Chicano Students Host 200

While much of the Harvard community departs Cambridge for the Thanksgiving holiday this week, Raza will welcome more than 200 Chicano college students to the campus for an annual five-day conference.

Harvard's Chicano student group is hosting this year's Pachanga conference, held over Thanksgiving break for the past 22 years at various East Coast schools.

This year's conference, featuring a weekend of speakers, panels and social events, will focus on the theme of "Documenting the Chicana/o and Latina/o Experience."

The theme originated with an idea to focus on the education of Chicano youth and narrowed to the documentation of Chicano culture and its role in education, said Lilia Fernandez '94, co-chair of Raza's Pachanga committee.

"I want people to...see the importance of having the goal of documenting our experiences and of giving ourselves voices within our own community," she said.

Raza President Richard Garcia '94 emphasized the need to capture a wide range of Latino voices. "The point is to celebrate documentation, all the experiences, all the varieties of experience that make up the Chicano experience," he said.

"What we see in society is that only one voice is heard. The conservative Latino voices get published, because that's what the mainstream wants to hear," Garcia said. "We need to create our own works of art so everyone can tell his own story."

The nine speakers at the conference will address different forms of documentation and education. Keynote speaker Antonio Burciaga, a writer and muralist, will address "The Chicano Experience of Living Within, Between and Sometimes Outside of Two Cultures."

Other speakers include Maria Herrera-Sobek, visiting professor of women's studies and folklore and mythology, and Chuey Negrete, director of the Mexican Cultural Institute in Chicago.

With the themes of documentation and education woven together, Fernandez said, Latino children can grow up with a more positive sense of their own culture.

"To learn about the United States and the Pilgrims isn't enough, when they don't even know where Plymouth Rock is," Fernandez said. "We're trying to deal with identity."

But Fernandez also said the social aspect of the conference is important.

"It's also time to come together for students who can't go home for break because it's too far and too expensive," she said. "It's time for people to meet each other and share ideas and have a good time."

The conference began the early 1970s for students to spend Thanks giving together if they couldn't travel home to the Southwest or California, said Xavier A. Gutierrez '95, vice president of Raza.

"We hope that people come and have a good time and feel as though they got together with their family, especially during Thanksgiving," Gutierrez said.

In addition to the lectures, the conference includes a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, a Mexican dinner, a talent show, three parties, a Migrant Farm Worker Committee meeting and a Gay/Lesbian meeting.

Gutierrez said the conference would also be an opportunity to learn from students who have had more success addressing concerns to administrations at other schools.

"We're going to have a lot of resources and meet people from campuses where the university and administration have been more receptive to Hispanic issues," Gutierrez said.

Elizabeth Bernal '95 said she looks forward to meeting students from other schools. "At least for me it's a chance to get to know people and learn from each other as well as from the lecturers and have a good time," Bernal said.