LOS angeles times April 9, 1969

Chicanos Told to Fight

Like Blacks for Respect

Mexican-American community Contrast

Action Taken Against UMAS and BSU

By Ruben Salazar

Times Staff Writer

"Chicanos can learn from our black brothers, we can and must learn how to fight effectively for what we want. We have to get ourselves together in high school UMAS and in the community and become strong enough in our unity that 'the Man' will see and be afraid."

This was the advice given Mexican-American youths by the underground newspaper Chicano Student Movement in its February issue.

Since then UMAS (United Mexican-American Students) has been suspended from Roosevelt High School, following a peaceful sit-in which UMAS claims it did not lead.

At Carver Junior High School where the Black Students Union takes credit for an explosive boycott, school authorities were equivocal about BSU's legitimacy.

Message not Lost

Area Supt. David Schwartz told The Times March 20 that the BSU would be suspended the following day at Carver but its principal, Andrew Anderson, contradicted his superior's statement and Schwartz did not overrule him.

The message, if there was one, was not lost on impressionable and activist Chicano youths, who see it this way:

The Man (the establishment) fears the black BSU and not the Chicano UMAS.

The Man knows it can kick out UMAS without worrying but when it comes to the BSU the Man gets so uptight it can't even agree among itself.

In an editorial chiding the lack of militancy in East Los Angeles, the Inside Eastside, another Chicano tabloid, said: "Mr. Hogan (a Roosevelt High teacher accused of racism but exonerated by the Board of Education) was wrong when and if he called you dirty Mexicans. Pendejos (stupid) would have been far more appropriate because you really have confirmed what most teachers already believe-that you are nice, brown, loyal, simple, passive, naïve and rather dull people who have been taught to obey and conform; even if you are getting kicked three times a day. Thank heaven that Roosevelt does have a few Bright Chicanos…"

Waiting for Election

After the elections, say impatient UMAS activists, "it's a new ball game."

The high school walkouts last year at four predominantly Mexican-American high schools, thought to be the first high school walkouts in American history, proved that the Chicano youth can be mobilized. The leaders of the walkouts, it is noted, are still present and active.

The suspension of UMAS by Roosevelt High School principal Thomas Dyer could provide the extension of these Chicano walkouts-once the election is out of the way.

Preparation for some kind of "action" at Mexican-American schools might be pushed by the 150 Los Angeles area youths who attended the Chicano Youth Liberation conference in Denver March 27-31. Conference leaders asked the 1,500 young people from California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Colorado to help plan a projected walkout from Mexican-American schools in the Southwest on Sept. 16, Mexican Independence Day.

Dr. Dyer's reasons for suspending UMAS for one month are clearcut. UMAS at Roosevelt, says Dyer, violated its own constitution by working in conjuction with other UMAS chapters, by sponsoring a sit-in when it said it would favor a spak-in instead, and by failing to keep "outsiders" off campus.

According to the UMAS faculty sponsors at Roosevelt-Alice Sandoval, Fred Sanchez and Antonio Ortiz-Dr. Dyer suspended UMAS on technicalities but failed to follow through on the technicalities concerning UMAS itself.

Sanchez, who teaches a Mexican-American studies course and English as a second language, says that if Dyer was going to be technical about suspending UMAS then he should have noted that for UMAS to have acted as Dyer says it did it would have taken two-third vote and the presence of the faculty sponsors. Sanchez, Miss Sandoval and Ortiz say this was not the case.

Miss Sandoval, an assistant vice principal who says part of the problem at Roosevelt is that there are only 18 Mexican-American faculty members out of a total of 155 in a school which has more than 80% Mexican-Americans, objects to UMAS being called "militant."

Contrast Noted

"Participating in UMAS was one of the few ways in which the kids could talk out their problems," says Miss Sandoval.

Militant or not, Chicano activists note that the BSU at Carver was "guilty" of at least the same things for which Dyer suspended UMAS at Roosevelt. Yet, BSU has not been suspended from Carver and, according to principal Anderson, probably will not be.

It can be argued, with technical validity, that what Dr. Dyer did at Roosevelt has nothing to do with what Dr. Anderson is doing at Carver because principals act in these matters independently.

To Chicano militants, however, the gauntlet has been thrown. In their eyes it is clear that the Man feels UMAS is considered weak and so easy to suspend and that BSU can not be touched.

Says the Chicano Student Movement in an attempt to convince Mexican-Americans to emulate black militants: "Black people have moved against the Man and they've become strong enough in the process so that the Man would rather give in than go up against them."

Concern Mexican-American parents note that area superintendent Schwartz said the Black Student Union would be suspended form Carver after a meeting March 20 with 40 student representatives from the four predominately Mexican-American high schools.

"When I heard the BSU would be suspended from Carver," says a Roosevelt mother, "I felt I could tell my boy that no one, whether BSU or UMAS, can defy authority. Now, I'm not too sure I can tell him that."

Schwartz' meeting with the 40 representatives of East Los Angeles' Roosevelt, Garfield, Wilson and Lincoln High Schools also helped to becloud the issue even more.

The meeting, much publicized the Mexican-American community as one in which school problems would be aired, was closed to the press and the community.

Schwartz said he wanted to talk with the students "without outside interference."

Horacio Qunones, representing the Educational Issues Coordinating Committee, was surprised by his being barred.

"The committee," said Quinones, "was told of the meeting by Dr. Graham Sullivan (deputy school superintendent) and I was led to assume I could hear what the kids had to say-something which would have been very valuable to the committee. Instead I was not allowed in by Dr. Schwartz."

The meeting, Schwartz admitted later, was less than successful. Fourteen of the students walked out. And, reported a public relations officer for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the remaining 26 student representatives voted after the meeting on the merits of the student-Schwartz private meeting.

Eleven of the students voted that the meeting was "a waste of time," according to the public relations officer. Seven voted it was not a waste of time and the rest did not vote.