MEChA de LMU
la unión hace la fuerza
MEChA de LMU recognizes the Tongva people as the original caretakers of the land on which we live and work.
Brief History of MEChA
The Chicano Movement of the late 1960s helped spark historical and cultural pride in our people. Chicanas and Chicanos demanded to be treated as equals, and they denounced acculturation and assimilation too. They expressed their new-found empowerment and pride through poetry, literature, art, and theatre. The contributions of the Chicano Movement are numerous and continue to be valuable to our people today.
In March 1969, the Crusade for Justice organized the National Chicano Youth Conference that drafted the basic premises for the Chicana/Chicano Movement in what is known as El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan. In April 1969, over one hundred Chicanas and Chicanos came together to form the Chicano Coordinating Council on Higher Education at UC Santa Barbara. The students, educators, activists, and community members present drew attention to the needs and concerns of Chicanas and Chicanos both in the community and in the institutions of education. They formulated El Plan de Santa Barbara which led to the successful development of two very important contributions to the Chicano Movement: Chicana/o Studies and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlan (MEChA). El Plan de Santa Barbara proposed two basic goals for MEChA:
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MEChA was to become organically tied to the everyday social and political life of the Mexican American communities with the aim of empowering and developing those communities.
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MEChA was to become a permanent, well-organized power block for the purpose of redirecting university attention and resources to the needs of Mexican-American students, educators, and communities.
El Plan de Santa Barbara sees self-determination for the Chicana/Chicano community as the only acceptable way for our people to attain socio-economic justice. It argues that a strong nationalist identity is a necessary step in building a program for self-determination. "Nationalism transcends all religious, political, class, and economic boundaries; it is the one common denominator that all members of La Familia de La Raza can agree upon." Thus, self-determination challenges those involved in the principle struggle to respect the rights of all Chicanas and Chicanos. El Plan de Santa Barbara exhorts MEChA members to preserve Chicana/Chicano culture in this culturally diverse community both in the community and in the institutions of education.
El Plan de Aztlan and El Plan de Santa Barbara serve as the historical foundation for the establishment of a viable Chicana/Chicano Movimiento and are therefore fundamental to the MEChA philosophy. If you would like to review our guiding documents in their entirety, click on the links: