When I was in college, MECHA (for all of you that haven't heard of this group, it is a Chicano activist group that leans heavily to the left) was a group of Chicano students that were loosely organized and were "political" in some unknown way to me. I knew they existed but didn't know what they did or when they did it.
They knew I was obviously Hispanic but they did not bother me, ask me to join, or harass me in any way. I never attended any of their meetings, if they had any, saw them in any protest or activist activities on campus. I don't know about other MECHA groups in other colleges and what they did or stood for. I thought they were some sort of fraternity.
I have been somewhat amused about the media's reactions to this group and their labeling of MECHA as a racist organization. Their website (mecha.org) is nowhere to be found, although there are plenty of individual MECHA campus websites.
I just recently went to one of those websites and read the "founding" papers of MECHA. They talk about all "bronze people" being in communion with each other, that the "gringos" brutally invaded their land, and that they don't recognize any arbitrary national borders. They talk about organizing Chicanos, and making them aware of their "plight" and of being politically, culturally, and defensively organized against the "gabacho."
Wow! I never knew any of this stuff, and would be surprised if you found any run-of-the-mill MECHA members that knew and truly believed any of this stuff.
Chances are they joined MECHA to get together with other Chicanos to party, listen to music, and drink beer.
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