Thank you for writing an objective and informative story about
the Bruin Republican campaign against MEChA, “Bruin
Republicans campaign against MEChA’s views,” (Feb. 3).
The type of anti-Chicano sentiment put forth by the Bruin
Republicans is really disturbing.
I am the President of MEChA de California State University
Dominguez Hills. When asked, I am the first to admit that some of
the ideas our MEChA forefathers held can now be regarded as
extreme. But we, as MEChA, can never denounce our past.
Even though we do not hold many of these exact views, we cannot
deny the fact that they belong to us. The era of MEChA’s
birth was a time of civil and social unrest. The Chicana/o
community was overtly exploited and abused on all fronts. I think
these beliefs ““ which some people may feel are extreme
““ were in fact the first steps in a “Chicano
Renaissance.”
Our founding fathers and mothers were symbolically taking their
destiny in their own hands. They began to study their history
““ the political, sociological and psychological history of
their, and my, people. What they learned rightly angered them, and
they began to see the world with new eyes. They realized our people
had been in this land for over 500 years ““ only to be abused
by American settlers who stripped them of all they held dear.
It was still a time of manifest destiny and the Mestizo was
clearly an obstacle to be crushed. Our founders also studied the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; they found the border to be illegal
and learned how quickly the American government broke the treaty
just as they had done countless times with our Native American
brothers and sisters.
The time of MEChA’s founding was a turbulent time of
extremes, when values of old were being replaced by a new-found
love for our indigenous roots and all those facets of our culture
that we, as a people, had been ashamed of.
Even though most chapters of MEChA no longer have the more
extreme goals our forefathers promoted, we cannot and must not
denounce our past. These beliefs belong to all of us as Mechistas,
they belong to us as Chicanos and they belong to us as
Americans.
History has taught us that extreme views are born out of extreme
abuse. The Black Panthers are an excellent example. It is a group
that today is seen as too extreme, but it is also a response to the
abuse and exploitation our black brothers and sisters
experienced.
We cannot bias ourselves with the luxury of analyzing things
decades after the fact. The fact that the Bruin Republicans have
attacked MEChA is, to me, just another example of what I believe is
part of their agenda: to discredit our people by destroying our
past ““ to keep us from having a voice in America by comparing
us to hate groups like the KKK.
We must not fight about our collective pasts; the correct thing
to do is to own them, reclaim them, admit that they belong ““
no matter how much we would like to forget it. It is only then that
we will understand what the true nature of being an American means,
of being a part of the human society. “La Union Hace La
Fuerza!”
Alejandro Serrato is the president of CSUDH MEChA.