Jones fails to see value of La Familia

Enciso is a fifth-year political science student and member of
La Familia. He also served as last year’s USAC internal vice
president.

By Elias Enciso

I am writing in response to Andrew Jones’ homophobic
Viewpoint column (“USAC
squanders our student fees,” Daily Bruin, Feb. 25). Jones
suggests that La Familia’s participation in the National Gay
and Lesbian Task Force’s “Creating Change
Conference” was not worth the subsidy granted by the
Undergraduate Students Association Council.

However, Jones fails to consider several facts in his
evaluation, which, in turn, leads to his biased conclusions. This
is a cheap political trick in which Jones fraudulently presents
selected facts to spew homophobic rhetoric.

As former internal vice president of USAC, I can clarify that
USAC funds student programs based on criteria that must be met by
every student organization requesting funds. The criteria for
granting programmatic funds maintains that the program must be
educational in nature, and that USAC may not discriminate based on
a program’s political, religious, or cultural stance.

As such, USAC funds a plethora of student organizations, which
have produced some of the most educational, unique, and noble
programs and projects of any American university.

For example, La Familia hosts the only annual LGBT Latino/a
youth conference in the U.S. The Queer Latino/a Youth Conference is
an event geared toward the social and political development of LGBT
youth. Also noteworthy, La Familia has been honored with the
National Llego Award for producing such an event.

NGLTF’s “Creating Change Conferences” have
played an instrumental role in the success of La Familia as an
active student organization and community. Our participation in the
NGLTF’s conferences has allowed us to further educate
ourselves on important community issues, has encouraged leadership
development, and has promoted critical thinking. Furthermore,
“Creating Change” serves as the incubator for fresh
ideas, the catalyst for new projects, and the stepping off point
for countless initiatives and campaigns. But more importantly,
“Creating Change” has been an event that has helped
build a national LGBT community.

Some of the workshop titles he conveniently left out include
“Hate Crimes Legislation: Panacea or Community
Controversy,” “Building Bridges Between Activists and
Scholars Under the New Bush Administration,” “Fighting
for our Families,” “Report Back From the United
Nation’s World Conference Against Racism and Related Forms of
Intolerance,” “The Grass Roots of Cancer
Projects,” and “Advocacy and Leadership Skills for LGBT
Communities of Color.”

Jones has never attended any educational event produced by La
Familia, nor has he attended any of the NGLTF’s conferences.
His close-minded mentality seems to be the only basis for his
continuing attack on programming by LGBT students and students of
color.

To my knowledge, Jones has only attended one student program, in
which he, along with myself, was invited to debate the issue of
Affirmative Action. From my experience with him in this debate,
Jones shows no respect, nor appreciation, for student
programming.

Jones might seek to better understand those who are different
than he by taking advantage of the diverse cultural/educational
programming he refers to as “ridiculous” and
“victimologist drivel.” I believe it is blasphemous
that someone as narrow-minded and ignorant as Andrew Jones can
claim to be a UCLA student. I sincerely hope he will learn to look
past his homophobic and racist views made evident in his treatment
of the La Familia conference, especially if he wishes to live as a
productive citizen of this country.