MEChistAs, Bring the National Cesar E. Chavez Blood Drive Challenge to your campus! Become a student organizer and lead a donor recruitment celebrating Cesar E. Chavez's legacy of leadership and community service on your campus. Already over 120 universities are participating in this annual event. Will your campus participate? It's up to you!

The event is organized nationally by: MigrantStudents.org. They are working in collaboration with the American Red Cross and America's Blood Centers. Your local blood center needs to identify student organizers ASAP in order to be able to schedule the blood drive on the schedule. So, please download your application and submit ASAP. The actual blood drive will take place during March 2010, most likely on March 31st, Cesar E. Chavez's Birthday.

First and foremost, Happy New Year to all! As we enter 2010, an old struggle continues. Immigration reform and the DREAM Act are part of current legislation in congress and we must fight the good fight.

As the economy crumbles, the cost of higher education continues to increase becoming less and less attainable for many. Nuestra gente are looked as a scapegoat for many of the country's ills, and we must fight to end it. Let us reinvigorate the movement with our energy in 2010!

The website is still undergoing construction, but we hope to make it a focal point of our large network of MEChA chapters bringing us all on step closer together as we unite and fight these injustices. So, keep checking back for new improvements.

Between now and the end of the year, the national website will be receiving some updates as we try to make it a greater component of the national network of MEChA chapters. This will be coupled with enhancements from Twitter and Facebook pages that we hope will work in conjunction to increase the interaction amongst MEChistAs throughout Aztlán. Please don't mind the sporadic changes as we go through this process.

An excerpt about today's action at the National Conference: Today, 600 students are rallying for immigrant rights and comprehensive immigration reform at the Eugene Office of Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio.

The event was organized by the students of MEChA from the University of Oregon chapter and chapters from across the Nation, as well as CAUSA, Oregon's immigrant rights coalition, with the help and support of various UO Departments, PCUN, and Eugene community organizations.

The 2009 National MEChA Conference will be hosted by MEChA de University of Oregon, of the Aztlán del Noroeste region, at University of Oregon in Eugene, OR. More information will be posted in the national conference section, keep checking back for updates.

Attached to the end of this message is a copy of a press release for an event that took place today here in Sacramento. Today the Sacramento City Council adopted a resolution and formed a committee to further seek communications with Blue Diamond's CEO. This is another step towards the victory, as we gain more allies in support of the workers' struggle to unionize.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008 at 7:30am
Woodland Courthouse (Department 9)

DQ Univerisity is California's ONLY tribal college. There has been an on-going struggle between DQU students and the DQU Board of Trustees since 2005 when the school lost its accreditation. Incompetence and negligence on the part of the former school administration cost the college its accreditation in January of 2005. Following that, a group of DQU students, with community support, vowed to stay on campus and take charge of their own education, turning the campus into a healthy, self-sustainable, and self-determined living environment!

On February 20th, 3 students from DQ University were arrested under the false pretenses of trespassing, unjustly by the Board of Trustees. Earlier this week, another 18 were arrested with the same charges!!!

The students need your support!!! We ask for your presence on this date to show the board and the courts that the community is behind us and WE WANT OUR SCHOOL BACK!! NO MORE UNJUST ARRESTS!!!

For more information contact Christal West (MEChA de UC Davis) at: christal@nationalmecha.org

As it was agreed at the resolution circle at the last National Conference, we stand in solidarity with the students of DQ University. It is now time to take further action, as a series of events unfolded early this morning.

On Sunday night there was news that the Board of Trustees had hired a locksmith to come and change the locks on campus, and that the Sheriff's department would be there to make sure the students were taken out to insure the locks were changed.

The video above is from the National MEChA action in support of Blue Diamond workers in Sacramento, CA on Friday, March 21, 2008. During the Sunday resolution circle MEChA passed a resolution calling on Blue Diamond Growers to meet the demands of the demands of the workers. We will continue to follow their struggle and support workers rights.