los Angeles County Latina/o
youth (college visits, high school conferences, and mentoring at a juvenile detention
centers); and creating Chicana/o and Latina/o physical markers on campus (murals
and a memorial for César Chávez). MEChA members attempted to keep each other
up-to-date on important political issues, teach each other history and culture, and
encourage others to get politically involved. In their spare time, they studied,
worked, and socialized. The organization’s ranks swelled due to the resurgence of
Chicanismo in the early 1990s, but also due to the social scene that emerged after
MEChA meetings. MEChA was a full time job and life style, where members
became politically involved, studied, socialized, and in Vivian’s case, found their
significant other.
62

As a member and leader, Vivian experienced sexism within the organization.
"People didn't like to talk about it. People said, no, it didn't exist. But, I think. I

61
Ibid.

62
Ibid.
137

would say. If you were female, and you were in MEChA, you felt it."
63
Chicanos
second guessed decisions Chicanas made, they questioned Chicana perspectives and
ideas, and did not equally recognize the achievements of Chicanas. Vivian recalls
overbearing males in MEChA taking over discussions, talking over women, and
silencing them in the process.
64

Nevertheless, sexism did not cause a split in USC MEChA, or stop women from
making their presence felt in the organization’s leadership and membership. Like
Mujeres de Aztlan in CSUN MEChA, Chicanas in USC MEChA established a
committee to raise members’ awareness of women’s achievements, contributions,
and perspectives. This committee made presentations on women during MEChA
meetings and organized an end of the year Chicana banquet.
65
Thus, Chicanas’ had
to create their own subcommittees within MEChA to address “women’s” issues
because the organization as a whole was still weary of taking on sexism head on.
Although Chicanas still had to work harder to make their voices heard, they were
more willing to “rock the boat” and make the organization recognize sexism and
women’s issues.
66

When we compare Vivian’s experience to that of Mary Ann Pacheco in the early
1970s, and to that of Chicanas in CSUN MEChA, we find strong similarities and

63
Ibid.

64
Ibid.

65
Vivian became the head of the mujeres (women) committee in her second year, although she recalls
this played a very small part of her entire MEChA experience.

66
Vivian, 2004.
138

differences that help us evaluate how much things had changed and stayed the same.
Similar to Pacheco’s, Vivian’s leadership was challenged and questioned. Both
recognized that sexism was a factor in the organization, and bringing CSUN MEChA
shows that it was a broader trend. The difference between the experience of Pacheco
and that of Chicanas in the 1990s, is the latter had a larger and more vocal cohort of
Chicana’s within MEChA willing to speak out against sexism and press the
organization to address women’s issues. The perspectives of Chicano’s in the 1990s
were different from those of the early 1970s as well. In the 1990s, Chicanos
recognized that condemning sexism and addressing women’s issues was necessary,
and not an assault of the organization or its goals. Nevertheless, they continued to
drag their feet when it came to putting this into practice.
California MEChA and Fraternities in the 1990s
In the fall of 1992, CSUN MEChA led a campaign against racism and sexism
perpetuated by CSUN’s Zeta Beta Tau fraternity, who organized and distributed
offensive flyers for a “Mexican” theme party. MEChA and “Greek” fraternities in
California have a history of hostility and tension primarily based on conflicting
political views, beliefs, and actions. Fraternities’ “cultural” themed parties tend to
cause the tension and hostility to flare up because Chicana/o student activists and
other students of color find the themes of these parties racist, sexist, and insulting.
In the early 1990s, a membership manual for UCLA’s Theta Xi fraternity was
made public. It caused a storm of controversy at UCLA and surrounding universities
because it contained a song named “Lupe” whose lyrics denoted Latinas as whores
139

and jovially described the rape of an eight year old Latina.
67
In the fall of 1992,
CSUN’s Zeta Beta Tau fraternity passed out flyers for a “Mexican” themed party and
it made reference to Lupe. This infuriated CSUN MEChA members aware of the
controversy at UCLA earlier in the year. Zeta Beta Tau claimed they were not aware
of the Lupe song, but university administrators and staff argued that they had already
spoken to all CSUN fraternities about the Lupe song prior to this event.
Furthermore, Campus Activities Director Tom Piernak counseled Zeta Beta Tau not
to print and distribute the offensive flyer, but the fraternity responded that it was
their first amendment right to name the party as they pleased and they wanted to
support their fraternity brothers at UCLA.
68

CSUN MEChA treated the incident as a clear-cut case of racism and sexism, and
it led the charge to quickly prosecute and punish the fraternity. On the other hand,
university administrators proceed sluggishly with their disciplinary response, making
Chicana/o activists feel they were trivializing the issue. CSUN MEChA and other
on-campus organizations, like the Black Student Union and Queers United in
Stopping Heterosexism, united two hundred students and charged into an Associated
Student Government meeting to demand immediate action against the fraternity.
CSUN MEChA also held a press conference to publicize their position and the issue,
and it led over five hundred students in a march on the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity

67
Sonia Lopez, “Chicana/o Perspective: Latino Frats” El Popo, no. 2 (Spring 1995): 6, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

68
Rodolfo “Rudy” Acuña, Anything But Mexican: Chicanos in Contemporary Los Angeles (London:
Verso, 1996), 297.
140

house.
69
Zeta Beta Tau supporters claimed CSUN MEChA was overreacting to a
harmless flyer and that Zeta Beta Tau was the true victim. They argued Zeta Beta
Tau was being denied due process and freedom of speech. The university
administration sentenced Zeta Beta Tau to a one year suspension, a one year
prohibition, multiculturalism workshops, and volunteer work. But the university
backed down on the penalties when the fraternity threatened to sue the university.
70

This episode made the new cohort of Chicana/o student activists weary of white
fraternities, and made them doubt the university’s commitment to diversity and
equality.
71
Nevertheless, the controversy demonstrated the interconnectedness of
race and gender in oppression and the need for MEChA to address both issues.
Making matter worse between MEChA chapters and white fraternities was an
April of 1993 assault against a Chicana in front of the UC Davis Theta Xi fraternity
house. Two male assailants beat Irma C. Muñoz, chopped her hair, and carved
“wetback” into her arms and legs with a knife. They threatened to kill Muñoz and
her “wetback” friends, if she told anyone about the assault. This infuriated
Chicana/o student activists that associated this hate crime to white fraternities and
they called for a united and a stronger Chicana/o Movement.
72

69
Ibid.

70
Acuña, Anything But Mexican, 297.

71
David García, “Racism & due process” and Lorenzo Flores “This was one of the many letters
written to the editor of the Sundial that were rejected,” El Popo 23, no. 2 (Fall 1992): 2, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

72
“The Struggle Continues” El Popo 24, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 2, The El Popo Newspaper Collection,
Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
141

Latino fraternities sprang up on California college campuses in the 1990s and
MEChA members reacted with disdain, causing further divisions and tensions within
on-campus Latina/o student communities. MEChA’s critique and opposition to the
emergence of Latino fraternities and Latina sororities stemmed from their negative
and hostile experience with white fraternities. Before they even emerged at CSUN,
El Popo writer David Gonzalez condemned those planning to start Latino
fraternities. He argued that these Latinos had forgotten about their history, and the
racism and hostility white fraternities held toward Chicana/os. Gonzáles claimed
these Latinos had been brainwashed into accepting the white man’s system and
values. He called Latino fraternities an embarrassment to the Chicana/o community
for dividing Chicana/os and investing their time and energy into a white system. In
his view, they should join MEChA or form a Chicana/o system of brotherhood or
sisterhood with a Chicana/o ideology. Gonzalez was so repulsed but their activities
he stated, “no matter what they do for our people, while they wear their Greek letters
they might as well be wearing KKK.”
73
This type of response by MEChA members
caused a backlash against the organization by Latina/o students anxious to partake in
Greek life or who believed MEChA had no right to judge their cultural authenticity
or loyalty to their community.
In the spring of 1995, El Popo writer, Sonia Lopez criticized fraternities as often
exclusionary and sexist institutions that should be eliminated instead of replicated by

73
David Gonzalez, “Latino Frats?” El Popo 24, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 2, The El Popo Newspaper
Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
142

Latinos. She argued that fraternities by definition are exclusionary and sexist, and
historically they have also been racist and classist.
…why should we as Raza want to integrate into our culture, elitist practices
which only further add to our oppression. We as Chicanos/Latinos should be the
first to denounce practices that judge people based on their appearance….because
this has been an integral part of our oppression.
74

Lopez rationalized that someone fighting for an egalitarian society should be
opposed to exclusionary structures and organizations such as fraternities.
75

Several MEChA members shared Sonia Lopez’s views on fraternities and they
passed resolutions within their respective chapters and MEChA networks to prohibit
the promotion of “Greek” organizations at MEChA events and meetings. CSUN
MEChA member, Imelda Arellano, argued that MEChA by ideological definition
was inherently oppositional to fraternities, even Latino ones.
MEChA will in no means tolerate sexism, racism, oppression, or any source of
discrimination. By condoning the promotion of fraternity letters in our events,
we are contradicting the purpose, philosophy, goals, and basic principles of the
movement….When you accept Chicanismo, you are accepting the Mujer as an
equal.
76

In Arellano’s view, fraternities were sexist because they excluded women. MEChA
resolutions prohibited fraternity and sorority members from wearing their Greek
paraphernalia while engaging in MEChA activities. As early as the 1997 Fall
California MEChA Statewide conference at CSU San Jose, Greek letters were

74
Sonia Lopez, “Chicana/o Perspectives: Latino Frats,” El Popo, no. 2 (Spring 1995): 6, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.

75
Ibid., 6, 8.

76
Imelda Arellano, “Open letter written by CSUN sophomore, Imelda Arellano, regarding
Fraternities” El Popo, no. 1 (Fall 1995): 4, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano
Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
143

prohibited as part of the “principles of unity.” These where rules conference
participants had to follow or they would be expelled from the conference and their
chapter would face penalties.
77
The resolutions made MEChA’s stance against
Greek organizations official, but not necessarily universal. Due to the organization’s
bottom-up structure chapters exercised autonomy on this issue, especially those
outside of California. In regions where MEChA chapters had a better relationship
with fraternities and sororities, they did not implement these restrictions. At no point
did MEChA members argue to exclude Latina/os involved in “Greek” life from
MEChA activities altogether, but “Greek” Latina/os resented the resolutions and
criticism.
Opposition to both white and Latino fraternities demonstrated MEChA’s ability
to connect issues of race and gender within their advocacy agenda. Although
Chicanas were the most vocal opponents, chapters and the statewide network backed
these critiques with resolutions banning “Greek” letters at MEChA events. Thus,
Chicanas successfully mobilized MEChA as a whole to counteract sexism and
racism.
CSUN MEChA in the Mid to Late 1990s
At the fall 1995 California MEChA Statewide Conference, hosted by Hartnell
College MEChA in Salinas, there were over two thousand students present. This
reflected the ground swell in membership MEChA experienced in the early to mid
1990s in California. MEChA benefitted from the resurgence of Chicanismo in the

77
“Principles of Unity,” MEChA 1997 Fall Statewide San Jose State Conference Program, personal
collection of Ralph de Unamuno.
144

early 1990s as well as the politicization Latina/o students underwent in opposing the
anti-immigrant and anti-Latina/o Proposition 187.
78
Thus, California MEChA’s bi-
annual conferences were attended by thousands, encouraging chapters to start
holding national MEChA conferences as well. MEChA members addressed
important political issues in conference workshops, but unlike the conferences of
1970s, the resolutions were limited to those approved by the collective body instead
of each workshop developing and passing their own resolutions.
CSUN MEChA ran the anti-homophobia workshop at the conference, arguing
that many homophobic views and beliefs were imported to the Americas by
European colonization. They claimed LGBT members of several indigenous
societies were held in high regard before the arrival of European norms.
79
This
workshop was part of an ongoing trend in MEChA to curve homophobia and
embrace indigenous values. MEChA conferences began holding talking circles and
caucuses where conference attendees could discuss sexism and homophobia in small
groups. Facilitators encouraged participants to reflect on how they may be sexist and
homophobic, and what they and their MEChA chapter could do to fight these
prejudices.

78
Proposition 187 was on the California state ballot in November of 1994. It was intended to deny
undocumented immigrants access to public education and medical services. In response, the Latina/o
community of California organized political mobilizations similar to and at times larger than those of
the early Chicana/o Movement. Over 10,000 Latina/o high school students walked out of class in
protest, and manifested their opposition in the streets. Tens of thousands marched in the streets of
California against the proposition. For more on this campaign, see chapter 4 of this dissertation.

