Around 300 high school students marched through University of Oregon campus as part of the annual Raza Unida Youth Conference. They chanted phrases like, “El pueblo, unido, jamás será vencido,” (the town united will never be divided) and “Migration is beautiful.”
The conference is an all-day event organized by MEChA in which Latinx high school students from Lane County and all over the state come to the UO campus to attend workshops on topics ranging from knowing your rights to latin dance. There is also a political action portion and a cultural portion, according to Amy Garay-Azucena, Media and Communications Director for MEChA.
MEChA is a student organization focused on education rights of Latinx students. Around 300 MEChA chapters exist nationwide, according to UO MEChA’s website. Latinx is a gender neutral way to refer to people of Latin American descent.
This year’s Raza Unida Youth Conference theme is “Mi Exsistencia es Resistencia,” (My existence is resistance). The conference aims to empower Latinx youth by providing education and resources that could help them get into college.
“I hope the high school students see folks that look like them succeeding” said Manuel Mejia Gonzales, a coordinator of the conference.
The students gathered to listen to speeches in the EMU amphitheater after marching to the Memorial Quad to place red flags in the lawn. The flags represented the 30,000 families separated by mass deportations last year.
In President Trump’s speech announcing his presidential bid, he regarded Mexican immigrants saying, “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
“Majority of mi gente [my people] who come from Mexico are not rapists criminals nor drug dealers. They came to this country for a better life, to escape the violence and for education,” said Alex Aguilar, 17-year-old Youth Organizer and Media coordinator for MECha. “You are not alone. Look around. We are here together. This is where we start. Remember we are seeds who will rise into a flower, just how a phoenix rises from its ashes.”
**A previous version of this story said the flags represented the 300,000 people deported this year. The story has been updated.
