Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles who was featured on the June 2009 cover of Los Angeles Magazine with the one-word caption, “Failure,” is the chairman of the upcoming Democratic National Convention. The obvious reason is that the Obama administration, which views ethnic communities as separate fiefdoms to cultivate, is targeting the Latino community. And in the separatist prism through which they view the country, it’s only natural that they should pick Villaraigosa, whose entire career started with an extremist Latino group.
Villaraigosa, whose original name was Tony Villar, entered UCLA as a transfer student from East Los Angeles Community College in 1972. He joined the UCLA chapter of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA), and was leading it by 1974. MEChA is an Hispanic separatist organization that encourages anti-American activities and civil disobedience. The radical members of MEChA who refer to themselves as "Mechistas,"romanticize Mexican claims to the "lost Territories" of the Southwestern United States -- a Chicano country called Aztlan. As head of the UCLA chapter, Villar called on the Chicano Studies Center (CSC) Director Rudolfo ‘Rudy’ Alvarez to resign from his post, accusing him of “trying to alter the concept behind Chicano studies.”
The UCLA Bruin, the campus newspaper, reported on July 25, 1974: “Chicano students are considering filing a class action suit against Rodolfo Alvarez, Chicano Studies Center (CSC) director … ‘Where at one time the Steering Committee composed of students, faculty, and community people was the policy making body of the Center, now Rudy is its sole dictator,’ said Tony Villar.”
The Bruin continued: “Both Villar and Garcia attacked the Alvarez-directed CSC for working only with government-sponsored drug programs ‘instead of community organizations like the National Committee to Free Los Tres.’” The “National Committee to Free Los Tres,” was created by former MEChistas to defend three members of the militant Chicano organization Casa Carnalismo who were convicted of assaulting a federal narcotics officer posing as a drug dealer in East Los Angeles. By 1974, a Marxist-Leninist faction emerged within the NCFLT that intended to transform its parent group Casa Carnalismo into a "revolutionary vanguard" dedicated to the "liberation of the Mexican people.” Professor Alvarez wound up resigning.
