At the 2012 national conference of M.E.Ch.A., held at Arizona State University last March, M.E.Ch.A. delegates, comprising the largest association of Latino youth groups in the US, made a landmark decision. The delegates voted to endorse the Palestinian-led global movement of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) on Israel until that state complies with codes of international law and justice for Palestinians .
[Note to our readers: IFNM has posted this article for information purposes only. In no way should it be construed that we support these radical anti-American groups and their philosophies.]
Student activists are encouraging others to learn the truth of colonialism and genocide from the Americas to Palestine.
A Mexican-led student action at the largest US public university this week, partly invoking Palestinian solidarity, demonstrated the need to extend history beyond borders to create a better future.
Equipped with face paint and using their bodies as props, members of the local chapter of M.E.Ch.A. (Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlán) creatively subverted Monday’s Columbus Day anniversary to mark it from the standpoint of Christopher Columbus’s victims.
In the torrid 90-degree midday heat, a group of about ten M.E.Ch.A. students lay down in the middle of the 70,000-student Arizona State University. Wearing red shirts and skulls painted on their faces, students used the tradition of macabre and theater of the oppressed to dramatize the memory of millions of Native Americans murdered by European settlers and slave-traders who invaded the “New World,” beginning with Columbus in 1492.
At the same time the MEChistas acted out the moribund scene, an equal number of Students for Justice in Palestine members passed out fact-sheets about Columbus’ murderous exploits and collected dozens of student signatures for a petition to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day on the university’s calendars.
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