MEChA

[1] The Denver, Colorado–based Crusade for Justice, a civil rights and educational organization founded in the mid-1960s, concerned itself with the problems of the city's Chicano youth.

In 1968, they helped the United Mexican American Students (UMAS), Sal Castro, and other youth who met at the Piranya Cafe organize the East L.A. walkouts, called the Blowouts, a series of protests against unfair conditions in Los Angeles schools.

Following the Blowouts, a group of students, school administrators, and teachers formed the Chicano Coordinating Committee on Higher Education (CCCHE), a network to pressure the adoption and expansion of equal opportunity programs in California's colleges.

Rene Nuñez, an activist from San Diego who participated in the 1968 walkouts, conceived a conference to unify the student groups under the auspices of the CCCHE.

Conference attendees also set the national agenda and drafted the Plan de Santa Bárbara, a pedagogic manifesto.

[citation needed] Typical activities of a MEChA chapters include educational & social activities, such as academic tutoring, mentorship, folklore and poetry recitals, exploring the way of life through an indigenous perspective bringing Chicano speakers to their campus, high school outreach, attending Statewide, Regional, & National Conferences.

Many chapters are also involved in political actions, such as lobbying high school and university administrators for expanded Bilingual Education programs and Chicano-related curricula, the celebration of Mexican cultural traditions, as well as other Latin American holidays (such as Mexican Independence Day), Columbus Day protests, sit-ins, hunger strikes, boycotts, rallies, marches and other political activism relating to civil rights, affirmative action, and immigration.

From 1969 to 1971, MEChA grew rapidly in California with major centers of activism on campuses in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Diego, and the Riverside-San Bernardino area.

As for Florida and other southern states, There are found no information about any chapters in this part of the country despite the growing Mexican American presence on campuses and in the region's cities.

[10] In 2008, a passage from MEChA's national website read: 'As Chicanas and Chicanos of Aztlán, we are a nationalist movement of Indigenous Gente that lay claim to the land that is ours by birthright.

The Times Online has referred to MEChA as "a radical Mexican student organisation"[14] in describing the associations of 2003 California gubernatorial candidate Cruz Bustamante.

While MEChA supporters point out that the Aztlan mythology itself does not refer to reclaiming conquered lands, it simply describes the home of the Aztec people.

According to the official MEChA website, the organization "does not exclude membership based on socio-economic status, gender, race, or orientation.

In reference to the rhetoric included in the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, the NCLR quoted journalist Gustavo Arellano who commented in a Los Angeles Times op-ed article,"few members take these dated relics of the 1960s seriously, if they even bothered to read them."

At the 2016 National MEChA Conference in Tucson, AZ; the name of the Organization was changed to Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán.