EAST LOS ANGELES : Fund-Raiser for UCLA Students Fails

A recent fund-raiser dinner to assist seven students involved in last year’s demonstrations for a Chicano studies department at UCLA failed to raise money, an organizer said, but it did succeed in acknowledging their efforts.

Although the dinner at Tamayo’s Restaurant was sold out and 250 people attended, the costs were greater than anticipated, said Elo Castillo, an administrative assistant with the UCLA Chicano studies program who organized the March 25 event. There were problems in mailing the invitations out on time, Castillo said, and tickets originally priced at $100 were reduced to $35. “We’re just amateur fund-raisers.”

The proceeds were to have helped the seven students being held responsible for $27,000 in damage to the Faculty Center in their effort to reimburse the school. “This is very demoralizing for them,” Castillo said.

The damage--a broken window, damaged furniture, defaced artwork and vandalism--occurred in a May 11 demonstration for the establishment of a Chicano studies department with its own budget to hire faculty and direct its programming.

After Chancellor Charles E. Young denied the students’ request--on the eve of Cesar Chavez’s funeral--they went on a hunger strike. That ended 14 days later when the university agreed to establish the Cesar Chavez Center for Chicano Studies.

The center operates as an inter-departmental program, borrowing faculty from other departments, while it is in the process of recruiting its own faculty.

Meanwhile, the seven students have raised $7,000 through fund-raisers. A dance in October at a South-Central hall ended in the shooting of two students who have since recovered. No arrests have been made in that attack.

The university has agreed to allow the students to earn money to pay off their debt at Edutrain, a Downtown nonprofit education program that enrolls high school dropouts. The university students tutor or supervise activities, reducing their debt $10 for each hour.

Student Michael Brewer, 21, works six to eight hours a week at Edutrain, holds a part-time job as a teacher’s assistant at an elementary school and is a full-time student in the Afro-American studies program. He fears that the remainder of the debt will still be outstanding by a May 11 deadline, which, if not met, could result in the city attorney’s office filing various charges against the seven. Brewer, who faces felony vandalism charges, maintains his innocence.

“You try to combat discrimination and this is what happens,” Brewer said.

Joaquin Ochoa, 21, who went on the hunger strike but does not face any charges, said the past year has been discouraging for those who fought to establish the center.

“It’s kind of a shame that the community and people have put so much into it and the students that wanted social justice are facing prosecution,” Ochoa said.