Org. Report: M.E.Ch.A. de Yale by Edgar Diaz-Machado

Org. Report: M.E.Ch.A. de Yale by Edgar Diaz-Machado

El Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlán (MEChA) de Yale sought to bring together the Chicano Movement’s past, present, and future with its East Coast Chican@ Student Forum conference “Past, Present, and Future: The Chican@ Narrative” during the weekend of February 16-18, 2007.

MEChA de Yale had the honor of hosting ECCSF’s winter 2007 conference. For their conference’s theme, MEChA de Yale chose to revisit the past, evaluate the present and define the future of the Chicano Movement from which MEChA de Yale sprung in 1969 as the first Chican@ group to organize in the Ivy League.

The Past of the Chican@ Narrative was presented with a panel of three distinguished Chican@s. In the late 1960s, high school student Paula Crisostomo saw the virulent injustices surrounding her in the schools of East Los Angeles. Tired of the deplorable quality of education her and her fellow Chican@s were being subjected to and disgusted by the low expectation their teachers and administrators had of them, Paula decided to take action. In March 1968, Paula, under the mentorship of legendary educator and activist Sal Castro, organized and led what came to be the largest organized protest of students in American history. The Chicano Blowouts of 1968 were the initial explosion of student involvement in the Chicano Movement. Crisostomo was joined on the panel by American Studies PhD students Mike Amezcua and Monica Martínez, Amezcua laid out the background of Mexican and Mexican-American identity that led up to the Chicano Movement and Martínez helped tie together the beginnings of the identity awareness and its manifestation in the Chicano Blowouts. Speaking of her activism, Crisostomo told how her involvement in the Chicano Movement and the Blowouts were “where [she] found [her] power [her] voice” in a system built to institutionally keep her down.

The Chicano Narrative’s Present was discussed in three panels on immigrant rights, alternative media and organizing methods, and LGBTQ Chican@s.

José Covarrubias and Kika Matos spoke to the conference attendees on immigrant rights and the current struggle. In May 2006, Covarrubias and a classmate helped popularize and organize the May Day walkouts in Orange County. They ingeniously used the website MySpace.com and before they knew it, they had 1,000 students demonstrating alongside them. For years Matos worked as executive director for New Haven’s JUNTA for Progressive Action. Matos recounted how New Haven’s immigrant population has grown and how there are efforts to protect those that are working towards getting American citizenship.

In terms of the present-day Chicano Narrative, Ricardo Dominguez, one of hactivism’s founding fathers, spoke about the work Zapatista rebels in Mexico have done and how modern-day activists can take part of the struggle. A proponent of electronic civil disobedience, Dominguez founded the Electronic Disturbance Theatre. Dominguez pointed out to those in attendance how the decades-old struggle can now be moved to cyberspace, as seen in electronic “sit-ins” on the Mexican government and the American Pentagon.

Finally, the Chicano Narrative’s present was seen through the eyes of LGBTQ Chican@s at Yale- senior Rosario Doriott, junior Juan Castillo, and sophomore Ben González. LGBTQ Chican@s find themselves balancing their own sexual identity with that of a movement which bases itself a largely heteronormative cultural mindset. However, National MEChA is actively promoting the acceptance of the LGBTQ community within the Movement. The panelists spoke about how their identities as LGBTQ and Chican@/Latin@ are actually, for the most part, complementary.

As seen through these three panels, the Chicano Movement has come a long way from the farm worker and student struggles of the 1960s, however, the work is not yet over.

Finally, the Chicano Narrative’s future was discussed in a panel on causes the Movement can take up. Camilo Romero spoke about the Killer Coke campaign, which works to expose the injustices the Coca Cola Company causes in countries where their workers are trying to unionize. Writer Oscar Torres, of the film Voces Inocentes, spoke on his experiences with child soldiers. Yale PhD student Melissa García presented on the problems of the maquiladoras and the femicides of Cuidad Juarez.

The East Coast Chican@ Student Forum’s winter 2007 conference was a huge success. Along with 150 students from 15 other East Coast schools, MEChA de Yale reflected on what the Chican@ Narrative has been, what it is, and what it can be. Originally a Thanksgiving reunion for the few Chican@s on the East Coast, ECCSF has grown into a tight-knit network of like-minded students working together for various causes. MEChA de Yale has played a huge roll unifying the Chican@s in diaspora across the East Coast and ECCSF is proof of that.