Letters to the editor

MEChA must disavow founding document As a Bruin
Republican member and former journalist, I was shocked to read
Menaka Fernando’s biased news article, “Campus dispute
results in arrest” (Feb. 5). As the title would seem to
indicate, the article summarizes the alleged physical assault on
the chairman of the Bruin Republicans during our campaign against
MEChA’s “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán.”
However, by adding that “The UCLA chapter of MEChA actually
subscribes to “˜El Plan de Santa Barbara,’ a charter
that does not include the segments under criticism,” Fernando
digresses from the issue into an editorial that undermines the
validity of the BR campaign. While acknowledging that many MEChA
members are not racist and only have the best of intentions for
their target community, the Bruin Republicans firmly believe that
El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán has a propensity to justify
racism, nationalism and fascism, and is particularly offensive to
Americans of European descent. MEChA has evolved since its founding
in a vortex of perpetual frustration, anger and inequity, and as
many rational members have explained, El Plan Espiritual de
Aztlán is a historical document used as a reference to
MEChA’s beginnings. This is certainly valid, and we do not
want MEChA to erase its past. We feel, however, that El Plan
Espiritual de Aztlán and the ideology contained therein is
outdated and stigmatizes MEChA’s honorable outreach agenda.
Should El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán be categorically denounced
or officially deemed “historical,” I will be the first
to applaud their use of my student fees to reach out to those in
need. Unfortunately, the chairperson of MEChA has tenaciously
reaffirmed that “(they) stand by (their) philosophy and the
use of documents such as “˜El Plan Espiritual de
Aztlán’ … ,”(“Bruin Republicans have no
right to criticize MEChA,” Feb. 4), thus contradicting
Fernando’s claim and underscoring the lack of objectivity we
have come to expect from the Daily Bruin.

Nicholas Louw Third-year, mathematics economics Bruin
Republicans member

CALPIRG pledge drive critical for success After
reading “CALPIRG to begin new pledge drive” (Feb. 6),
by Narges Zohoury, I feel that major aspects of CALPIRG were not
represented. The main reason for CALPIRG’s pledge drive is
the lack of funding it gets from UCLA’s student activities
fee. This forces CALPIRG to fight for its existence every year by
raising enough money to continue working on issues like the
environment, homelessness and higher education. Funding is needed
because students need to organize to fix problems and successfully
change society. Zohoury was correct that much of CALPIRG’s
pledge money goes to hire staff, but she fails to mention how
critical that is to our success. The staff helps organize various
events and community service projects, provides the expertise that
gives us credibility, and provides the link between us and places
where change happens, by representing students in Sacramento and
Washington. For instance, students at UCLA realized they were
paying too much for college textbooks, and wanted to do something
about it. Together with Merriah Fairchild, CALPIRG’s Higher
Education advocate, students engineered a report on unfair
practices in the publishing industry, and are currently working,
through Merriah, with legislators at the state and national levels
to write legislation about this issue. Without Merriah’s
work, we as students would not have been nearly as effective in
trying to reduce textbook prices. That is what pledging is about,
and when over 30,000 University of California students come
together to pledge $5 a quarter to support such change, that sends
quite a message.

Greg Wannier Second-year, political science and ecology,
behavior, and evolution