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When the fall quarter began we had a meeting and there were close
to 70 Raza at that meeting, nearly a hundred percent of the Spanish
surnames. Orale. So we got together and we were of course then known
as most of you know as UMAS, United Mexican American Students
and early on our first chair was Al Juarez and Al Juarez
quit in the middle of the I guess it was just before, around when
the calendar year changed. He quit and Luis Ortiz who was
Vice-Chair became President. Luis Ortiz, who by the way is at Chapman
College right now, he is a professor at Chapman college, he was
not as dynamic as Al. Al was a very dynamic guy and I am sorry he
is not here but then there was a question, how are we going to be
represented? We need representation and there were all the different
[perspectives], the pulling apart of the organization [began] here
at its very early stages.
So a bunch of
us got together and decided that we would form committees. And I
believe we had something like six or eight committees and each committee
then could go its own way. Now we had anticipated one thing. Its
is something that I understand is not being practiced too much now.
We anticipated that the different students would have different
needs. Some students all they wanted to do was tutor. They didn't
want to be involved in political activities. Other students wanted
definitely politics, politics, politics. And then there were the
ones that were of course you heard of them, they were the ones who
knew they could define Chicano and they would put their stamp of
approval whether someone was a Chicano or not. So we had the divisions,
I guess what I want to say is that we had the divisions right early
on. The divisions that as I understand still exist. Our dividing
into communities helped to mitigate that. The net result was we
were able to keep everyone involved and by the way a lot of people
who remember, this was the people who were here, this they were..there
wasn't even an EOP program. Was there an EOP program? Yes,
I guess it was already started. But the people who came here were
all good students.
The people who
were here were all good students, high achieving students, and all
of them came with an attitude. Because when you are in high schools,
the teachers would say How come all the Mexican kids aren't like
you are? So we had a hundred students all of them who knew that
they were "the Mexican". So there were some strong personalities,
very bright people, high achieving people who were having now to
work together and this was one of the things that Juan referred
to. We have a Chicano Youth Leadership conference, that Sal
Castro, and myself, and Jose Urias is helping us with
it this time. We bring high school students together who are high
achievers so that they can see that they are not the only ones.
That there are other Raza who are high achievers, there are other
Raza who are bright, there are other Raza who have concerns about
different issues and they have a lot in common with them. There
are women whose fathers don't want them to leave home and all of
the different issues that are confronted by the students. We share
with them and we want them to know because when they go to college
when they go on to schools and we encourage them of course to go
to school they will then meet with other people like themselves
and we want the to be mutually supportive, very important.
One of the things
that was true of that early group in spite of the differences and
there were differences, major differences. People were mutually
supportive of one another and people managed to get some things
done. It was an interesting period. We were very busy. We had meetings
every day, every night. And then some people even partied. I was
too old. But it was an exciting time and it's nice to see that thing
carries on here on campus. By the way my son came here also and
he was editor of La Gente when he was here. So he just got
his Ph.D. Yeah. I am very glad for that.
Ok, basically
what I guess I represent is that first group here along with the
other people who are here. We got together. We tried to organize.
We were part of a larger movement. And I think we recognized that
and we also saw ourselves as being responsible to do something for
the community. And it varied considerably with each person. Some
people wanted to go out and work in the barrios. Other people wanted
to work in the high schools. Other people wanted to work on campus.
And we were spread out. We were fairly thin but I think there have
been some good results. Ok. And that's all I am going to say. I
am going to turn over to who's next.
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