Racist gubernatorial candidate.

California Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante is the front-running Democratic candidate to replace incumbent Gray Davis should Davis be recalled. What should concern Californians is that he was a member of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA) as a student at Fresno State University. MEChA is a radical, violent exponent of "La Reconquista"--the "re-conquest" of the southwestern United States (which it calls Aztlan) by people of Mexican descent. The group's constitution explains that "general membership shall consist of any student who accepts, believes and works for the goals and objectives of MEChA, including the liberation of Aztlan, meaning self-determination of our people in this occupied state and the physical liberation of our land."

Were MEChA's goal to be realized, Aztlan would become the exclusive domain of what it calls "La Raza"--"the race," meaning those of Mexican descent. Miguel Perez of Cal State-Northridge's MEChA chapter has explained: "The ultimate ideology is the liberation of Aztlan. Communism would be closest [to it]." Once Aztlan is established, continued Perez, ethnic cleansing would commence: "Non-Chicanos would have to be expelled ... opposition groups would be quashed because you have to keep power."

Noting that Bustamante "is being increasingly pressured to repudiate ... MEChA," Ernesto Cienfuegos of La Voz de Aztlan observed: "Bustamante owes his political success largely to the training he received as a Mechista and is unlikely to turn his back on his comrades that gave him his start.... MEChA has been very successful and now has many alumni in elected posts at the highest levels of government throughout Aztlan.... There are now numerous former Mechistas who are elected government representatives at the federal, state, county and local level.... No, we do not think that Bustamante will repudiate MEChA."