A MEChista's pain

Cindy Mosqueda at Loteria Chicana is tired of hearing race-baiters on the right demonize a group that she doesn't recognize. Her blog-rant was triggered by a YouTube video that she says got it all wrong:

I’ve been connected and deeply involved with MEChA for 8 years. Never in that time did I or my peers try to incite an armed revolution in a reconquista of Aztlan. We didn’t consider ourselves to be superior to other races or ethnicities. Instead, we worked with students of many different ethnicities on common concerns. MEChA is completely misrepresented on right-wing blogs, talk radio, television, and even Flickr. I’ve realized that MEChA haters (critics are different, they have some logic involved usually) are ultimately scared of a bunch of college and high school students. We’re nerds. We got our heads in the books. In 35 years of existence we haven’t started a war for Aztlan. We just want to help our families and communities by becoming entrepeneurs, politicians, attorneys, professors, teachers, social workers, community organizers, etc.

I know in my heart that MEChA is good, but the hateful and false words still get to me.

I knew the anti-MECHistas lacked any sense of reality — or a sense of humor — when they called Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante a dangerous revolutionary.