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Guide to the MEChA collection
CEMA 36
CEMA 36
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Table of contents
Title: MEChA collection
Identifier/Call Number: CEMA 36
Contributing Institution:
UC Santa Barbara Library, Department of Special Collections
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
1.75 linear feet
(4 boxes and 1 oversize box)
Date (bulk): Bulk, 1968-1970
Date (inclusive): 1968-1979
Abstract: The "MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán) Collection" was compiled by students who were members of the MEChA organization.
Six of these students were appointed by UC President Hitch to an advisory committee on the operations of a newly established
Center for Chicano Studies. Ernesto Perez was one such student and a number of these files were addressed to him. The materials
are associated with the creation and inception of MEChA, through the JUNTA directiva.
The collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Collections, UCSB. All requests for permission to publish or
quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given
on behalf of the Department of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply
permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained.
[Identification of Item], MECha collection, CEMA 36. Department of Special Research Collections, UC Santa Barbara Library,
University of California, Santa Barbara.
Donated by UCSB Center for Chicano Studies via Coleccion Tloque Nahuaque.
The civil rights and student movements of the 1960's resulted in the birth of numerous activist and militant organizations.
Within the Chicana/o Movement, groups such as the Brown Berets, La Junta and ALMA were organizing in communities and barrios,
and by the late 1960's student groups such as MASA (Mexican American Student Association), UMAS (United Mexican American Students)
and MASC (Mexican American Student Conference) in California and MAYO (Mexican American Youth Organization) in Texas were
working to organize students, faculty and staff in colleges and universities.
In September 1967, Sal Castro, a Mexican American teacher at Lincoln High School began meeting with students at the Piranya
Coffee House in Los Angeles and making them aware of the disparities and neglect involving the current educational system.
As more students became aware of the bleak conditions the need for an immediate change became apparent. In March 1968 almost
ten thousand Chicano students walked out of five Los Angeles high schools: Lincoln, Roosevelt, Garfield, Belmont and Wilson.
The next ten days became referred to as the East Los Angeles Blow-Outs that eventually involved over ten thousand students.
After the Blow-Outs, a group of student activists, faculty and administrators formed the Chicano Coordinating Committee on
Higher Education (CCCHE) with the goal of forming a statewide network of community and campus activists, in order to put pressure
on campus administrators for further expansion of equal opportunity programs.
Rene Nuñez was a community activist from San Diego who, after visiting many high school and college campuses in California,
saw similarities in problems relating to student recruitment and retention. Nuñez is credited with having proposed a statewide
conference under the support of CCCHE with the purpose of discussion and creation of a plan of action, which would seek to
resolve these problems. Meanwhile, in March 1969, Crusade for Justice sponsored the first National Chicano Youth Liberation
Conference in Denver, Colorado. It was at this conference that a group of youths drafted the basic premises for the Chicana/o
Movement in
El Plan de Aztlán. A synopsis of the plan states:
1) We are Chicanas and Chicanos of Aztlán reclaiming the land of our birth (Chicana/Chicano Nation); 2) Aztlan belongs to indigenous people, who are sovereign and not subject to a foreign culture; 3) We are a union of free pueblos forming a bronze Chicana/Chicano Nation; 4) Chicano nationalism, as the key to mobilization and organization, is the common denominator to bring consensus to the Chicana/Chicano Movement; 5) Cultural values strengthen our identity as La Familia de la Raza; 6) El Plan de Aztlán, as a basic plan of Chicana/Chicano liberation, sought the formation of an independent national political party that would represent the sentiments of the Chicana/Chicano community.
Approximately one month later, CCCHE held their conference; in April 1969 a group of Chicana/o students came to UCSB for a
conference to formulate a plan for higher education that would be committed to Chicano cultural nationalism, self-determination
and education of Chicano youth. The resulting plan was titled
El Plan de Santa Barbara, which stressed that every effort be taken to educate la Raza. As part of this plan, student leaders from MASA, UMAS and
MASC decided that in order to unify the efforts of Chicanas/os in academia, those student groups involved with El Plan de
Santa Barbara would need a new name, which would surpass regionalism and localism while aligning the goals and philosophy
of El Plan
Espiritual de Aztlán and
El Plan de Santa Barbara.
El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán was a group already in existence on a few college campuses and, due to the intense significance of the implications of each
word, the name was accepted and a statewide MEChA was officially born, founded on principles of self-determination for the
liberation of Chicanas/os, Latinas/os, and Mexican Americans.
Another important development of
El Plan de Santa Barbara was in laying the foundation for Chicano Studies departments on college campuses. Today, MEChA is a California statewide
network of Chicano and Latino student organizations in the colleges, universities, high schools and junior high schools that
maintains its role fighting for the educational rights of Chicanas/os: to increase access and retention, to strengthen Chicano
Studies and to combat racism.
Series I: Notes from the JUNTA. This series is contained in one box and includes notes, correspondence and documentation of the proposals for the creation
of the Center for Chicano Studies and the Chicano Studies Department at UCSB. The series includes documents concerning the
organization and structure, requirements and recommendations for faculty, appointment of faculty, coordinating organizations
such as EOP (Educational Opportunity Program), the creation of a special section for Chicano related materials in the UCSB
library, and a mandate for Chicano scholarship. All the materials in this series are from 1969 and are kept in the order they
were in upon their donation. This order was determined by subject matter and thus many documents appear out of chronological
order.
Series II: MEChA, Chicano Studies and Related Organizations. This series is arranged according to hierarchy and then chronologically within hierarchical groupings. Primarily Ernesto
Perez collected materials in Series II during his term as student chairman at MEChA. The files mainly cover the time period
from 1968 to 1970. They include notes from MEChA meetings and correspondence from MEChA with other organizations and documentation
on many Chicano Issues. The files have been divided into their subject groupings and arranged chronologically when possible.
Series III: Correspondence. This series includes general incoming and outgoing correspondence files maintained by MEChA as well as correspondence relating
to specific ideas, such as a Chicano Community Film Research project and correspondence with UC Communications. As Ernesto
Perez primarily collected this series, much of the correspondence is addressed directly to him. The files have been divided
into their subject groupings and arranged chronologically where possible; those correspondence files, which are not related
to a specific project, are titled General Correspondence.
Series IV: Conferences. This series includes materials gathered by MEChA from various conferences. The files have been arranged chronologically.
Series V: Subject Files. This series has been maintained separately from Series V: Miscellany because they were kept under General Research in the
original collection. They have been arranged here alphabetically and cover a variety of Chicano topics outside of the MEChA
administration.
Series VI: Miscellany. This series contains files that could be subject files however they have been maintained here separately from Series IV:
Subject Files to maintain the creators provenance and are arranged alphabetically by title. In 1998 Yolanda Marquez, while
studying for her PHD in Chicano Studies, wrote a series of detailed notes about this portion of the collection. These notes
have been preserved with the collection and provide a very detailed breakdown of the contents.
Center for Chicano Studies, Department of Chicano Studies, José Joel García Collection (CEMA 73).
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Mecha (Organization)
Mexican American youth--Political activity--California
Mexican Americans--Education (Higher)--California