When people look at me they see brown eyes, brown hair, and brown skin. I am a female of color, more specifically I am a Latina. What does that really mean though? Ever since I got involved with the MEChA club at EvCC, I have learned a lot about who I am and what I stand for. I have learned about my ancestors and how the student movement started.

“I am somebody and I deserve full equality,… Antonio is somebody and he deserves full equalty,” Martin Martinez-Negrete says as the rally begins. As a community, undocumented immigrants, not just Latinos have felt oppressed and isolated. I have felt that our country is taught to categorize and set people apart for their differences and forget to take into consideration all the similarities that are shared. The only thing really setting us apart is a nine digit social security number and because of this many people don’t go onto higher education and don’t seek jobs and careers that have fair pay.

MECHA stands for Movimiento Estudiantil de Chican@ de Aztlan. This translates to the Chican@ Student Movement of Aztlan. And then mechistas would be the members of MEChA. Our club on campus, as well as other chapters across the country, believes that we can take back the land that used to be Aztlan through our education and by having leaders and professionals really reflect the demographics of our country. This doesn’t mean that it will one day be called Aztlan again, it just means that our country’s diversity is growing but isn’t yet portrayed, and MEChA hopes to change that.

Martin Martinez-Negrete was an EvCC alumni, he was also once a member and Co-Chair of MEChA. When he transferred to Eastern Washington University, he joined their MEChA chapter. Now having a strong connection to both MEChA chapters, he brought both chapters together for a rally that he organized in Pasco.

The rally that Martinez-Negrete organized was in support of the family of a man who was shot 17 times by Pasco Police, according to Martinez-Negrete and various news reports. This man’s name was Antonio Zambrano-Montes and he was shot and killed on Feb. 10. And now a day after two months since the shooting, on Saturday, April 11, this rally hoped to support the community is asking for justice from the police department for Antonio Zambrano-Montes. According to one of the speakers at the rally, the three cops that shot and killed Zambrano-Montes were given paid vacation days right after the incident.

When EvCC mechistas would talk about the rally during the club meeting or even in conversations outside of the meeting, I could really see the purpose in supporting the rally in Pasco. As a club we came together because as Martinez-Negrete said, “it’s right in our back yard, how are we not going to care?” It’s great to volunteer for causes outside the country even outside the continent, but when something like this happens so close to home it would be ridiculous not to stand up for this.

As a club, we provided 100 t-shirts and a little over 30 posters. When we got to the volunteer park we organized the t-shirts and set up the posters to be displayed around the gazebo in the middle of the park; these were both also distributed as the march began after the press conference and a few speakers.

Walking in that march with my fellow mechistas, and all the community members and organizations that joined us, I felt exhilarated. I saw a man on crutches that walked with us the entire time. I saw kids that joined the protest walking and some on their bikes. There were also elderly folk walking along side of us. This really put me to think; as a club we have stood up for different causes and we talk about the passion that drives us. We are human, though, and at times we may put excuses or reasons to not volunteer for something, but when that passion is there, nothing stops you. It was empowering to see all these strong individuals join our protest and it really put into perspective how much commitment I am investing, and how committed we are as a club.

Antonio Zambrano-Montes wasn’t physically there, but in our protest we became Antonio Zambrano-Montes.