Tuesday, April 21, 1998
MEChA pulls support for coalition
USAC: Advocacy groups’ dispute caused Students First! break,
says Mosley
By Mason Stockstill
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana y Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA)
has officially withdrawn its support for Students First!, the
political slate that has controlled USAC for the past three
years.
USAC President Kandea Mosley, however, said that Students First!
has ceased to operate as a coalition ever since USAC voted to
increase the stipends of council members.
In July, a proposal was brought to USAC by then-Finance
Committee Chair Robert Rhoan to increase the stipends of USAC
officials. According to Mosley, this issue caused much turmoil
among council members.
"We were no longer united as a coalition and as a slate" after
the stipend issue, Mosley said.
The council voted for the stipend increase, and after that,
Mosley said, there was a visible change on the coalition.
The split became so pronounced that in October, the Asian
Pacific Coalition (APC), one of the four student groups within the
Students First! pulled its support from the slate.
"APC pulled out because there was a clear break in the coalition
over the stipend issue," said Stephanie Wang, external director of
APC.
Hugo Maldonado, MEChA chair, said that MEChA had been
dissatisfied with USAC’s performance all year long.
Maldonado said Monday that MEChA pulled itself out of the slate
because of a perceived failure on the part of council members to
address the issues relevant to the Chicana/o and Latina/o
communities, as well as the general campus at large.
"The USAC council members have tokenized the issues of the
Chicano/Latino community," Maldonado said. "(Students First!) paid
lip service to (those issues), but have done nothing concrete to
address our constituency’s needs."
Because Students First! had essentially dissolved earlier in the
year, its original members tried to rebuild a coalition of some of
the same groups, according to African Student Union chairman Chad
Williams.
The four Student Advocacy Groups (SAGs) that had originally made
up Students First! – MEChA, ASU, APC and Samahang Pilipino – met
Saturday to discuss election issues.
According to Williams, ASU, APC and Samahang approached MEChA
about expanding the coalition to include more student groups.
"MEChA was unhappy with our more inclusive structure," Williams
said.
Williams said that MEChA threatened the other groups with a
"negative campaign" over the differences.
Mark Ng, chair of Samahang Pilipino, agreed, saying that after
MEChA was presented with the new idea, "it got pretty ugly."
However, Maldonado denies these charges, calling them
"ridiculous."
"(The coalition’s members) are scrambling around, trying to hold
their legitimacy even though we decided to withdraw support," he
said.
Maldonado went on to explain that MEChA’s chief concerns were
not with any particular council members, but with the actions of
the council as a whole.
"At this point, I don’t think any changes can be made. What’s
missing is not superficial or cosmetic," he said.
"It’s a deep, almost ideological concept of student government,
which is to use the offices to help constituencies that have not
had historical power," he continued.
Members of the other SAGs involved in the coalition believe that
MEChA’s actions were more political than ideological.
"We believe that MEChA’s purpose for coming out with the press
release at this time is politically motivated," Wang said.
Others charged that it was the more inclusive structure of the
coalition that caused MEChA’s departure.
Maldonado, however, disputes these claims as well.
"We decided as an organization that we weren’t going to
participate in elections at all," he said.
He also said that MEChA’s decision to pull out of the coalition
was not influenced by their exclusion from the coalition.
"This was initiated by our organization," Maldonado said.
"USAC might be saying that it’s a reaction, but it isn’t."
With reports from Dennis Lim, Barbara Ortutay, J. Jioni Palmer
and Stefanie Wong, Daily Bruin Senior Staff.