79
Steven Caudillo, “MEChA Statewide Held at Hartnell College in Salinas,” El Popo, no. 1 (Fall
1995): 4, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban
Archives Center, CSUN.
145

Although, Chicana/o student leaders, workshop organizers, and talking
facilitators may have opposed sexism and homophobia, they faced resistance within
MEChA’s membership. This frustrated Chicanas and sexual minorities, causing
some to lash out against MEChA and form their own independent organizations.
Enrique Castrejon facilitated several anti-homophobia and anti-sexism workshops at
MEChA conferences, but he felt looked down upon and alienated. He argued that
some members claimed to represent their people, and fight for equality and
inclusion, but they continued to be sexist and homophobic. Castrejon doubted the
sincerity of Chicana/o Movement leaders. Thus, he called on Chicana/o sexual
minorities to “come out” and take over the reigns of the Movement.
If we are thinking that some leader(s) will come and lead the movement in a
direction that will recognize our diverse Raza and include us in it, think again.
We have to become those leaders, if we want to go forward in the movement.
80

Castrejon lamented that many Chicana/o activists still hid their sexual preference in
the Chicana/o Movement. He credited Chicana lesbians with being the first to
challenge the sexism and homophobia in the Movement. Castrejon argued it was
time for gay Chicanos to follow suit and challenge the heterosexism of Movement
organizations. They needed to question Chicana/o scholars for not recognizing the
contributions of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Chicana/o community.
For Castrejon, coming out and redirecting the Movement was a matter of life and
death.

80
Enrique Castrejon, “Chicana/o Queers, Come Out: Take Over” El Popo, no. 2 (Fall 1996) 2, The El
Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center,
CSUN.
146

The continued silence of not recognizing and accepting us, the denial of our
existence, only contributes to hate, fear, suicide, and HIV infection of our gente.
Yes Raza, we are killing each other off because we fail to discuss, address, or
take any action to end the homophobia that affects our gente and communities.
81

Once again, the discussion of homosexuality in the Movement and community was
intricately tied to the threat posed by AIDS to the whole community. Castrejon
claimed that sexual minority leaders had the experience and potential to unite the
sexes in the movement and be inclusive of all sectors of the Chicana/o community.
Some feminists had a similar experience in CSUN MEChA and they decided to
split off as an independent organization dedicated to Latina and women’s issues.
FUERZA (United Feminists Educating the People) originated as a MEChA
committee in the fall of 1998. It spearheaded the production of a play that dealt with
a series of women’s issues in the Chicana/o community. When they performed the
play at a Day of the Dead MEChA event, audience members failed to grasp the
seriousness of its content. Some responded with disparaging remarks and ridiculed
the actors. Infuriated by the show of disrespect, FUERZA members confronted the
rest of CSUN MEChA and decided to make FUERZA an independent organization
that provided Latinas with a safe space to discuss women’s issues while spreading
awareness of these issues to others.
82

Even though Chicanas and sexual minorities made inroads in MEChA leadership,
structure, and direction, they were discouraged by the persistent homophobia and

81
Ibid.

82
Astrid Martinez, “FUERZA: Creates Unity, Compassion, and “Carnalisma” Among Students,” El
Popo, Special Edition (Winter/Spring/Summer 1999): 7, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana
and Chicano Studies Department, Urban Archives Center, CSUN.
147

sexism amongst the organization’s general membership. This caused them to
question the sincerity of MEChA’s efforts and call upon women and sexual
minorities in the Latina/o community to take action. For some, it meant leaving the
organization all together and forming other groups, while others decided to continue
fighting to change MEChA.
Amending the Philosophy of MEChA
The Philosophy of MEChA was revised and ratified in 1992, but within a few
years it was a dated document that some members decided to revise. Southern
California’s Alta Califas Sur MEChA Region created the document as part of their
campaign to purge California MEChA of League of Revolutionary Struggle
members. Yet, in the second half of the 1990s, it was Northern California’s Alta
Califas Norte MEChA Region that led the charge for self-reflection and change.
83

They undertook a campaign to make the Philosophy of MEChA reflect the
contributions and equality of women and sexual minorities, the growing ethnic
diversity of Chicana/o activists, and the prominence of indigenismo in MEChA.
84

Aside from sporadic symposiums, references, and discussions, by the mid to
1990s, the Plan de Santa Barbara and the MEChA Philosophy Papers had fallen out
of relevance. The new cohort of activists had little to no connection to the anti-

83
For more on the relationship between MEChA and the League of Revolutionary Struggle, see the
second chapter of this dissertation. When California was a part of New Spain and Mexico, it was
divided into Alta California and Baja California. Today, Alta California is known as California and
Baja California is now two Mexican states. Califas is Chicana/o slang for California. Thus, Alta
Califas Norte is Northern California and Alta Califas Sur is Southern California.

84
Ralph de Unamuno, interview by author, 30 April 08, Westwood, Calif., digital audio recording.
148

League of Revolution Struggle campaign. Although MEChA chapters like UC
Davis, CSU San Diego, CSUN, UCLA, and USC still used these documents to
socialize new members into MEChA and the Chicana/o Movement, they were the
exception. Some members were familiar with the Plan de Santa Barbara, but they
had only read a twelve page excerpt of the Plan found in the appendix of Youth,
Identity, Power by Carlos Muñoz.
85
This section of the plan that related to MEChA,
but the document was much longer.
In the fall of 1996, UC Davis reintroduced Movement and MEChA documents to
Alta Califas Norte MEChA Region chapters, renewing their interest in the
documents. UC Davis provided other chapters at the regional meeting with copies of
a manual they gave new members. This manual contained the Plan de Santa
Barbara, the Plan de Aztlan, and the Philosophy of MEChA. For many in
attendance, it was the first time they saw the documents in their entirety. They
decided to distribute and study copies of the package. MEChA members were
enthralled and concerned with what they found in their guiding documents. They
were excited because the collection of MEChA papers provided them with a road
map and sense of purpose. Furthermore, these documents connected the new cohort
to a history of MEChA that many of them were unaware of. Yet, they were
concerned by how exclusive their predecessors seemed and that some sections of

85
Carlos Muñoz Jr., Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement (London: Verso, 1989), 191-202.
149

these documents made little sense to them. Thus, they decided to revise and update
the documents to reflect their contemporary philosophy.
86

The Alta Califas Norte MEChA Region set up the Northern Region Task Force
to focus on this endeavor. They decided that the Philosophy of MEChA was the
only document they could revise because the other two plans were not created by
MEChA members. The Task Force investigated when the Philosophy of MEChA
was written, why it was written, under what circumstances, and by whom. Through
this process, they learned about the League of Revolutionary Struggle, the struggle to
control MEChA in the 1980s, the creation of philosophy papers, and how they were
revised and merged to form the Philosophy of MEChA.

The Task Force attempted to
be non-partisan in their investigation and analysis.
87

There were many changes that the Task Force wanted to make, but they decided
to focus on the inclusion and recognition of Indigenismo, non-Mexican Latina/os,
sexual minorities, and Chicanas. According to Task Force member Ralph De
Unamuno, they selected these four themes because MEChA was already doing them,
but MEChA’s documents did not reflect it.
88

The Task Force decided to hold open discussions on the Philosophy of MEChA
and their thoughts on revising it, but it became apparent to them that most MEChA
members had never read the document. MEChA members accused the Task Force of

86
Ralph de Unamuno, interview by author, 30 April 08, Westwood, Calif., digital audio recording.

87
Ibid.

88
Ibid.
150

trying to run their own agenda and “trying to shove these papers down people’s
throats.”
89
So they changed their approach at conferences and decided they had to
explain the origins of the Philosophy of MEChA, distribute copies, and request
members review it. They in effect, introduced the Philosophy of MEChA to a new
cohort of MEChA members. The Task Force held forums at California MEChA
Statewide conferences from the fall of 1997 through the spring of 1999, and at the
MEChA National conferences of 1998 and 1999.
The Task Force overcame several stages of resistance to pass their revisions.
They received the most ardent resistance, with regards to recognizing Chicanas and
sexual minorities, from the Alta Califas Centro MEChA Region. This is the MEChA
regional network of Central California that represents chapters from Fresno to
Bakersfield, including the costal areas of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo.
According to Task Force member, Ralph De Unamuno, MEChA members opposed
to the revisions used arguments similar to those of the early 1970s. They claimed the
Task Force was attempting to divide MEChA based on gender, and they were
incredulous that MEChA could embrace homosexuality.
90
Most of the resistance
came from men in that region, and discussions were heated. This opposition was
accused of being sexist, especially for the lack of women arguing their position.
When women finally represented this position, they were labeled tokens, stooges,
puppets, and at times shouted down by women in support of Task Force revisions.

89
Ibid.

90
Ibid.
151

Central California opposition finally acquiesced and the revisions were passed by all
three California MEChA regions at the spring 1999 California MEChA Statewide
Conference, hosted by CSU San Francisco.
91

The Philosophy of MEChA, with the new set of revisions, was presented to and
adopted by MEChA chapters nationally on 21 March 1999 at the Phoenix College
MEChA National conference. According to De Unamuno, the Philosophy of
MEChA went through additional revisions and fine tuning at the conference.
Nevertheless, the document remained essentially the same as the one approved by
California MEChA. The revised Philosophy of MEChA emphasized Indigenismo,
Chicanas, Chicana/os of non-Mexican descent, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender
MEChA members, and kept its original emphasis on Chicanismo, the Plan de Santa
Barbara, the Plan de Aztlan, and MEChA’s right to autonomy from outside
infiltration and manipulation.
92

The new Philosophy of MEChA revamped MEChA’s rhetoric of Aztlan and
Chicanismo into a more gender-balanced, and sexually and ethnically inclusive,
philosophy. It did not use the masculine form, Chicano or Chicanos, to refer to both
men and women.
93
Instead, the Philosophy of MEChA referred to both Chicanas and
Chicanos individually or used the shorter term, Chicana/o. References to
Carnalismo (brotherhood) are accompanied by the female comadrismo. The

91
Ibid.

92
Ralph de Unamuno, "La Fundación de MEChA," unpublished term paper, (Fall
2000): 5-6.

93
Ibid., 3, 6.
152

Philosophy of MEChA officially recognizes the value and contributions of women
and of sexual minorities, as well as the discrimination they face in the organization.
MEChA made it a goal to take a strong stance against sexism and homophobia, and
create a safe space for Chicanas and sexual minorities.
Conclusion
During the first wave of Chicana/o activism, MEChA and other Movement
organizations subscribed to traditional gender and sexuality norms as part of their
cultural nationalism. Although Chicanismo was influenced by liberal strains that
supported women gaining an education and pursuing a career, it was also influenced
by restrictive traditions of Catholicism and a patriarchal family structure. Chicanas
were expected to be career women, community activists, mothers, and wives. Their
role in the movement was suppose to reflect their responsibilities at home, that of a
behind the scenes supporter of Chicano leaders.
Chicanas obtained leadership roles in MEChA, but this was partly contingent on
them going with the flow of mainstream movement sentiments about racism being
the true source of oppression. The authority of Chicana leaders was in question and
Chicana efforts to address the sexism that limited their ability to participate in the
Movement came under close scrutiny. Chicanas that directly questioned or criticized
patriarchy in the Chicana/o Movement or cultural practices were susceptible to
charges of selling out and social isolation. Thus, Chicanas in MEChA established a
beach front through Chicana workshops that wrapped themselves in Chicano
nationalism.
153

In the second half of the 1970s and into the 1980s, Chicanas gained ground on
the ability to address women’s issues, criticize sexism in the Movement, and include
their perspectives in MEChA decision making and print media. Chicanas formed
subcommittees within MEChA dedicated to women’s issues and they questioned the
validity of sexist tendencies in the Chicana/o Movement. Chicana students were
encouraged to pursue these endeavors and participate in MEChA and community
leadership by numerous Chicana roles that continuously visited college campuses
and brought home the point that Chicanas needed to make their voices heard.
In the 1990s, Chicanas and sexual minorities aggressively criticized MEChA’s
insensitivity to sexism and homophobia. They successfully pushed the organization
to implement reforms to secure their voice and space within MEChA. The ranks of
the organization swelled as Chicanismo got a second wind. Activists fought to make
this reinvigorated philosophy more inclusive of Latina/os’ diverse perspectives and
experiences. Chicanas and sexual minorities could now directly confront, and
criticize, the restrictive traditions and customs of the Chicana/o community through
both subcommittees of MEChA and independent student organizations. Although
the mainstream sentiment of the organization’s leadership was to be inclusive and
respectful, the general membership lagged behind in this respect.
Those against sexism and homophobia made major strides in California MEChA
in the 1990s, particularly in their campaign against fraternities and in revising the
Philosophy of MEChA. MEChA chapters stridently protested the racist and sexist
theme parties of “Greek” organizations, and they passed resolutions to prohibit
154

fraternities and sororities from wearing their letters at MEChA events. They also
revised the Philosophy of MEChA to recognize the contributions of Chicanas and
sexual minorities and make it an official goal of the organization to eliminate sexism
and homophobia.
155

Chapter 4—Immigration, Nativism, and Chicana/o Solidarity
in MEChA, 1970-1999.

