MeChA de Vassar plans ECCSF conference

Ilyse Kramer Staff Writer

Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano/a de Aztlán (MEChA), the official voice of Vassar’s Chicano/a community will host the East Coast Chicano Student Forum (ECCSF) with neighboring colleges including Harvard and Yale. The conference is entitled Revitalizing the Latino/a Student Movement: Strategies for Community Action and Development.

The ECCSF will take place on Oct. 7 through Oct. 8. Vassar will host the conference for the first time this year.

The ECCSF will be made up of three different workshops. Field Work Director Peter Leonard will lead a panel discussion with representatives from different organizations such as Ahora, SEIU, and the Health Care Center.

Also, Assistant Professor of Sociology Leonard Nevarez will give a lecture on Community development. His lecture will examine the role of students in community partnership.
Poder Latino will then lead interactive workshops. In these workshops, students will be divided into groups where they will discuss their own roles in problems afflicting their respective communities.

Afterwards, Eastern New York Field Organizer for CITA Farm workers Carlos Orellana will give the keynote address during dinner.

The ECCSF began in the late 1970s when a group of Mexican-American Yale students who could not return to their homes for Thanksgiving, united and formed conferences that are held four times during the academic year.

MEChA’s primary contact Isella Ramirez 2007 spoke about her goals for the conference. “The ECCSF is an opportunity for Vassar College. It provides an opening for Vassar students to address issues of community relations and development that students usually ignore.”
Following the ECCSF, MEChA plans to continue to strengthen their involvement in the Vassar and Poughkeepsie community.

Last year MEChA’s activities included leading three workshops for Poughkeepsie Middle Schoolers enrolled in English as a Second Language programs.
MeCHa also worked with local radio station Onda Latina. Onda Latina is the only local radio station that offers broadcasts in Spanish.

Ramirez explained the importance of Onda Latina for the Spanish speaking community. “The language barrier prevents awareness of resources. The radio station helps by giving people an identity where they can find news, music, and gain access to information about school snow days.”

Ramirez outlined MEChA’s general aims for the semester, beyond the upcoming conference. They plan to work with other student organizations on future events, and to attract new members.

“This year, we have plans to work with Poder Latino,” said Ramirez. “We are also looking to recruit freshmen. In MEChA, we raise awareness of political and social issues for the Latino community here at Vassar and for the nation.”