OPEN LETTER:
Attention: MEChISTA: Edmundo Garcia:

October 14, 2006

Dear Mr. Garcia,

I read your piece. You base your unsubstantiated allegations about the Minuteman Project totally on conjecture. But even if you were right, before you condemn them, you should first clean MEChA's house of racism -- that is, if you want any degree of credibility from people other than "your own."

Allow me to respectfully offer advice.

1. To argue your points on immigration, you must cease to blur the distinction between LEGAL and ILLEGAL immigration and you should not automatically assume that anyone opposed to illegal immigration is a racist or a xenaphobe. Such accusations lose ground in your argument. Immigration is a policy issue. As American citizens, we have the right to question, discuss, and criticize a policy -- that doesn't make Americans racists or xenophobes. Would you consider a married couple that plans the frequency and number of children they will have in the future, to be anti-children?

2. MEChA must stop promoting its cause with etymological word rhetoric such as "no human is illegal" -- fighting with rhetoric leads to tit-for-tat comebacks such as La Raza is racist because Raza literally translates to Race.

3. MEChA should strive to eliminate any divisive wording in its manifestos such as brutal "gringo" and foreign Europeans. And in your national constitution, eliminate any intimidating separatist phrases such as ...for the purpose of liberating Aztlan. Whether this kind of wording is symbolic or based on another era, it is nevertheless divisive. Testing_Politically_Correct_Hypocracy.

4. MEChA must loudly, publicly and unconditionally condemn publications affiliated with MEChA that print egregiously racist and or hateful articles such as this_one.

5. MEChA must loudly, publicly and unconditionally repudiate anti-Semitic websites such as this one: www.Aztlan.net.

6. MEChistas should distance themselves from the Palestinian cause which has its roots in anti-Semitism. When MEChA Compares itself to the Palestinians, it is supporting hatred such as this.

7. MEChA must stop using violence to intimidate those who hold views which MEChA disagrees with. At a Minutemen presentation I attended, MEChA was part of conspiracy to suppress free speech through intimidation. I invite you to visit this web_page

8. MEChA must stop using the term "our people," which sends the message that Mechistas do not consider themselves as Americans.

9. MEChA must stop admiring deceitful and tyranical dictators such as Fidel Castro.

10. MEChistas must stop living with the false illusion that they are being racially discriminated against because they are brown skinned while totally dismissing the idea that maybe it is MEChA's ideology that is being discriminated against.

So until MEChA reforms itself as I have suggested, MEChA will always be viewed by the American people as a bunch of racist America haters. With MEChA's upcoming 36th Annual High School Conference, this is your chance to personally lobby for reform if you want MEChA to win the hearts and minds of the American people.

I won't hold my breath.

Hal Netkin