After his unsuccessful bid for the United States presidency in 2000, Pat
Buchanan lashed out against the "cultural revolution" of the 1960s and “Third
World” immigration into developed countries, which he claimed threatened to
destroy “Western Civilization.” In The Death of the West, Buchanan laments the
"death" of the country and culture he grew up in and blames the "hedonistic" elite of
the younger generation for not curbing immigration.
1
He argues that recent
immigrants are different from their early twentieth century European counterparts,
because they are non-white, millions are undocumented, and they form ethnic
enclaves that help preserve their native cultures.
2
Buchanan claims they are forming
nations within a nation and that they embrace a new ethnic chauvinism exemplified
by MEChA, which he describes as the Latino version of a white supremacist group
and a separatist force demanding the return of the Southwest to Mexico.
3

In the 1970s and 1990s, Chicana/o movement organizations shifted their focus to
counteract xenophobic attacks against Latina/o communities. Because of this,
conservatives questioned Chicana/o activists’ citizenship and loyalty to the United
States in an attempt to discredit their arguments and silence their voice. Nativist
attacks encouraged Latina/o and Chicana/o activists to find common ground and

1
Patrick J. Buchanan, The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions
Imperil Our Country and Civilization, (St. Martin's Press: New York, 2002) 5.

2
Ibid., 125-126.

3
Ibid., 128-129, 131.
156

fight in defense of immigrants of Latin American origin. Nevertheless, achieving
unity remained an elusive goal for activists.
In the 1980s Central American solidarity efforts and the influx of Central
American immigration pushed Chicana/o activists to identify with and attempt to
incorporate a new demographic to their community and activism. Chicana/o
activists supported leftist war efforts in Central America by protesting United States’
interventions and informing the United States general public about the military,
economic, and social atrocities committed by United States funded right-wing
governments and militias in Central America. The hardships of war and political
oppression spurred Central American immigration north into the United States since
the 1970s, and most of these immigrants found their way into United States barrios.
Many of these immigrants and their children became politically active in the United
States through solidarity networks and Chicana/o Movement organizations, forcing
the latter to accommodate the concerns and needs of its shifting constituency, a
bumpy process that began in the 1980s and continues today.
Incorporating Latin American immigrants and the concerns of Latin Americans
into MEChA and the Chicana/o Movement was facilitated by broad understandings
of peoplehood. In the 1970s and 1980s, Movement activists regarded Latin
Americans as all part of La Raza, due to their common cultural and racial hybridity
and their common source of exploitation, the United States. In the 1990s, Latina/o
unity was fortified by indigenismo, the attempt by Chicana/o activists to adopt pre-
Columbian traditions and wisdom while eliminating the negative cultural traits they
157

deemed legacies of European colonization dating back to 1492. This broader sense
of history helped them find a longer tradition of oppression and resistance that they
shared with other Latin American peoples of indigenous descent. A history of
colonialism, imperialism, and now globalization convinced many that Chicana/o and
Latin Americans were brothers and sisters of the same struggle. In MEChA, this
recognition took the form of revising the Philosophy of MEChA to be more inclusive
of all those fighting for La Raza.
MEChA, Immigration, and Defending La Raza
In the 1970s, Chicana/o activists across the country increasingly geared their
efforts toward critiquing United States government policy and tactics against
undocumented immigrants. They demanded a humane United States immigration
policy and better treatment from government agents. Although part of a movement
that in its most radical form called for the formation of an independent Chicana/o
state and by the late 1970s for a socialist one, Chicana/o movement participants
embraced Mexican and Latin American immigrants as their own people and took up
their plight. Chicana/os regarded Latin American immigrants as victims of the same
colonial and economic system that kept Chicana/os oppressed. Chicana/o solidarity
with immigrants was facilitated by cultural affinity, familial ties, and their perceived
common enemies that did not distinguish between Chicana/os and Latin American
immigrants.
Since 1970, CSUN MEChA members used their newsletter, El Popo, to
publically chastise the United States government for its inhumane treatment of
158

immigrants. CSUN MEChA declared Latin American and especially Mexican
immigrants, part of the Chicana/o community. In “La Migra contra La Raza”
(Immigration officials against the people), an anonymous staff writer continuously
referred to Latin American immigrants as Chicana/os. The article argued that the
United States border patrol is part the same colonial system that keeps Chicanos
oppressed. Their roll in this system, as Immigration and Naturalization Service
(INS) agents, was to collude with employers to deport immigrants who attempted to
challenge bad labor conditions and consistently deport laborers before they got paid
to save employers money.
4
Another El Popo article declared the INS created a reign
of terror in barrios, where even United States citizens carried documentation in fear
of deportation.
5

There was a loose consensus among Chicana/o Movement leaders in the early
1970s that the Movement included and fought for the rights of all Raza, which they
broadly defined as the peoples of Latin America and people of Latin American origin
in the United States. Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzalez, the cofounder of the Crusade for
Justice and a major architect of Chicanismo, argued that the Chicano Movement was
broader than the Mexican American community. He described Chicana/os as part
what Mexican philosopher Jose Vasconcelos called “la raza cosmica,” the cosmic

4
“La Migra contra La Raza,” El Popo 1, no. 2 (April 7, 1970): 3, Box 1 / Folder 2, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

5
On 25 November 2002 President George W. Bush signed the Homeland Security Act which
eliminated the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and transferred all its responsibilities to
the new Department of Homeland Security. “La Migra contra La Raza,” El Popo 1, no. 5: 6, The El
Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.
159

race.
6
“We are Mestizo and we are mulatto and we are all of those things that
compromise a group which has the same cultural identity.”
7
La Raza Unida Party’s
(LRUP) national congress defined La Raza as, “those people from, or descendants of
people from, Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Antilles, and those
individuals that identify culturally with La Raza.”
8
Thus, MEChA members were in
the Chicano Movement mainstream in the early 1970s in embracing Latin American
immigrants as part of their community and in embracing the struggle of immigrants
for just treatment in the United States.
9

Nevertheless, MEChA and Chicana/o Movement activist were primarily of
Mexican descent, and this was reflected in their focus on Mexico, Mexicans, and

6
José Vasconcelos (1882-1959), was a Mexican philosopher, sociologist, essayist, educator, and
historian. He supported Francisco Madero and Francisco “Pancho” Villa during the Mexican
Revolution and formed part of the Mexican government after the revolution. He wrote La Raza
Cosmica in 1925, arguing that the Spanish and Portuguese speaking peoples of Latin America were a
hybrid people of mixed Indigenous (considered them of Asian extraction), Spanish, and African stock
that had gained the best attributes of all three peoples. He referred to them as the “Cosmic Race”
because he believed racial hybridity was the future of humanity and contributed to the advancement of
civilization. See José Vasconcelos, The Cosmic Race / La raza cosmica, trans. Didier T. Jaén (New
York: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).

7
Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzáles and José “Cha Cha” Jiménez, “Chicanos: Identity Recovered by Corky
Gonzáles and Cha Cha Jiménez,” interview by Karen Wald, Tricontinental:158, Box 1 / Folder 15,
The Chicano Moratorium Vertical Files Collection, Chicano Studies Research Center, UCLA.

8
“Raza Unida: Preamble and Principles” Chicanismo 4, issue 1 (Fall Quarter): 10, Box 1/File 6, The
Chicano Moratorium Vertical Files Collection, Chicano Studies Research Center, UCLA. Non-
Spanish speaking Latin Americans that are not of indigenous descent are almost never directly
addressed by Chicana/o activists, such as Haitians, Belizeans, and Brazilians, although theoretically
they would be included as Raza due to the broad geographical net envisioned by Chicana/o activists in
their documents and speeches.

9
A major exception to this rule was César Chávez and the United Farm Workers union who called on
the Immigration and Naturalization Service to deport undocumented scab labor. Chavéz was
pressured into changing his position on undocumented immigrants in the mid 1970s by Chicana/o
Movement organizations. See David Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican
Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995): 197-
199; George Mariscal, Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun: Lessons from the Chicano Movement, 1965-
1975 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005), 158-159.
160

mestizos (people of mixed Indigenous and Spanish heritage). Their Mexico-centric
views of community and La Raza alienated other community members that did not
share that national and cultural heritage or racial make up. The number of people
that shared this sense of alienation grew with the diversification of primarily
Mexican Barrios in the United States with the influx of Central American refugees
starting with the Nicaraguan revolution in the late 1970s. This also hindered the
possibility of a unified movement with Puerto Ricans and Cubans, some of whom
where present at the Nation Chicano Youth Liberation in 1969.
An example of this phenomenon occurred in the spring of 1974, when several
CSUN Chicano student artists revealed their murals. To them, the murals
represented the trajectory and struggle of the Chicano community, but to CSUN
student Javier Solis they represented a narrow view of La Raza.
There’s more to being Chicano, than coming from Mexico—they are also from
Latin America. The murals just symbolize the history of Mexico, the fight for
independence has been going on throughout South America. This is one of the
drawbacks of the Chicano Movement, centralizing on the Mexican-American
instead of everybody from South and Latin America.
10

The gap between rhetoric and practice hindered MEChA’s and the Movement’s
ability to recruit and accommodate students of Caribbean, Central, and South
American descent. Nevertheless, this rhetoric represented a potential direction that
the Movement was striving to take, and this gave hope and voice to Chicana/os of
non-Mexican descent that participated in MEChA and the Movement.

10
Lorraine Chaparror, “El Popo Interviews…,” El Popo 7, no. 4: 11, Box 4 / Folder 11, Bert Corona
Papers, M0248, Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries.
161

In the early 1970s, immigration was one of many issues MEChA and the
Chicana/o Movement touched upon, but it was not a prominent issue. For example,
MEChA members at Moorpark College in Ventura County fought for Chicano
oriented education reform, organized food drives for the United Farm Workers, and
sponsored English classes for immigrants in La Colonia, a barrio in Oxnard.
11

CSUN MEChA supported and participated in a San Fernando Valley conference held
4 December 1971, to formulate a platform for the local fledgling LRUP chapter.
One of many points on the platform adopted was creating immigration policy that
advanced the rights of all people, regardless of citizenship.
12

The struggle to reform United States’ immigration policy and to defend
immigrant rights gained momentum within the Chicano Movement in the mid 1970s.
On 9 March 1974, the Centro de Acción Social Autonoma (CASA) gathered
approximately one thousand activists from over ten states at East Los Angeles
College (ELAC). The goal of the conference was to create a “Chicano platform” and
coordinate Chicano efforts towards United States immigration policy and practice.
Representatives from several MEChA chapters participated in the conference while
ELAC MEChA provided security for the whole event. After the conference,
participants caravanned to La Placita Olvera in downtown Los Angeles where they
burned an American flag criticized US capitalism, imperialism, racism, and

11
“Moorpark College MEChA”, El Popo 1, no. 3 (May 5th 1970): 11, Box 1 / Folder 3, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

12
“La Raza Unida Party,” El Popo 4, no. 2: 7, Box 1 / Folder 11, The El Popo Newspaper Collection,
Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.
162

immigration policy. They also marched toward the Los Angeles federal building to
protest the death of 12 immigrants, who died while in INS custody. El Popo
encouraged Chicana/o students at CSUN to get involved in the immigrant rights
struggle and volunteer for CASA.
13

California State University Los Angeles (CSULA) MEChA, in collaboration
with several other MEChA chapters, organized a Latina/o student conference on
immigration at CSULA on 22-23 February 1975. Five hundred students convened to
draft resolutions on immigration policy and to discuss what they could do to alleviate
the plight of undocumented workers. Chants of, “Despierta Chicano Defiende Tu
Hermano” (Wake up Chicano defend your brother) and “Adelante Estudiante con La
Lucha del Immigrante” (Move forward student on the immigrant struggle), filled the
halls of the university.
14
Students drafted 20 resolutions committing themselves to
support CASA’s “National Campaign of Solidarity with the Immigrant Workers,” to
support a 3 May 1975 immigrant workers solidarity demonstration in Los Angeles,
to criticize the UFW’s anti-undocumented immigrant tactics, to oppose the use of the
term “illegal alien,” and to form a united student front for the defense of all
workers.
15
As mentioned in chapter 2, MEChA, CASA and other Chicana/o

13
“CASA Conference,” El Popo 7, no. 4: 6-7, Box 4 / Folder 11, Bert Corona Papers, M0248,
Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries.

14
“Student Conference Supports CASA Campaign,” El Popo 8, no. 3: 3, Box 1 / Folder 19, The El
Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

15
Ibid.
163

organizations came under the influence of Marxist-Leninism during the 1970s: thus,
the emphasis on workers by students at the conference.
Ending gang warfare in barrios and defending affirmative action were significant
issues of the late 1970s, but Latina/o organizations across the country dedicated the
most time and energy into influencing the United States’ immigration policy.
Organizations continued to seek a Latina/o consensus on immigration policy, and
most community oriented groups attempted to speak up for immigrants. In the fall of
1975, the San Fernando Valley LRUP made a campaign claim to be “the only voice
and spokesman which the non-documented person can turn to in times of
difficulties.”
16
La Onda Chicana, CSUN’s Chicana/o student radio program, made
immigration policy a central item of discussion on air.
17
Nationally Chicano, Latino,
religious, and labor groups criticized President Jimmy Carter’s proposed
immigration policies that combined employer sanctions, a guest worker program,
increased border patrol, and amnesty. José Angel Gutiérrez, cofounder of LRUP and
the Mexican American Youth Organization, stated, “The phobia mongers insist our
people, because of our numbers, birth rate, geographic spread and undocumented
status threaten the very underpinnings of this society. We are blamed for
unemployment, disease, welfare costs, crime, slums and low wages.”
18
A common

16
Eugenio Hernandez, “La Raza Unida en San Fer,” El Popo 9, no. 1 (9 October 1975): 4, Box 1 /
Folder 20, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives,
CSUN.

