Ever since I have been in the Chicano Caucus everyone has talked about the issues and talked about doing something, but nobody wants to do anything. Opportunities pass and everyone blames it on his or her schedule--I am too busy or I have something else to do.

I hear "if it wasn't for Columbus we wouldn't be here" and shit like "oh, get over it" referring to colonization. I challenge each of you to educate yourself, release your mind from a white lie that tells you that rape, theft, murder and pillage is okay and you should be glad that you get status as a half-breed. Get out of your mestizo complex, because you rely on selling yourselves as "Hispanic" and "Spanish" forgetting that your peers, your people, your communities suffer still from colonization, that is incarceration, deportation, starvation, violence, and worst of all, misrepresentation by misguided "peers" who believe that assimilation will free us from these evils. By not supporting your peers, you create an elitism and isolate yourselves and stand around wondering why nobody showed up to your events. Other clubs see the Caucus as a joke, everyone knows that we never support other organizations and events on campus, in essence we are selfish and unwilling to help, worrying too much about pressuring others to participate.

For those of you who have supported, the effort has always been a token representation, but has it been a whole-hearted investment? What are your true motives? Is it consistent with building up your community or building up your resume?

Do you know your purpose? Do you understand your Chicanismo? Do others in your membership discuss or know about these issues? Have we as a club made an effort to educate others? There is no organization in this club, there is a fear of thinking big, a pessimism that nothing will result from action. Are you afraid to be seen as different? Shouldn't you be concerned that you as Chicanos are not reflected in what this university teaches as "American"?

You have no vision, no fire, nothing to point you in a direction of action to enable others to reach for greater things and pursue dreams. The caucus follows the fool with the loudest voice, never understanding what is really going on. Only one or two people organize and work and even when they pull it off, no one supports that hard work.

You think freeing yourselves from poverty and oppression is getting a job at Goldman Sachs. Making the ends meet is a part of everyone's struggle to survive, but by bending over, and kissing ass, you sell yourself short.

Your parents worked hard to let you have the things you needed to succeed, respect their hard work: TO WHOM MUCH IS GIVEN, MUCH IS REQUIRED. How are you going to use this privilege, the fact that you are at this University to help others? How are you gonna make the ends your parents busted their ass for go further than just a job?

Leading Chicanos at this university is a contradiction in terms when it comes to the Caucus, moreover, its 'vision' was summed up not too long ago as "One should be able to drink beer at a cantina and share a glass of wine with the king." With that said, I am resigning as Political Chair of the Caucus. I do not believe the caucus even has the foundations to become political and to take action. Your idea of being political is Corona "si", Budweiser "no." I challenge the Caucus as a whole, to sit down and discuss a vision that everyone has.