A group of students danced through the man-made walkway in Bruin Plaza, cheered on by protesters with signs that read “Brown and Proud” and “Actions speak louder than words.”
The protesters were demonstrating Thursday afternoonin response to discrimination at UCLA. The Latino student organization MEChA de UCLA planned the event, entitled “Brown is Beautiful,” after an apartment door was vandalized with racist and sexist slurs on Monday, said Andrea Salcedo, a fourth-year sociology and Chicana and Chicano studies student and chairwoman of MEChA.
The hate crime is the most stark incident to happen recently, but minorities at UCLA face discrimination on a daily basis, said Luis Roman, a fifth-year Chicana and Chicano studies and women’s studies student.
“I think this incident was the last straw that we could take as a community,” said Roman, who is on a MEChA steering committee to plan future events and action against discrimination on campus for all minorities, not just the Latino community.
Fourth-year English student Leslie Bustos, who attended the protest, pointed to an instance of the UCLA store selling a Billabong shirt that had the image of an eagle with a serpent in its mouth, which appears on the Mexican flag, with the words “still filthy” underneath the image.
The image is a revered cultural symbol to indigenous communities, and the decision to sell the shirt was one of the reasons fifth-year Chicano and Chicana studies student Emilio Hernandez said he was protesting on Thursday.
Associated Students UCLA bought a small order of the shirts in 2010 when Billabong was promoting a surf-related movie with the title “Still Filthy,” said Patrick Healey, director of general merchandise for the UCLA Store. The last shirt was sold in February during a Red Tag sale, Healey added in an email.
Healey said the association was not aware of the offensive nature of the shirts when they were purchased, and ASUCLA did not intend to insult anyone.
Student groups brought their concerns about the shirt to the association’s attention on Tuesday, Healey said.
“An attack on one community is an attack on all communities of color,” said Hernandez, who is the retention coordinator for the American Indian Student Association.
Hernandez’s role in AISA is to help keep American Indian students at UCLA, but instances that insult the foundations of a person’s culture can alienate students, he said.
Snide comments on campus, or slurs directed at students walking to their apartments, are commonplace, Roman said.
Maria Gutierrez said she didn’t know how to react when another student made derogatory comments toward her while they were attending a diversity panel during her orientation.
“I felt really angry,” said Gutierrez, now a first-year undeclared student. “I never thought that I would get that here of all places, where diversity is so talked about.”
She said she didn’t report the incident to university police or the dean of students office because she didn’t know that it was an option.
It’s important for students to report discrimination so university police can address the problem, said UCPD lieutenant Mark Littlestone.
Police keep statistics on both hate crimes and hate incidents, Littlestone said. Hate crimes are acts like vandalism or battery, in which a law is clearly broken. Detectives investigate every report of a hate crime, including the writing on the apartment door this week.
Some hate incidents, like racial or homophobic slurs, are not considered crimes because they qualify as free speech. But the dean of students office and police keep track of such incidents, because they can show areas that need preventative action, Littlestone said.
For example, if there are reports of discrimination in the dorms, police can work with staff on the Hill to create programs about acceptance or address the problems.
“If we don’t hear about it, we can’t take action to mitigate or prevent it,” Littlestone said.
MEChA wants to meet with other minority groups and is working with the undergraduate student government to come up with future actions for students to take together, like campus-wide discussions and more demonstrations. The committee will also appeal to UCLA’s administration to take proactive steps against a hostile campus climate, rather than just condemning bad behavior, Roman said.
The committee will discuss a general education diversity requirement and a multicultural center on campus that could serve as a safe space for minorities, he said.
The Undergraduate Students Association Council has also addressed the vandalism. External Vice President Joelle Gamble will present a MEChA-sponsored resolution at the council’s Tuesday meeting, and the campus climate committee in the president’s office will hold a town hall meeting next week.
Representatives from the dean of students office have reached out to the students affected, said UCLA spokesman Steve Ritea. Christine Mata, assistant dean of students for campus climate, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Students can report incidents to police, to the dean of students office or online at www.reportincidents.ucla.edu.
With reports by Kylie Reynolds, Bruin senior staff.