17
“Radio Chicano,” El Popo 9, no. 1 (9 October 1975): 6, Box 1 / Folder 20, The El Popo Newspaper
Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

164

sentiment among Latino activist was that immigrants were the scapegoat of a
government and business community that were responsible for the country’s
economic woes.
Latina/o efforts to influence immigration policy culminated in a two-thousand
six-hundred person strong National Chicano/Latino Conference on Immigration and
Public Policy held 28-30 October 1977 in San Antonio, Texas. Latina/os from
thirty-two states participated in the organization of the conference, which was meant
to produce a national Latina/o delegation to meet with President Jimmy Carter and
present their views and findings in favor of a humane and practical immigration
policy.
19
Conference participants unanimously demanded that the United States
government remove Klu Klux Klan and other civilian groups “patrolling” the border
and hold itself responsible for any acts of violence those groups committed against
immigrants at the border.
20

The struggle to reform immigration policy and enforcement created a strong
sense of solidarity and affinity between Latina/o activists on both sides of the United
States-Mexico border. In May of 1978, MEChA member and El Popo staff writer,

18
“A Call For Action: Issued by Jose Angel Gutierrez, Zavala County Judge (Texas),” El Popo 11,
no. 1 (Sept. 1977): 4-5, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban
Archives, CSUN.

19
Ignacio A. Perez, “National Chicano / Latino Conference on Immigration and Public Policy,
October 28-30 San Antonio, Tejas,” El Popo 11, no. 1 (Sept. 1977): 4-5, The El Popo Newspaper
Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

20
Juan Cardenas, “Ku Flux Klan ‘Get the Niggers Greasers,’” El Popo 11, no. 2 (November 1977): 1,
5, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN. The
KKK led the way for the contemporary Minute Man movement. Both claim to protect their people
and country from an “immigrant flood” of undesirables, but the latter group attempts to veil its
racism.
165

Juan Cardenas called for greater unity between Chicanos and Mexican immigrants,
“…it takes Chicanos and Mexicanos both to make up La Raza. Also, it doesn’t make
any difference what side of the border you’re born on. We are still the same
people.”
21
A political cartoon (see figure 3) of the time, made a similar point by
arguing that INS agents could not and would not distinguish between Chicana/os and
undocumented immigrants when implementing United States immigration policies
that stripped people of rights and privileges.
22

Figure 3: "Think The Border Patrol Cares?"
23

Latina/os on both sides of the United States-Mexico border turned out in mass to
pressure the United States President James Carter and Mexican Presidents José

21
Juan Cardenas, “Don’t Insult Yourselves,” El Popo 12, no.2 (May 1978): 11, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

22
El Popo 12, no.2 (May 1978): 11, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies
Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

23
“Think The Border Patrol Cares?,” Mike Conan Collection: The New Communist Movement,
Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles.
166

López Portillo before their 14-16 February 1979 Mexico City summit on
immigration, gas, and oil. Over ten thousand people marched in Mexico City on 7
February 1979 to pressure President Portillo to be tough with the United States
government and not allow it to shortchange Mexico in oil deals and immigration
policies. On 11 February 1979, over two thousand Chicana/os and Latina/os from
throughout the Southwest, including Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzalez and Bert Corona
(cofounder of CASA), converged on the border in San Ysidro, California to protest
United States’ immigration policy as part of the “National Protest March Against the
Carter Curtain.”
24
United States immigration policy become an international rallying
point for activists in the United States and Mexico and created a greater sense of
solidarity between Chicana/os and Mexican nationals.
MEChA members and Chicana/o students at CSUN continued to use El Popo in
the late 1970s to speak-out against anti-immigrant politicians and media. In the
spring of 1979, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors created policies to
prohibit undocumented immigrants from receiving non-emergency health care
services. CSUN student, Rudy Cardona, lashed-out against the board of supervisors.
He challenged them to prove undocumented immigrants were a tax burden on Los
Angeles County. Cardona cited an LA Times editorial from 5 December 1978 that
conceded undocumented immigrants paid more taxes to the United States

24
Arturo Casillas, “Mexico discovers oil, Carter discovers Mexico,” El Popo 13, no. 3 (March 1979):
3; Virginia Gonzalez, “Berlin-type wall to be built,” El Popo 13, no. 2 (Nov-Dec 1978): 3, The El
Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN. For additional
informational on the San Ysidro protest, see the Herman Baca Papers, Mandeville Special Collections
Library, University of California San Diego.
167

Government than the value of government services and benefits they and their
children received. The LA Times editorial based its argument on a United States
Department of Labor report that indicated approximately seventy percent of
undocumented immigrants paid social security and income taxes, but only four
percent of them received unemployment benefits or had children in United States
public schools, and less than one percent received food stamps or welfare. Cardona
maintained that healthcare was a human right and that the proposed measures were
not only anti-immigrant but anti-working-class.
History has proven that attacks on basic services and rights begin with the most
vulnerable section of working class people. Without resistance, these attacks
spread to other sections of workers. Unless everyone concerned with health
services demand these basic rights for all, cutbacks in medical care are sure to
increase and affect the entire population.
25

Another El Popo staff writer claimed corporate media sensationalized immigration
figures to sell newspapers and that the United States’ government jumped on the
anti-immigrant bandwagon to scapegoat immigrants and cut social services. The
author contended that United States’ corporations created the economic recession
transferring their production plants abroad.
26

Chicana/o Solidarity with the Peoples of Central America
Demonstrating solidarity with the people of Central America became a
significant preoccupation for Chicana/o student activists throughout the 1980s.

25
Rudy Cardona, “Workers pay taxes, receive no benefits,” El Popo 13, no. 4 (April-May 1979): 5,
The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

26
“Undocumented workers boost US economy,” El Popo 13, no. 4 (April-May 1979): 2, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.
168

Many Chicana/o students, faculty, and community members dedicated themselves to
informing the United States’ public about the plight of Central Americans.
Chicana/os pressured the United States’ government to: avoid direct military
intervention, cut aid to authoritarian regimes in the region, condemn the human
rights violations of these regimes, recognize the will of the Central American
populace, and grant refugee status to Central Americans that made their way into the
United States. The violence in Central America affected the composition of
immigration flows and barrio demographics due to the large exodus of Central
American refugees to the United States. Chicana/o student activists were painfully
aware of politicians’ strategic targeting of their community’s vulnerable sectors
through immigration raids, for political gain. New to Chicana/os in the 1980s, was
the experience and plight of Central American immigrants who began steadily
trickling into their communities and sometimes within their student ranks. The fact
that Chicana/o activists participated in a prolonged social justice campaign for the
sake of a non-Mexican population counters the image of the narrow, Mexican-centric
Chicana/o activist.
During the Cold War, the United States was determined to maintain Latin
American governments in power who where capitalist, pro-United States, and pro-
United States’ business. Although the United States failed to reverse the Cuban
Revolution of 1959, which brought about a communist government to power, this
proved to be an exception. The United States eliminated Latin American movements
and governments that were in anyway critical of its policies and capitalism, or that
169

attempted to redistribute wealth outside of a “free” market. It accomplished this
objective through direct military intervention, providing funding and training to
conservative forces, and pressuring governments to conform through economic and
political sanctions. The United States helped overthrow the democratically elected
governments of Guatemala and Chile, and backed violent and repressive
dictatorships in the region as long as abided by the United States government’s
economic and political will.
27

Central America became a major concern for the United States’ government and
business sector when leftists overthrew the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza
Debayle in Nicaragua, and implemented reforms the United States considered
socialist. The United States’ government fomented and aided opposition to the new
Sandinista government in Nicaragua. It pressured Central American countries to
politically and economically isolate Nicaragua, to violently suppress “subversive”
elements within their territory, and in the case of Honduras, provide shelter to anti-
Sandinista military forces. This set the stage for violent civil wars in El Salvador
and Guatemala, and a war in Nicaragua between government forces and United
States trained and funded Honduran mercenaries and right-wing exiled Nicaraguan

27
For a more detailed analysis on United States’ intervention and Cold War policy toward Latin
America, see Michael Grow, U.S. Presidents and Latin American Interventions: Pursuing Regime
Change in the Cold War (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2008); Gilbert M. Joseph and
Daniela Spenser, ed., In from the Cold: Latin America's New Encounter with the Cold War (Durham:
Duke University Press, 2008); Gilbert M.Joseph and Catherine LeGrand, ed., Close Encounters of
Empire: Writing the Cultural History of U.S.-Latin American Relations (Durham, NC: Duke
University Press, 1999); Greg Grandin, Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and
the Rise of the New Imperialism, (Holt Paperbacks, 2007); Cecilia Menjivar and Nestor Rodriguez,
ed., When States Kill: Latin America, the U.S., and Technologies of Terror, (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 2005).
170

militias.
28
CSUN Chicana/o student activists paid the most attention to the Civil War
in El Salvador, but they also took note of Nicaragua and Guatemala. They
consistently criticized the Salvadorian government, right wing militias, and the
United States, while portraying Salvadorian rebels as the champions of the people,
and priests as sacred victims of repressive regimes.
Chicana/o students and faculty at CSUN formed the Solidarity with El Salvador
Committee to inform the local public about the situation in El Salvador. CSUN’s
Chicano Studies Professor Raul Ruiz served as the committee coordinator, and they
organized a well attended week of films and speakers in February of 1981.
29

Chicana/o students and faculty primarily demonstrated their solidarity with the
people of El Salvador by informing the public through extensive coverage of events
in El Salvador through their student newspapers, such as CSUN’s El Popo,
informational events, and by supporting and participating in solidarity committees,
groups, and demonstrations.
The most obvious indicator of the importance El Popo staff gave the plight of the
people of El Salvador was dedicating almost half of their sixteen page April-May
1981 issue, to events in and related to El Salvador. Staff members produced and
distributed ten thousand copies of this issue. El Popo dedicated four pages,

28
For a closer analysis of the United States’ role in Central America in this period, see Todd
Greentree, Crossroads of Intervention: Insurgency and Counterinsurgency Lessons from Central
America (Westport CT: Praeger Security International, 2008).

29
Paul Rodriuez, “Group supports El Salvador: Sponsors films, speakers on campus,” El Popo 15, no.
3 (February-March 1981): 1, 8, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department,
Urban Archives, CSUN.
171

including its front page, to pictures of a march and rally against United States
intervention in El Salvador.
30
The demonstration, on 18 April 1981, consisted of a
multi-racial group of about five thousand people who marched in Los Angeles from
the Salvadorian embassy to McArthur Park. El Popo staff likened the United States
intervention in Central America to its intervention in Vietnam, justified by the
domino effect theory on the spread of communism and destined to fail.
31
They
consistently countered the United States’ government and mainstream media’s
positive portrayals of the Salvadorian Government and rightwing militias, and their
negative portrayals of rebel forces in El Salvador. El Popo Staff argued that the
revolutionary forces of El Salvador were poor people fighting for survival against an
extremely repressive government that did not respect any semblance of human rights
and dignity, and not communists financed and controlled by Cuba or the Soviet
Union. They portrayed persecuted and murdered priests and nuns as religious people
that lived amongst the people, know the reality of the poor, and simply stated what
the poor people of El Salvador could not.
32

30
El Popo 15, no. 4 (April/May 1981): 1; “Los Angeles shows mass support for people of El Salvador
during MacArthur Park Rally,” El Popo 15, no. 4 (April/May 1981): 5-7, The El Popo Newspaper
Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

31
Pamela Starr, “Are we doomed to repeat the tragedy of Vietnam?,” El Popo 15, no. 4 (April/May
1981): 2, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives,
CSUN.

