Antonio Villaraigosa Educational Campaign

Understanding MEChA -

    El Plan de Santa Barbara is a more prosaic document but still radical in its view and intolerance for dissent, as seen in the declaration that “The Mexican American or Hispanic is a person who lacks self-respect and pride in one's ethnic and cultural background.”

    In discussing sympathetic administrators within the campus community, EPSB warns that “students must constantly remind the Chicano administrators and faculty where their loyalty and allegiance lie.”

    EPSB also condemns Chicanos who have been willing to work within the structure of the university, noting “Too often in the past the dedicated pushed for a program only to have a vendido sharp-talker come in and take over and start working for his Anglo administrator.”  “Vendido,” of course, is the Spanish slur meaning “sell-out,” and was used by Tony Villar against Chicano Studies Director Rudy Alvarez in 1974.

    It is in the section titled “Tying the campus to the barrio,” that gives context for Tony Villar’s demands for a “relevant education.” 

    The section reads in part, “The colleges and universities in the past have existed in an aura of omnipotence and infallibility. It is time that they be made responsible and responsive to the communities in which they are located or whose member they serve. As has already been mentioned, community members should serve on all program related to Chicano interests.”  Expanding on this theme, EPSB declares: “The idea must be made clear to the people of the barrio that they own the schools and all their resources are at their disposal.”  The section concludes with the understated analysis, almost as if discussing a business plan, that the use of school resources by the barrio “is an area which has great potential.”