Fear of a Brown Planet

Illustration by Robert PokornyIn the Aug. 22 Orange County Register, longtime local Republican gadfly Art Pedroza Jr. used the better part of a 655-word guest editorial to argue from stereotypes that Cruz Bustamante would be very, very bad for Latino Californians.

Bustamante, remember, is our lieutenant governor, a Democrat and one of 135 gubernatorial candidates in the Oct. 7 recall election. He is also, if you believe Pedroza's take on Latinos, a dangerous man. Bustamante's proposal to raise taxes on cars valued at more than $20,000 "hurts Latino families, which tend to be large, as they need minivans and SUVs more than the rest of the California public," Pedroza wrote. Latinos "will be more enticed by the machismo and fame of Arnold Schwarzenegger" and turned off by the appearance of "the pudgy and unimpressive Bustamante"—a particularly ironic prediction, given Pedroza's roly-poly physique. Latinos will identify with Schwarzenegger because "he continues to have an accent as thick as his muscles"; meanwhile, Bustamante will lose respect among Latinos when it is revealed that he "actually had to take Spanish lessons in order for him to more fully pander to Latino voters."

Pedroza saved his most forceful swipe for the end: "Bustamante is known best for his indecision, his affiliation with labor unions and Indian gambling tribes, and his loyalty to MEChA, a college student organization that advocates the recovery of the U.S. Southwest by Chicanos."

"I was trying to dig Cruz a deep hole and throw him in it with that last comment," Pedroza told me with unmistakable satisfaction. "And I did."

As the recall nears, Republicans are whittling down their anti-Bustamante talking points: he's a Democrat, he's fat and mustachioed, and he was once a member of MEChA. Opposite Pedroza's attack, the Register's readers page that same day featured a letter by Westminster resident Marvin Tuomala. "I want the Register to investigate and report on the alleged connection of Lt. Gov. Bustamante to Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or MEChA," Tuomala wrote. "It is time to expose him for the imposter that he is."

Bustamante joined MEChA—a Chicano college student organization notable for ethnic pride and activism—while a student at Fresno State in the 1970s. Until now, such an association was an obsession only of fringe conservative groups. During the 1990s, they warned anyone who would listen that former MEChA members—some of them, like Bustamante, now elected officials—were "rabid reconquistas" working to return California to Mexican rule by any means necessary.

Now the major media want in on the game. It's not just Fox News asserting on Aug. 28 that "Bustamante's membership in MEChA is certainly more relevant than Arnold Schwarzenegger's father being a Nazi." It's also KTTV-TV 11 running an Aug. 27 newscast purportedly "exposing" Bustamante's membership in MEChA. Local conservative radio broadcasters John and Ken on KFI-AM and Larry Elder on KABC-AM no longer hold a monopoly on castigating Bustamante as a Mechista, as members of MEChA refer to themselves. Now there's KLSX-FM entertainment reporter Sam Rubin, whose Aug. 28 program featured callers demanding that Rubin speak out on Bustamante's connection with what one caller identified as "the brown Klan." While guest-hosting for a talk show on San Diego radio station KOGO-AM, Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom McClintock claimed Bustamante belonged to "a radical and racist organization," and that membership in MEChA is like saying "you're a member of the Klan." Registereditorial writer Steven Greenhut weighed in with an Aug. 30 contribution for the libertarian website LewRockwell.com (www.lewrockwell.com) that "there is incredible hypocrisy in the way Bustamante gets a free pass on his past association with [MEChA}, and the way Republicans get treated for their past associations." In an Aug. 20 editorial, the respected financial paper Investor's Business Daily warned against Bustamante's candidacy because of "his links to the radical group MEChA, the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan…Members of MEChA are committed, according to their group's constitution, to the 'liberation' of Aztlan—whatever that means."

What is MEChA? And why are Republicans betting it's their H-bomb in the coming governor's race?

In 1969, the student and ethnic-pride movements of the 1960s had enraptured young Mexican Americans, who now proudly labeled themselves as Chicanos and left their hometowns in search of the activist life. Some traveled to California's Central Valley and joined the United Farm Workers to organize migrant laborers. Others protested against the Vietnam War because the draft disproportionately selected Chicanos. Regardless of specific cause, nearly everyone in the nascent movimiento agreed on the necessity of an overarching vision. In the spring of 1969, about 1,000 Chicanos from across the country attended the National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference in Denver for that purpose. A month later, a larger conference took place at UC Santa Barbara.

From these conferences emerged two documents—El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán and El Plan de Santa Barbara. Together amounting to a sort of Port Huron Statement for the Chicano movement, el Plan Espiritual explicitly laid out a call for Chicano empowerment:

"In the spirit of a new people that is conscious not only of its proud historical heritage but also of the brutal 'gringo' invasion of our territories, we [emphasis in the original], the Chicano inhabitants and civilizers of the northern land of Aztlán from whence came our forefathers, reclaiming the land of their birth and consecrating the determination of our people of the sun, declare [emphasis in the original] that the call of our blood is our power, our responsibility, and our inevitable destiny."