32
Blasé Bonpane, “Bloody, bloody El Salvador: Nun gives street level view of El Salvador” El Popo
15, no. 4 (April/May 1981) 3, 16; “Church reports: junta murders 13,000,” El Popo 15, no. 4
(April/May 1981): 4, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban
Archives, CSUN.
172

Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) came to the
forefront of solidarity efforts in the United States, and by the spring of 1981, there
were seventeen chapters found in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Hawaii.
Most of these chapters were located in Southern California, including one in the San
Fernando Valley at CSUN. CSUN MEChA encouraged Chicana/o and Latina/o
students to get involved in CISPES and listed it as part of its CSUN MEChA
Directory, a list of organizations and committees Latina/o students could get
involved in. The MEChA Directory described CSUN CISPES as a student
organization that advocated for the liberation struggle of the people of El Salvador,
supported the establishment of democracy in Central America, and who opposed the
exploitation of Latin American countries. Their main function was to increase
CSUN students’ awareness of what was going on in Central America.
33

By 1982, thousands of Salvadoran refugees were making the trek north into the
United States only to be turned away by a federal government that refused to grant
them refugee status. The official stance of the United States government was that
Salvadorian “immigrants” were not refugees because they could not prove that they
faced persecution or death, if they were deported. According to Los Angeles legal
aid and humanitarian groups, Salvadoran immigrants were forced to sign early
departure forms by Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) officials. This
prevented those that signed, from receiving delayed departures and making their case

33
El Popo 15, no. 4 (April / May 1981): 16; “CSUN MEChA Directory,” El Popo 16, no. 1
(September / October 1981): 8, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department,
Urban Archives, CSUN.
173

for asylum. Independent human rights groups argued that the death toll in El
Salvador averaged one-thousand five-hundred people a month, and had reached
approximately thirty-thousand since martial law was imposed in 1980. According to
the Los Angeles CISPES chapter, eighty-five percent of Salvadorian families had
lost a family member.
34
Los Angeles CISPES was convinced that Salvadorian
immigrants faced persecution and possible death if deported, and they publicized
anecdotes of deportees who where killed after being deported to El Salvador. They
demanded the United States’ change its inhumane policies and provide Salvadorians
asylum.
35

El Popo staff writer, Moises Carrillo, argued that United States immigration
officials were complicit in the oppression of Salvadorians.
36
Central American
refugees joined the ranks of undocumented Mexican immigrants in the United States,
living in fear of INS raids. For many Salvadorans, deportation was literally a matter
of life and death. Most Salvadorian refugees in the United States were young men,
who came alone, and had few places and people to turn to upon arrival.
37
This was
the beginning of a shift among Chicana/o activists to directly address the plight of
“La Raza” beyond Mexicans and Mexican Americans.
In the early 1980s, the California based Association of Mexican American

34
Moises Carrillo, “El Salvador: no refuge” El Popo 16, no. 3 (March/April 1982): 1, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

35
Ibid, 7.

36
Ibid, 1.

37
Ibid.
174

Educators (AMAE) passed a series of statewide resolutions condemning United
States intervention in Central America. In 1980, they passed a resolution
condemning the United States for its intervention in El Salvador. In 1981, AMAE
passed another resolution condemning the activities of the United States in
Guatemala and the Caribbean.
the Association of Mexican American Educators condemn: U.S. interventionist
economic and military policy in Central America; condemn U.S. economic
policy that prioritizes military spending over education; condemn double
standards in denying political asylum to Central Americans; and condemn
resumption of military aid to the Guatemalan government.
38

In 1986, AMAE passed yet another resolution reaffirming their stance against the
United States’ intervention in Central America and directing all AMAE chapters to
lobby local school boards to mandate anti-intervention class lessons for junior high
and high school students.
39

Chicana/o organizations incorporated Central American solidarity into their
events. A San Francisco 1983 flyer for the annual commemoration of the national
Chicano Moratorium march and rally in 1970, states, “RAZA WON’T KILL RAZA
IN CENTRO AMERICA.” Thus, the organizers of the events reaffirmed earlier
Chicana/o Movement definitions of Raza, as a term that encompassed more than just
Mexican in the United States. Central American organizations embraced this type of
overtures by Chicana/o activists and participated in events like the aforementioned.

38
Carlos Ugalde, “AMEA holds conference,” El Popo 16, no. 2 (November /December 1981): 6, The
El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

39
“AMAE Passes Resolution” El Popo 20, no. 2 (December 1986): 5, The El Popo Newspaper
Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.
175

Several Central American organizations officially endorsed this commemoration of
the Chicano Moratorium, such as: Frente Unido Salvadoreño (United Salvadorian
Front), Casa El Salvador, Casa El Salvador Farabundo Marti, Circulo Informativo
Nicaraguense (Nicaraguan Informative Circle), Comite El Salvador Libre (Free El
Salvador Committee). The flyer declares that significant issues impacting Raza are
the war in El Salvador and Nicaragua, and it calls on the United States to stop its
intervention.
40

Three days after the 25 October 1983 invasion of Grenada by the United States
and its Caribbean allies, CSUN’s MEChA, CISPES, and Alliance for Survival
organized an on-campus protest. However, they were caught off guard by a large
mob of counter-protesters.
41
The United States government claimed to have invaded
Grenada to rescue students stranded at a medical school on the island, but MEChA
and other protesters argued that their federal government invaded to overthrow the
new Marxist Grenadian government. Approximately seventy-five CSUN students
made up the protester group, which was composed of Latina/os, Euro-Americans,
and African Americans.
The large counter-demonstrator group attempted to offend Latina/o protestors by
shouting “go back to Mexico” and other anti-Mexican statements.
42
They wrapped

40
Flyer, Box 1 / File 1, The Chicano Moratorium Vertical Files Collection, Chicano Studies Research
Center, UCLA.

41
Albert Ortiz, “Grenada protest fuels controversy,” El Popo 18, no. 2 (November/December 1983):
3, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

42
Ibid.
176

themselves in United States’ patriotism, treating protesters as traitors and undesirable
foreigners. Counter-protestors surrounded the protesting group and drew ever closer.
Professor Rudy Acuña, who was acting as a demonstration monitor, repeatedly asked
counter-protesters to step back and refrain from making lewd gestures. They
responded by knocking him down. Campus police and administrators had to step in
and form a perimeter around protestors to protect them from the mob, at least one of
whom held a United States’ flag and chanted “USA, USA.”
43
This event is an
example of the conservatism and hostility political dissent and “foreign” looking
peoples faced in the United States during the 1980s, even on college campuses. It
also demonstrates the commitment that some students had to voicing opposition to
United States’ imperialism and to standing in solidarity with the peoples of Latin
America and the Caribbean.
CSUN MEChA maintained strong ties with Central American solidarity groups
and continuously collaborated with them to spread awareness and condemn United
States’ actions in Central America. In the fall of 1983, CSUN’s MEChA, CISPES
and the Nicaraguan Solidarity Brigade sponsored Central American Teach-Ins.
44
On
16 October 1985 two University of El Salvador students spoke at CSUN about their
experience of repression and resistance in El Salvador. In the fall of 1985, CISPES
invited the president and vice president of the University of El Salvador General

43
Ibid.

44
Carmen Valencia, “Central American Teach-In Raises Awareness,” El Popo 18, no. 2 (November /
December 1983): 7, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban
Archives, CSUN.
177

Students Association to give a taking tour in the US. Their CSUN talk was recorded
and published by El Popo.
45
At the fall 1985 California MEChA Statewide
Conference, hosted by CSUN MEChA 22-23 November, one-fourth of the
workshops focused on Central America.
46
For the first half of the 1980s, Central
America and United States’ intervention remained a constant concern and topic of
discussion CSUN and other California MEChA chapters.
As I mentioned in a previous chapter, the national CISPES executive director in
1987 was Angela Senbrano. Senbrano had been a member of Chasey College
MEChA and Claremont College MEChA as a student in the early 1970s. A decade
and a half later, she was the head of the largest and most active Central American
solidarity network in the United States. On 31 October 1987, Senbrabo gave the
keynote address for the Revolucionarias Chicanas/Latinas in Transition conference at
CSUN. She argued that the revolutionary forces of Central America and especially
the women of El Salvador and Nicaragua could serve as role models for the
Chicana/o struggle for self-determination, sovereignty, and independence of United
States imperialism. She called on all Chicana/os to integrate Central American
solidarity into their everyday lives because a direct military intervention by the
United States would result in Chicano and Central America “brothers” killing one
another. Senbrano wanted Chicana/os and Latina/os in the United States and abroad

45
“Estudiantes Salvadoreños en Gira,” El Popo 20, no. 1 (October, 1985): 5, 8, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

46
Rita Moreno, “MEChA Statewide Conference,” El Popo 20, no. 1 (October, 1985): 2, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.
178

to have closer ties and realize they were all brothers and sisters in the same
struggle.
47

Solidarity events and overtures did not guarantee good relations between
Chicana/o student activists and Central American students in United States
institutions of higher education. Milo Alvarez, a UCLA student of Mexican descent
who was a MEChA member in the late 1980s and early 1990s, recalls that UCLA
MEChA had a strained relationship with UCLA’s Latin American Students
Association (LASA). Alvarez remembers that a few Central American students
joined MEChA and identified as Chicana/os, particularly those of Nicaraguan
descent. UCLA MEChA regarded LASA members, many of whom were of Central
and South American descent, as less political and more socially inclined. Alvarez
claims MEChA members might have alienated Central and South American students
through paternalistic attitudes. UCLA MEChA anointed itself thee organization that
represented and spoke for all Latina/o students on campus, and it made sure LASA
was aware of this.
Alvarez argues that some LASA members were part of Latin Americas’ elite
families and ascribed to conservative politics. Thus, they disdained the leftist
politics of MEChA, CSIPES, and other solidarity organizations.
48
Students of
Central and South American descent were politically diverse and most did not feel a

47
“Angela Senbrano Speaks at Chicana Conference,” El Popo 22, no. 2 (December 1987): 4, The El
Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

48
Milo Alvarez, interview by author, 7 September 2007, Alhambra, Calif., digital audio recording.
179

need for to politically unite as an identifiable community. However, some joined
Chicana/o organizations or formed their own organizations to become politically
engaged and make their voices heard.
Indigenismo and California MEChA in the 1990s
In 1990, CSUN student Jose Maldonado called on Chicana/os and Latina/os to
unite and take action. His proclamation revealed a continued concern for Central
America and a broad sense of community based on indigenismo.
There is a need…to become concerned about the worsening situations in Central
and South America, and the death and destruction the United States government
is wreaking on our brothers and sisters, with our tax dollars, forcing them to flee
to the very country that’s oppressing them, only to oppress them more upon
arrival, or face deportation.
49

Maldonado understood poverty, exploitation, immigration, and death as a cycle that
enveloped his Latin American brothers and sisters and was perpetuated by the United
States government. Like previous Chicana/o activists, he wanted to spread a broad
sense of peoplehood amongst Latina/os, “We need to open our arms and our hearts to
everyone who shares the heritage of the indigenous people of Aztlán, México,
Central and South America. The [sic] problem we face are the same….We are all
one gente.”
50
This sentiment recognized the growing diversity of California barrios
and reflected the rising influence of indigenismo amongst Chicana/o student activists
in the years before and after the 1992 Columbus Quincentennial.
Indigenismo reminded Chicana/os of a longer history of colonization that their

49
Jose Maldonado, “Una Gente” El Popo 24, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 2, The El Popo Newspaper
Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

50
Ibid.
180

people had endured since 1492, and this fostered a sense of brotherhood and
sisterhood with other peoples colonized by Europeans in the Americas. Rene
Orozco, the 1990-1991 CSUN MEChA Chair warned Chicano/as in a poem.
Brothers and sisters! Beware of the colonization! For colonization goes beyond
just an economic and territorial one. The colonization is also psychological…in
that it feeds on the molding of the brown mind to think that bowing down to the
oppressor is the way for progress[.] Psychological in that it attempts to lead the
brown mind into forgetting its struggle under the guise of complete assimilation
[.] Brothers and sisters I plea that you question every aspect of colonization[.]
Brothers and sisters divide and conquer is a result of psychological
colonization[.]
51

The decolonization of one’s mind became a major theme in MEChA’s activism in
the 1990s. MEChA members like Orozco argued that divides within the Latina/o
community served the interests of the colonizer and resulted from colonization.
The Columbus Quincentennial helped popularize indigenismo amongst
Chicana/os and they demonstrated their solidarity with the indigenous peoples of the
Americas through large anti-Columbus demonstrations in California. The first
march was on 10 October 1990, at United States-Mexico border. It was organized
by the National Chicano Moratorium Committee (NCMC), who used the event to
demand the demilitarization of the border, the dismantlement of the Immigration and
Naturalization Service, the right to Chicana/o self-determination, an end to police
brutality, and the creation of job opportunities for Latina/os.
52
This demonstration
drew approximately four thousand participants while the other demonstration held in

51
Rene Orozco, “Caucus,” El Popo 24, no. 1(Spring 1990): 2, The El Popo Newspaper Collection,
Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

52
Anibal Guerrero, “Chicanos march in protest of Columbus,” El Popo 23, no. 2 (Fall 1992): 7, The
El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.
181

San Francisco, drew approximately three-thousand participants. The latter
demonstration was organized by a multi-ethnic coalition that included MEChA, the
American Indian Movement, the International Indian Treaty Council, the Chicano
Moratorium Coalition, Regeneración (Mexican Socialist Movement), people
involved in the Environmental movement, Anarchist movement, Puerto Rican
movement, and Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transsexual community.
MEChA members primarily participated in the San Francisco demonstration
because of differences with the NCMC. Jose Luis Vela, CSUN MEChA Chair, drew
inspiration from the Sunrise Tobacco Ceremony held by indigenous peoples from
around the world at Alcatraz Island. “It reminded us that we have survived 500 years
of repression and it is [sic] a proof that we are a strong people.”
53
The demonstrators
in San Francisco forced the replica ships of La Niña, La Pinta, and La Santa Maria to
abort their planned landing in the bay. For protestors, this was a symbolic victory
against colonization.
In the 1990s, Mexico and the Zapatistas became the primary international focus
of Chicana/o student activist in MEChA. This was particularly due to the passage of
the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Mexico,
Canada, and the United States. Some critics argued that NAFTA would enable
companies to: avoid United States’ and Canadian environmental and labor standards
by shifting their assembly and manufacturing operations to Mexico; strip away trade
restrictions that would allow United States products to flood Mexican markets and

53
Ibid.
182

push Mexican small farmers out of the local market; destroy the ability of small scale
agriculturalists to economically survive in Mexico; and heighten economic pressure
on the Mexican rural lower classes that would be forced to increase migration and
immigration flows.
In the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, the Zapatista Army of National
Liberation (EZLN / Zapatistas) revolted against the Mexican government on 1
January 1994. The day NAFTA went into effect. The rebellion garnered national
and international media coverage, which the EZLN used to lambast the negative
effects of neo-liberalism, economic globalization, and the Mexican government’s
national project. The Zapatistas served as a model of a Mexican nationalism that
was critical of both the Mexican government and the concept of Mestizaje, which
tended to subvert the indigenous heritage of Mexico for a more Hispanicized
representation.
54

Chicana/o students and community members formed EZLN solidarity
organizations. Like CISPES in the late 1980s, the network of EZLN support
committees had a national Chicana spokeswoman, Cecilia Rodriguez. MEChA
joined solidarity networks in raising awareness in the United State about what was
taking place in Chiapas. They also put pressure on the United States’ and Mexican
governments by publicizing the extent of United States military aid to the Mexican
government and by reporting the latter’s military maneuvers against the Zapatistas.

54
For a deeper analysis of the Zapatista rebellion and indigenous organizing in southern Mexico, see
Neil Harvey, The Chiapas Rebellion: The Struggle for Land and Democracy, (London: Duke
University Press, 1998).
183

Chicana/os brigades provided technical and medical support to the Zapatistas. These
trips allowed Chicana/o activists to meet Zapatistas and view the progress they had
in organizing their communities. This, in turn, inspired Chicana/o activists to return
to the United States ready to organize and continue to support solidarity efforts.
Zapatismo (support for the philosophy and actions of the EZLN) seeped into the
Chicana/o activist subculture. Zapatista themes appeared in Chicana/o music, art,
posters, and clothes; and Subcomandente Marcos (EZLN spokesmen) became an
iconic figure. MEChA members specifically supported the Zapatistas by running
workshops on the EZLN at their conferences and meetings, as well as attending
demonstrations at Mexican consulates, joining solidarity networks and brigades, and
carrying symbols of solidarity with the Zapatistas.
55

The Zapatistas appealed to MEChA members because they represented many of
the ideas and principles that Chicana/os claimed to stand for. They were indigenous
peoples fighting against racism and economic exploitation perpetuated by a
government run by the heirs of Spanish colonialism and manipulated by the United
States government and neoliberalism. Also appealing to many Chicana/o activists,
was the way the EZLN combined indigenismo, Marxist-Leninism, and grassroots
organizing. For former League of Revolutionary Struggle member Beto, Zapatismo
seemed like the ideological formula he was looking for. Like MEChA members, the
EZLN harkened back to Mexican Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata for inspiration.

55
Lorena Flores, “Soul Connection Between Chicana/o and Zapatista Movements,” El Popo Special
Issue (Spring 1999): 11, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban
Archives, CSUN.
184

Intra-community Resurgence Forces
There were several intra-community forces that propelled the resurgence of
Chicana/o activism in the 1990s. Part of the energy behind the Chicana/o
Movement’s resurgence stemmed from the activities of the National Chicano
Moratorium Committee. It was established in 1989 to commemorate the twentieth
anniversary of the national Chicano Moratorium march and rally in East Los Angeles
on 29 August 1970, but also to form a national coalition of organizations and
individuals set on Chicana/o liberation.
56
The 1990 commemoration was attended by
over five-thousand people, and although some critics thought it was a disappointing
turnout, others saw it as the start of a national movement for liberation. Ernesto
Bustillos, national coordinator of the NCMC, argued that the NCMC’s
organizational structure had the greatest potential to unite the Chicana/o Movement.
He claimed the NCMC was the most legitimate national voice of the Movement
because its local committees organized thirteen regions for the 1990
commemoration, and committees remained active in seven regions even after the
event.
Many MEChA chapters participated in the commemoration of the national
moratorium and MEChA member, Patricia Marin, was one of the speakers at the
commemoration rally. MEChA chapters continued to participate and support the
NCMC, until summer of 1991, through the Student/Youth Committee of regional

56
Ernesto Bustillos, “Time to Build a National Movement,” L.A. Moratorium (August 1990): 1, Box 1
/ Folder 18. The Chicano Moratorium Vertical Files Collection, Chicano Studies Research Center,
UCLA.
185

Moratorium Committees. Nevertheless, tensions emerged between MEChA and the
NCMC. Thus, MEChA chapters withdrew from the coalition.
57

The passing of César Chavez, a cofounder of the United Farm Workers union,
served as a boost to the Chicana/o Movement because it exposed a younger
generation of Chicana/o youth to the significance and importance of the Chicana/o
struggle, la Causa. Chavéz died of heart failure, in his sleep, on 23 April 1993.
CSUN student David García observed,
César’s passing united our gente like only a few incidents in the past have done.
Our gente showed the world how strong Raza can be united, focused and
concerned about an incident or issue. His funeral was a rallying point for El
Movimiento.
58

His passing attracted national attention and thousands across the country mourned
his death. Approximately 40,000 people attended his funeral services in Delano,
California. Heavily represented amongst mourners were farm workers, union
organizers, and Chicana/o movement activists and sympathizers, many of whom
where MEChA members and MEChA alumni.
59
Those that could not travel to
Delano for the funeral organized vigils and commemorative events.
CSUN MEChA helped organize a 200 person vigil in San Fernando. His
passing, media coverage, and memorials helped inform a new generation of
Chicana/o youth about their community’s history of struggle and it instilled a sense

57
ELAC MEChA, Position Paper (27 September 1991): 1; Rancho Santiago MEChA Position Paper:
1, Ralph de Unamuno Private Collection.

58
David García, “El Espiritu de César ChávezSigue,” El Popo 24, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 3, The El
Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

59
Leilani Albano, “Mourners Pay Tribute to César Chavez,” El Popo 24, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 4, The
El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.
186

of pride and desire to get involved.
60
El Popo eulogized Chavez, and called on all
Chicana/os to look within themselves to step up and provide the leadership the
Chicana/o community needs. They called for a community of leaders and not a
community dependent on a sole leader.
61

There were several other campaigns that politicized Chicana/o and Latina/o
youth in California. Nonetheless, the most significant stimulus of California
Chicana/o and Latina/o activism in the 1990s was the crusade against the anti-
immigrant Proposition 187 of 1994. The proposition was meant to deny K-12
education and emergency healthcare to undocumented immigrants, and force school
and medical personnel to verify documentation and report people that could not
prove legal residency. According to its proponents, the measure would have reduced
undocumented immigration by eliminating some of the perceived benefits of living
in the United States, while saving “taxpayer’s” money. To most Latina/os, the 1994
ballot initiative was a poorly veiled attack on the Latina/o community, blaming it for
the economic woes of the state and country. The support that this proposition
received from white, black, Asian, and some middle-class Latina/o voters made the
majority of California Latina/os feel like they were on their own and that it was up to
them to defend themselves.

60
David Gonzalez, “Vigil Held in San Fernando,” El Popo 24, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 3, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

61
David García, “El Espiritu de César Chávez Sigue,” El Popo 24 (Spring 1993): 3, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.
187

The first ones to hit the streets in mass protest were Latina/o high school
students, who walked out of schools statewide in the thousands. Since proposition
187 was partly aimed at K-12 education, Latina/o students took it personally. Ralph
de Unamuno, a high school student at the time, recalled, “Everyone knew what it
[Proposition 187] was. It was a reactionary white republican attack on Latinos.”
62

The ranks of high school and college MEChA chapters swelled, as students searched
for unity and direction in their desire to strike out against the proposition. MEChA
chapters became hubs of political activism and several chapters reemerged or were
formed from the ground up. Proposition 187 scared the Latina/o community into
action, as formerly apolitical and apathetic students became activists and thousands
of naturalized Latina/o residents finally decided to apply for citizenship.
63

Ralph De Unamuno began his political activism as part of his high school
MEChA chapter’s attempts to oppose proposition 187. As an Irvington high school
student in Fremont, a city in Northern California’s Alameda County, Unamuno felt
compelled to do something about what he perceived as an assault on the Latina/o
community. He had been loosely involved in his school’s MEChA chapter,
primarily as a participant in social events. When proposition 187 caught the
attention of MEChA at his high school, he converted his verbal opposition into
action with the help of college MEChA chapters and union organizers. De Unamuno
helped organize demonstrations and protests, including a walkout at his high school.

62
Ralph de Unamuno, interview by author, 30 April 08, Westwood, Calif., digital audio recording.

63
Ibid.
188

Local MEChA’s, such as U.C. Berkeley and CSU Hayward, along with the Oakland
based Student Empowerment Project and labor unions helped organize and
politically mentor Alameda County Latina/o high school students. As a high school
MEChA member, De Unamuno participated in several large protests held in San
Leandro and Hayward, as well as in the walkouts where his MEChA chapter also
made demands on his high school administrators to provide Chicana/o Studies.
64

The unity and activism, exerted by the Latina/o community in 1994 made most
activists confident that the proposition would fail to pass. This expectation, made it
that much more shocking when it passed. De Unamuno and others attempted to
understand how California voters could see all the resistance and animosity towards
Proposition 187, and still vote for it. He recollects that it was then that he realized
the extent of anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican sentiment amongst whites. De
Unamuno also concluded that people of color in California were fragmented and
treated differently by whites. Similar to CSUN Chicana/o students in 1970, when
their Chicano House was burned down, De Unamuno and many in MEChA came to
the conclusion that they were on their own. Mainstream stream society rejected
them, and other people of color would not come to their aid.
65

Opponents successfully fought the implementation of Proposition 187 in the
courts. Several legal challenges were filled immediately after Proposition 187 passed
and San Francisco Superior Court Judge Stuart R. Pollak issued a preliminary

64
Ibid.

65
Ibid.
189

injunction preventing any of its provisions from being enforced until their legality
was determined by the courts.
66
On 2 November 1995, United States District Judge
Mariana Pfaelzer ruled that one-hundred and twenty-nine lines of Proposition 187’s
original one-hundred and eighty lines were unconstitutional, and that the fifty-one
remaining lines still had to be judged. She argued that the federal government has
sole jurisdiction over immigration, and state authorities do not have the right to
question individuals about their immigration status in order to deny them public
services such as education and healthcare.
67
In the end, the courts deemed
Proposition 187 unlawful, in conflict with federal law, and void.
California MEChA Activism in the Late 1990s
On 1 April 1996, immigration and police brutality once again came to the
forefront of Chicana/o Movement issues when Riverside County Sherriff deputies
were caught on tape beating a Latina and Latino after a high speed chase. The
victims were driving a vehicle used to transport undocumented immigrants at high
speeds in an attempt to evade authorities. The chase attracted media attention, and
news crews filmed the ended of the chase in El Monte. The vehicle stopped and
everyone aboard attempted to flee. Television viewers at home witnessed Sheriff’s
deputies grab a woman from the back of the head and smash her face into the hood
of the vehicle, while other officers beat her partner.

66
Raul Gomez, “Prop. 187 Ban on Higher Education Stopped,” El Popo, no. 2 (Spring 1995): 6, The
El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

67
Steven Caudillo, “Parts of Prop. 187 Thrown Out,” El Popo, no. 1 (Fall 1995): 5, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.
190

This filmed beating, only five years after the videotaped beating of Rodney King
that setoff violence in Los Angeles, infuriated Chicana/o and Latina/o activists. El
Popo staff writers, Steven Caudillo and Oscar Garay, charged mainstream media
with sensationalism in the pursuit of profits. Similar to arguments made in the
1970s, they argued that the economic downturn combined with biased media
coverage and opportunist politicians created a state of fear and hatred toward
Mexicans amongst Californians. Caudillo and Garay pointed out that while people
of color made up 42.78% of California’s population, they only made up 10.5% of
those working in California’s media industry and even those were in the bottom
sector. They claimed media coverage coded immigrants as positive, negative, or
neutral, depending on their country of origin and race.
68

El Popo staff writers, Dalila Perez, Maria Espana, and Frank Colon, considered
the incident another example of police officers who feel they can operate above the
law. The trio called for accountability. Like other MEChA members, Perez did not
believe the televised beating was an isolated incident, but part of a common
occurrence where police officers dehumanize Latina/os figuratively and physically.
She loathed the contradictions of a legal system that seemed to protect animals and
violent police officers more than human beings.
We can lock up a human being for beating up a dog, yet we let two officers go on
an all paid suspension after brutally beating up two human beings, leaving out
the many other beatings that were never reported.
69

68
Steven Caudillo and Oscar Garay, “Media Shape Public Opinion and Immigration Debate,” El
Popo, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 3, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department,
Urban Archives, CSUN.

191

The brutality and the biased justice system radicalized Chicana/o activists, many of
whom warned authorities that if justice was not done, the community might take the
law into their own hands.
The fact is that our community is losing patience and will no longer tolerate
racist officers in its’ own back yard nor will it handle brutality cases by turning
the other cheek. If this continues, the United States will be threatened by
possible civil revolts.
70

Espana and Colon argued that minorities did not want to revolt. Nevertheless, they
would if the federal government did not take honest action against human rights
violators like the, “L.A.P.D. and other racist and fascist law enforcement
departments.”
71
The beating caused community memory to recall the assassination of
La Times reporter Ruben Salazar and police misconduct in East Los Angeles on 29
August 1970. For many, the possibility of another urban uprising loomed large,
especially amongst a public hysterical of a “Mexican invasion” and having
experienced a “riot” just a few years earlier.
Most community activists thought like El Popo staff writer Raquel

Sanchez, who recommended people focus their energy on positive pursuits.

69
Dalila Perez, “To Protect and Serve: Do as I Say, Not as I Do,” El Popo, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 6,
The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

70
Maria Espana and Frank Colon, “Use of Excessive Force Fails to Violate Moral Code,” El Popo,
no. 1 (Spring 1996): 7, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban
Archives, CSUN.

71
Ibid.
192

we must channel our feelings of anger and outrage into peaceful assemblies
showing a higher level of dignity. We must find alternative solutions and use our
anger and pride to mobilize ourselves and our communities in order to stop such
atrocities.
72

Activists organized demonstrations throughout the month of April to protest the
brutality and demand justice. The largest one was a march in downtown Los
Angeles that attracted close to ten thousand people. This event also served as
momentum for the Latino March on Washington, on 12 October 1996, where
demonstrators demanded equal human, constitutional, economic, and immigration
rights for all.
73

Another major political attack that set California’s Chicana/o student activists
into motion was the anti-Affirmative Action Proposition 209. Political
conservatives—primarily the Republican Party—but also some independents and
Democrats, set their sights on eliminating “reverse discrimination.” They planned to
do by getting Proposition 209 on the November 2006 ballot, with the intent of
banning affirmative action programs in California. Similar to late 1970s, attacks on
undocumented immigrants were closely followed by a general assault on Affirmative
Action. Demonstrating their desire to appear color blind and non-racist, the poster
boy of Proposition 209 was African American, Wardell Anthony Connerly. In the
1980s and continuing into the 1990s, rightwing politicians appropriated Civil Rights
Movement icons and terminology for conservative causes. As such, they named

72
Raquel Sánchez, “Voices Set the World in Motion,” El Popo, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 1, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

73
Ibid.
193

Proposition 209 the California Civil Rights Initiative. As a University of California
Regent since 1993, Connerly helped eliminate affirmative action in the UC system in
January of 1996. He argued that affirmative action practices in the UC system were
discriminatory against whites and Asians.
Connerly broadened his sights and spearheaded the successful campaign to
eliminate California government Affirmative Action policies in college admissions,
hiring, and contracting. Fifty-four percent of those voting in California on 5
November 1996 approved of Proposition 209. According to Rodolfo Acuña,
seventy-four percent of African American, seventy-five percent of Latina/o, sixty-
one percent of Asian-Pacific American, and fifty-eight percent of Jewish voters
voted against the measure.
74

MEChA chapters began to voice their opposition to Proposition 209 in the spring
of 1996. CSUN’s Frank Colon argued that women and minorities in California had
made great strides in education due to Affirmative Action, however it was still
necessary due to the great disparities that continued to exist between white men and
the rest of the population.
…white males make 33% of the population and they occupy most high level
paying jobs! White males make up 88% of tenured professors, 85% of partners in
major law firms, 97% of school superintendents, 80% of the House of
Representatives….95% of fortune 500 CEO’s, 99.9% of professional athletic
team owners, 90% of U.S. Senate and 100% of U.S. presidents as of today.
75

74
Rodolfo F. Acuña, Sometimes There Is No Other Side: Chicanos and the Myth of Equality (Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998), 1-9, 220.

75
Frank Colon, “A Question of Hegemony: Education, Access, and Equity Attacked,” El Popo, no. 1
(Spring 1996): 4, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban
Archives, CSUN.
194

Although proponents of Proposition 209 argued that affirmative action programs
rewarded women and minorities while devaluing merit and qualifications, Colon
argued that these programs simply guaranteed equal opportunity for women and
minorities. Colon pointed out that as of 1994, there were 91,183 discrimination
complaints and only 1.5% of them were from white men. Colon characterized the
struggle against Proposition 209 in dire terms, “If we lose this battle against these
racist, fascists, political cronies, we lose affirmative action, and all rights as a people
to succeed in this country.”
76
To Colon, its passage would be the end of the
“American Dream” for women and people of color in California.
MEChA members and many in the Chicana/o community saw Proposition 209 as
a continuation of a movement that started with Proposition 187. In spite of this,
Proposition 209 did not draw the same amount of resistance and activism from the
Latina/o community as Proposition 187 did. On 28 September 1996, the Los
Angeles Affirmative Action Defense Coalition held a rally at Los Angeles City Hall
to demonstrate their opposition to Proposition 209. The crowd numbered a few
dozen. Among them were MEChA members and MEChA alumni, such as Los
Angeles Mayor Antonio Villarraigosa, who was at the time a California
Assemblyman for the 45
th
district (primarily Hollywood and Silver Lake). He argued
that California and the country as a whole was going through a type of Dark Age due
to the anti-immigrant movement, nonetheless, those against Proposition 209 where

76
Ibid.
195

the bringing back the light.
77
The “Save the Dream” bus tour made stops at several
college campuses in the spring of 1996, heavily recruiting students to volunteer and
take action against Proposition 209. At the CSUN stop, Dolores Huerta of the
United Farm Workers union and Elenor Smeal of the Feminist Majority spoke out
against the proposition, arguing its passage would eliminate gains made in civil
rights since the 1960s.
78

In 1998, Proposition 227 became the major electoral issue concerning Chicana/o
student activists in California. Since proposition 187, Chicana/o student activists
paid close attention to ballot initiatives they considered would have a negative
impact on the Latina/o community, and this anti-bilingual education bill met all the
requirements for concern. The Unz initiative, as it came to be known, was funded
and spearheaded by multi-millionaire Ronald Unz. It was meant to drastically gut
bilingual education programs in California. Proposition 227 made bilingual
education programs into one year English language emersion programs that focused
on teaching students English. Conversely, existing programs combined teaching
subjects like math in the native language of students, with English language
emersion. Students ten years and older could take a second year of language
emersion, if schools determined it was necessary. Nevertheless, those under ten
years of age had to have their parents fill out a request for a second year of English

77
Patty Tovar, “Driving the Bumpy Road to Stop 209,” El Popo, no. 1 (Fall 1996): 1, The El Popo
Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

78
Francisco Castro, ““209 No Se Puede,” Defeat it, “Si Se Puede”” El Popo, no. 1 (Fall 1996): 1, The
El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.
196

emersion classes, and schools had to power to approve or deny the request. The
proposition also set aside funds for English classes for adults.
79
Proponents argued
that bilingual education programs had failed, and pointed out high dropout rates as
proof. Nonetheless, barrio dropout rates where high before bilingual education and
they continued to be high after Proposition 227 passed in June of 1998.
80

MEChA members saw this proposal as the next proposition of a nativist and
racist conservative movement in California politics set on reducing the power of
people of color and especially Latina/os in California. In response, several chapters
helped organize demonstrations on campus and individual MEChA members
volunteered for anti-227 campaigns in communities.
Amending the Philosophy of MEChA
Although there was a movement within MEChA to be more inclusive of other
Latina/os, especially Central Americans, the latter student population participated in
MEChA and formed organizations and activities that specifically addressed Central
Americans. While many Central Americans embraced MEChA and Chicana/o
identity, some felt the organization was too Mexican-centric. At CSUN Central
American students formed CAUSA, the Central American United Students
Association. Due to their relatively smaller population size and regional history,
Central American students united to form one regional organization. Thus, they

79
Liz Walbridge, “Prop. 227 Forces Teachers to Change Approach to Bilingual Education,” El Popo
Special Issue (Spring 1998): 10, The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department,
Urban Archives, CSUN.

80
Laura Gutierrez, “Proposition 227 Debated on Campus,” El Popo, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 2, The El
Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.
197

increased their numbers without diluting their specific focus. Nevertheless, they
seemed to be, at least in some aspects, fairly similar to MEChA. This was especially
true when it came to cultural events. To commemorate Central American
independence from Spain, CAUSA organized a celebration on 15 September 1998,
and CSUN MEChA did likewise for Mexican Independence Day the following day.
In addition to celebrating their respective regions’ culture and history, these events
emphasized the importance of Latina/o student unity and activism regardless of
nationality, echoing sentiments expressed about La Raza since the 1970s.
81
It seems
that the separate events and organizations reflect a need by Central American
students to step out of the shadow of Mexican and Mexican American students, more
so than animosity or division between the two groups.
As mentioned in chapter 3 of this dissertation, the Alta Califas Norte MEChA
Region formed a Task Force to amend the Philosophy of MEChA to include and
recognize the prominence of indigenismo, non-Mexican Latina/os, the
Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transsexual community, and Chicanas in MEChA in the
1990s. Ralph De Unamuno participated in the task force in its early stages and
argued that these four issues were selected because they were things that MEChA
already was living and focusing on, yet its documents did not reflect it.
82
These four

81
Miguel Pardes, “Student Groups Celebrate Independence: MEChA” El Popo, no. 1 (Fall 1998): 3;
Astrid Martinez, “Student Groups Celebrate Independence: CAUSA,” El Popo, no. 1 (Fall 1998): 3,
The El Popo Newspaper Collection, Chicana/o Studies Department, Urban Archives, CSUN.

82
Ralph de Unamuno, interview by author, 30 April 08, Westwood, Calif., digital audio recording.
198

issues were interrelated in that MEChA members used indigenismo to frame their
understanding of gender, sexuality, and Latina/o unity and struggle.
Central and South Americans had been involved in the Chicana/o Movement
since the 1960s and their numbers grew with the Central American revolutions in the
1970s and 1980s that caused larger immigration flows. By the 1990s, there were
large sectors of traditionally Mexican barrios across the Southwest and eastern cities
that where now majority Central American, especially Salvadorian and Guatemalan.
Many of the politically active youth of these communities found their way into
MEChA and the Chicana/o movement as they trekked higher into the United States
educational system. Using the anti-colonial framework of 1492 instead of 1848,
MEChA members rationalized that even though Mexicans, Central Americans, and
South Americans came from different regions and nations, they were all the
descendents of the Indigenous victims of Spanish colonization and the contemporary
victims of United States imperialism. Due to their common experience, enemies,
and indigenous heritage, they were natural allies in their struggles for social justice
and self-determination.
Nevertheless, not everyone in MEChA was open to the idea of making the
organization officially pan-Latino and declaring Chicana/a a political identity based
on a philosophy instead of an ethnicity. Some MEChA members believed the
organization was a Mexican-American / Mexican nationalist political and cultural
organization and should remain that. The narrower forms of Chicanismo had
survived along with its more internationalist and broader forms. Ralph de Unamuno
199

participated in many of these inter-regional MEChA discussions on the proposed
revisions to the Philosophy of MEChA. Resistance primarily stemmed from regions
and campuses that had not experienced a significant influx of Central American
immigration, like rural areas and smaller urban centers in Central California,
Colorado, and New Mexico. They argued that the Chicana/o Movement and
MEChA were predominantly made up of Mexican-Americans and Mexicans. As
such, they should primarily focus on those communities.
83

At the 1999 MEChA National conference hosted by Phoenix Community
College MEChA, Northern and Southern California chapters were surprised to find
an ally in Texas MEChA chapters and continued dissent among Central California
chapters. According to De Unamuno most Texas MEChA chapters and some
Arizona chapters supported the revisions that argued Central Americans and South
Americans had always been involved in MEChA and the Chicana/o Movement, and
that Chicana/o movement organizations stood in solidarity with the people of Central
America during the revolutions of the 1970s and 1980s. Texas experienced its share
of Central American immigration. Thus, Texas MEChA chapters recognized the
need to clearly, and officially, recognize the Central and South Americans in
MEChA.
84

The revisions were adopted nationally on 21 March 1999 at the Phoenix College
MEChA National conference. The revised Philosophy of MEChA emphasized

83
Ibid.

84
Ibid.
200

indigenismo, Chicanas, Chicana/os of non-Mexican descent, the
Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transsexual community, while keeping its original emphasis
on Chicanismo, the Plan de Santa Barbara, the Plan de Aztlan, and MEChA’s right
to autonomy from outside infiltration and manipulation.
85
Key to including Central
Americans and South Americans in MEChA was the redefinition of Chicana/o.
We recognize that no one is born politically Chicana or Chicano. Chicanismo
results from a decision based on a political consciousness for our Raza, to
dedicate oneself to building a Chicana/Chicano Nation. Chicanismo is a concept
that integrates self-awareness with cultural identity, a necessary step in
developing political consciousness. Therefore the term Chicano is grounded in a
philosophy, not a nationality. Chicanismo does not exclude anyone, rather it
includes those who acknowledge and work toward the betterment of La Raza.
86

The emphasis on political philosophy, and not nationality, was a direct overture to
those that believed Chicana and Chicano are not exclusively Mexican or Mexican
American terms of identity. Instead, they are identity labels that apply to all
Latina/os that adopt the political and spiritual philosophy of Chicanismo. Although
this was meant to include those that identify as Latina/o and Hispanic, these identity
labels were rejected by MEChA for their Eurocentric connotations that undermined
the indigenous roots and heritage of the peoples of the Americas.
87
MEChA chapters
made a concerted effort to be less Mexican-centric, while still being cultural
nationalist.

85
Ralph de Unamuno, "La Fundación de MEChA," (Fall 2000): 5-6.

86
“Philosophy of MEChA,” 2.

87
Ibid.
201

Although the revisions did not instantly change the experience of Central and
South Americans in MEChA. It did give those that embraced all Raza as members, a
weapon in defending their perspective. Ralph de Unamuno recalls that his
experience in revising the Philosophy of MEChA made him confident in telling
people that believed MEChA was only for Mexicans that they were not a good fit for
the organization. This was the case for gender and sexuality as well, MEChA
members could turn to the document and say, “look, were are supposed to address
and embrace these issues and communities, its in our documents.”
88
Individuals,
chapters, centrales, and regions that did not abide by the Philosophy of MEChA,
could be kicked out of the organization or lose their right to vote and participate in
conferences.
Conclusion
Since the early 1970s, Chicana/o student activists held an internationalist
perspective of their community that led them to take on the struggles and causes of
immigrants and people of other nations, primarily Mexico and Central America, but
also the Middle East and the Caribbean. Assaults against people in the United States
and abroad, particularly when coming from forces associated to the United States’
government and corporate interests, were regarded by Chicana/o activists as assaults
against them and their sense of justice. This was especially true when it came to
Latin American immigrants and Latin American countries. Through their broad
definitions of La Raza, activists made the plight of immigrants their own and stood

88
Ralph de Unamuno, interview by author, 30 April 08, Westwood, Calif., digital audio recording.
202

up in support of their political, economic, and social rights. This meant defending
immigrants in the United States and lobbying on their behalf, but also supporting
struggles in Latin America through solidarity efforts. Chicana/os student activists
spread awareness on issues in Latin America, participated in demonstrations against
United States intervention, traveled to Latin America, and hosted Latin American
revolutionaries, setting them up with talking tours.
The battle over immigration policy and reform became central to Chicana/o
student activists and the Movement as a whole in the late 1970s and early 1990s.
Solidarity with Central America became a major focus in the 1980s and was replaced
by solidarity efforts with the EZLN in the 1990s, but on a smaller scale. From the
1960s through the 1990s, Chicana/o student activists and the community as a whole
continuously faced repressive immigration reform, policies, and practices that were
accompanied by on-the-ground nativism, economic scapegoating, and bill after bill
attempting to limit their communities’ rights and access to jobs, education, medical
care, government services, and cultural and civil rights.
Immigration as an issue and immigration as a demographic shift played a central
role in the development and direction of MEChA and the Chicana/o Movement. In
the 1990s, the recognition of this demographic shift among other important issues
caused MEChA members to officially recognize the diversity within the organization
and within the Movement of those who continued to identify as politically
Chicana/o. In the 1990s, the prominence of Indigenismo in MEChA facilitated the
rationalization of recognizing Central and South Americans as brothers and sisters
203

within the same anti-colonial struggle. Indigenismo itself was a response to the
nativism and racism that Chicana/os continued to face after five-hundred years of
colonization.

204

Conclusion

This dissertation has argued that Chicana/o student activists’ sense of
community, identity, and ideology has evolved within MEChA due to internal strife,
immigration, and international solidarity. Chicana/o student activists created
MEChA as a network of activism dedicated to institutional reform, social justice, and
Chicano liberation. Marxist-Leninism made major inroads into MEChA after the
decline of Chicana/o Movement, but nationalism made a resurgence with the end of
the Cold War. Chicanas progressively established an understanding within MEChA
that Chicana/o liberation also required confronting sexism and heterosexism.
Chicana/o student activists’ broad sense of community and social justice prompted
them to stand in solidarity with Latin American immigrants and revolutionaries.
In the late 1960s, Latina/o student activists embraced the tenets of Chicanismo
and created MEChA as part of their campaign for social justice and community
liberation. They adopted militant rhetoric and strategies to reform institutions and
make them better serve their community. Chicana/o student activists formed
networks, manifestos, and alternative media to facilitate communication and
coordination amongst themselves. In the process they adopted Chicana/o identity,
rejected assimilation, and dedicated themselves to serving the interests of their
community. At this point, activists argued Chicana/o liberation required unity,
achieving self-determination, and eliminating colonialism and racism.
Chicanismo enjoyed ideological hegemony amongst Chicana/o student activists
up to the early 1970s, due to the momentum of the Chicana/o Movement, but it lost
205

ground to Marxism-Leninism as the Movement declined. Internal-strife over
ideology became a significant and permanent facet of MEChA and Chicana/o
activism in the 1970s. While Chicanas initially tolerated sexism in the Movement for
the sake of unity, they became increasing vocal and critical of it. Some formed their
own organizations and a Chicana Movement emerged, while others began a slow but
long-term process of internally challenging and changing the attitudes of MEChA
members and movement activists. Marxist-Leninists became a major factor in
internal strife and ideological debates in MEChA since the early 1970s. They too
decided to form their own groups, but to continue to struggle to change the
ideological views of MEChA members. Both Marxist-Leninism and feminism were
initially resisted and criticized by movement activists as foreign ideologies set on
disrupting the Chicana/o Movement and assimilating Chicana/os into mainstream
society. The decline of the Movement weakened nationalist resistance on both
fronts, allowing Marxist-Leninism to make rapid inroads in MEChA and the
Chicana/o Movement.
Due to Chicana/os broad sense of community and the national attention
immigration received, Chicana/os took up the struggle for immigration reform and
immigrant rights in the second half of the 1970s. Immigration policy and
immigrants, were one of many issues and community sectors that Chicana/o activist
addressed in the early 1970s. Chicana/os identified Latin American immigrants as
part of La Raza. In the mid to late 1970s, Chicana/o activists influenced by Marxist-
Leninism argued that immigrants and Chicana/os were cultural and proletariat
206

brothers. Marxist-Leninist groups used this sense of solidarity between Chicana/o
activists and immigrants to become a major force in the movement. They spread
Marxist-Leninist thought and recruited Chicana/o activists to their respective
organizations.
In the 1980s, Marxist-Leninists under the League of Revolutionary Struggle
came to dominate California MEChA as solidarity with the people of Central
America became a major concern. Influenced by Marxist-Leninist notions of anti-
imperialism and internationalism, Chicana/o student activists made solidarity efforts
part of their daily regimen. As Raza and revolutionaries, Central American
resistance movements enjoyed the support of Chicana/o activists that opposed United
States intervention and informed the United States public about the atrocities being
committed by anti-communist forces in that region. The strong Marxist-Leninist
influence in MEChA declined with the end of the Cold War and a nationalist
resurgence followed.
Chicanas, in the 1970s and 1980s, steadily established their voice and space
within MEChA and the Chicana/o Movement. They slowly established their ability
to address women’s issues and critique sexism without retribution. This began with
Chicana workshops and continued with Chicana focused conferences, committees,
forums, programs, organizations, and media. Chicana student activists asserted their
viewpoints, claimed leadership roles, and enjoyed support from a growing number of
role models in academia, politics, and community activism. They could take pride in
the achievements and follow in the footsteps of former Chicana student activists like
207

Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina and CISPES executive director
Angela Senbrano.
The nationalist resurgence of the early 1990s was due to a series of campaigns
that introduced a new cohort of Chicana/o activists to Chicanismo and the Chicana/o
Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, but this nationalism was different. In MEChA,
LRS influence was replaced by a new sense of nationalism that lauded the
manifestos and plans of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the community,
Chicana/o nationalism was nurtured by the death of César Chávez, racial tensions,
and activist networks established by the National Chicano Moratorium Committee.
The leadership of this resurgence acknowledged that on top of racism and classism,
they also had to address sexism and homophobia to be successful in their liberation
efforts.
More than any other political issue of the 1990s, the anti-immigrant Proposition
187 drew Latina/o students into MEChA and into activism. Latina/o high school
students took to the streets in the thousands protesting the proposition and the ranks
of MEChA swelled with Latina/o youth wanting get involved politically. This was
the first of several propositions Chicana/o student activists opposed in the 1990s,
which they argued was part of a coordinated assault on the rights of Latina/os and
people of color.
Indigenismo played a major role in the way Chicana/os student activists in
MEChA understood their identity and sense of community in the 1990s. Although,
indigenismo was around when the Chicana/o Movement emerged, its influenced
208

waned and made a strong comeback in the early 1990s. This was due to
international organizing efforts by indigenous peoples in anticipation of the
Columbus Quincentennial. Chicana/os in MEChA reconceptualized their sense of
peoplehood from one based on Latin American mestizaje and United States
colonization, to one of Indigenous heritage and European colonization. They even
used indigenismo to make the argument that sexism and homophobia were products
of European colonization and thus should be opposed.
In the 1990s, Chicanas and LGBT members of MEChA became more vocal
about their opposition to sexism and homophobia in the organization. This
prompted reforms and forced the organization to address these concerns. AIDS
awareness campaigns in the 1980s forced Chicana/o activists to acknowledge
homosexuality in their community and in the 1990s, LGBT members made a
concerted effort to challenge homophobia in MEChA and the community. This took
the form of creating subcommittees, workshops, forums, and independent
organizations that specifically addressed homophobia and LGBT issues. Chicanas,
on the other hand, continued to be at the forefront of addressing sexism and women’s
issues. However, they were frustrated by MEChA members’ lack of seriousness
commitment and concern for those issues. Chicanas also formed subcommittees,
workshops, forums, and independent organizations. Chicanas demonstrated their
new level of influence, and MEChA’s ability to understand the coupling of sexism
and racism, through MEChA’s campaigns against fraternities and their themed
parties.
209

The culmination of these major trends of thought in MEChA was the revision
and national adoption of the Philosophy of MEChA in 1999. This document
officially acknowledged that the terms Chicano and Chicana were based on a
political philosophy and not an ethnicity, and that fighting sexism and homophobia
were also central goals of MEChA and the Chicana/o Movement. The Philosophy of
MEChA recognized the diversity of MEChA members and the need to equally
respect members regardless of ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. It also reasserted the
centrality of Chicanismo, indigenismo, Chicana/o Movement manifestos, and
MEChA’s right to self-determination. The Chicana/o liberation struggle will
continue.
210

References

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211

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212

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Mora-Ninci, Carlos. “The Chicano/a Student Movement in Southern California in
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MEChA: Cal St. Los Angeles
213

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Acuña, Rodolfo “Rudy.” “500 Years of Struggle.” Interview by Arnulfo Casillas.
LA Moratorium (August 1990): 2.

Alvarez, Milo. Interview by author, 7 September 2007, Alhambra, Calif. Digital
audio recording.

Beto. Interview by author, 16 January 2007, South Pasadena, Calif. Digital audio
recording.

De Unamuno, Ralph. Interview by author, 30 April 200, Westwood, Calif. Digital
audio recording.

Gonzáles, Rodolfo “Corky” and José “Cha Cha” Jiménez. “Chicanos: Identity
Recovered by Corky Gonzáles and Cha Cha Jiménez.” Interview by Karen Wald,
Tricontinental: 150-166.

Leyva, Estevan and Tomás Durán. Interview by author, 3 November 2004, Los
Angeles, Calif. Digital audio recording.

McKenna, Teresa. Interview by author, 24 November 2007, Los Angeles, Calif.
Digital audio recording.

Moraga, Cherrie. “Interview with Cherrie Moraga.” Interview by Lurdes Guerrero
and Mike Chavez. El Popo 25, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 4.

Pacheco, Mary Ann. Interview by author, 29 November 2004, Whittier, Calif.
Digital audio recording,

Vasquez, Tony. Interview by author, October 2004, Marina del Rey, Calif. Digital
audio recording.
214

Vivian and Ivan. Interview by author, November 2004, Downey, Calif. Digital
audio recording.

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Abstract (if available)

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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Creator Licón, Gustavo (author)

Core Title “¡La unión hace la fuerza!” (unity creates strength!): M.E.Ch.A. and Chicana/o student actvism in California, 1967-1999

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program History

Publication Date 08/07/2009

Defense Date 06/08/2009

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag ATM,Aztlan,California activism,CASA,Central American revolutions,Chicana,Chicana movement,Chicanismo,Chicano,Chicano movement,Chicano student movement,CISPES,Civil rights,civil rights movement,cultural nationalism,gender,identity,ideology,immigration,International solidarity,Liga,LRS,M.E.Ch.A,Marxism,MEChA,Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan,nativism,new left,OAI-PMH Harvest,Race,sexuality,student activism

Place Name California (states)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Sanchez, George J. (committee chair), Kurashige, Lon (committee member), Ramirez, Ricardo (committee member)

Creator Email gustavo_licon@yahoo.com,gustavol@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m2489

Unique identifier UC1146674

Identifier etd-Licon-3067 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-189577 (legacy record id),usctheses-m2489 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Licon-3067.pdf

Dmrecord 189577

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Licón, Gustavo

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu