Mecha de Yale

Dear Mecha and Yale Latine Alumni and friends,

This week, Yale Soar, an alumni donation site, is accepting donations on behalf of Mecha de Yale! Your donation will go directly to the Sueños scholarship and Conexiones Program, two programs that work to empower our communities.

Please consider donating to continue making an impact in the CT community despite being miles away. If you are not able to donate, please consider sending it to your Yale alumni networks as we would love to connect with them as well!

Continue to spark the fire with us by donating and sharing.

This is the link: https://givetoday.yale.edu/mecha-de-yale-spark-the-f-i-r-e-fundraising-for-immigrant-resources-in-education

Additionally, we are looking to expand our outreach to Mecha alumni. Please fill out this form and send it to any other alumni you might know to continue staying in touch with us:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeVPt81mnnLE3eQM0zkV8z1Bjm_L_CLFwjDvoj0x78wXWYH4w/viewform?usp=pp_url

Continue to Spark the Fire with us,
Mecha de Yale

🚨SCHOLARSHIP ALERT🚨
MEChA de Yale is SO excited to announce that the Sueños Scholarship is officially OPEN! 💥 This scholarship aims to support high school seniors/students in community college that are undocumented and have limited resources when applying to scholarships. We will have THREE WINNERS! 🥳 :) We can’t wait to hear from you 🫂

Link to the scholarship:
https://campuspress.yale.edu/mecha/suenos/

Spark the Fire,
MEChA ❤️‍🔥

Here are some MEChA events coming up! In the following weeks, feel welcome to come to any and all of these amazing events to get to know some of our members and ask questions! We hope to see you there!

In Solidarity with the Yale Asian American Students Alliance, and Recent Tragic News

Content Warning: death, racially-motivated violence, su***de

To the MEChA community:

We want to start off this message by emphasizing the importance of each individual recent tragedy, and recognizing the space that each one deserves. In light of everything, we also didn’t want to overwhelm you with multiple posts, so we have combined information here.

MEChA stands in solidarity with the Yale Asian American Students Alliance and their public statement in regards to the anti-Asian attacks in Atlanta on Tuesday, March 16th. We urge our community members to listen to the Asian American community and center their voices at this moment. Here's the link to AASA’s statement, which we encourage you to read in full:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E9b0Q814WEO0O6HCEFacYhKutYT1oNbqNtXiWYPAlxQ/edit?usp=sharing

The last two pages of the document consist of a list of resources focused on organizations and GoFundMes supporting and led by s*x workers and those impacted by racialized and misogynistic violence. We ask that you materially support these organizations if you have the resources to do so. Otherwise, please remember that sharing the AASA statement + resource guide, centering Asian American voices on social media, and continuously educating ourselves on the issue of anti-Asian racism are also valuable avenues through which we can act in solidarity.

Various student organizations will co-host a Community Vigil at 8pm EST on March 23rd. It will be accessible at bit.ly/yalevigil. If you would like a reminder email about the vigil, please use this form: https://forms.gle/toyc3JytaY9Ppqwt8. You can also RSVP for the event on Facebook, linked here: https://www.facebook.com/events/286105522951185

MEChA also stands in solidarity with students grieving the death of Rachael Shaw-Rosenbaum, YC ’24. We know that the culmination of recent events, including the tragic mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado that took place just this Monday afternoon, makes this an incredibly difficult time for many.

There will be a vigil held for Rachael tonight at 7:00pm EST, hosted by Head of Branford College Enrique De La Cruz. All are welcome to attend using the following link, https://yale.zoom.us/j/94273833564 and this password, which must be entered manually: 409486. Among the other resources included at the end of this message, you can find a template from Yale Dems for rescheduling deadlines in light of recent events.

MEChA is here for anyone who may ever want or need to talk; we will be holding an Open Space for Healing on Zoom tonight, between 9:30 and 11:30pm EST, and we invite you to drop in at any point, for however long you may need. As always, the E-Board’s contact information is included at the end of this message.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84149214670?pwd=Qk5tTzM5TnVkdVdmM0JtcVltd1NHdz09

Meeting ID: 841 4921 4670
Passcode: mecha

We want to close out this message by reminding you to please take care of yourself and your well-being. Here are a few services you can access at any time (credit to the Community Vigil page):

Yale Mental Health & Counseling (business hours: 203-432-0290; after hours: 203-432-0123) and the Yale Chaplain's Office (203-432-1128 or chaplain.yale.edu) are available to support you. The anonymous Walden Peer Counseling hotline can be reached at 203-432-8255, and texting “HOME” to 741741 can put you in touch with the Crisis Text Line. If you are seeking grief counseling, you can call MH&C and ask for grief counseling, and a clinician will reach out to you the same day.

We love and appreciate every single one of you so much.

Love and Solidarity,
The MEChA E-Board

AASA Statement on March 16 Atlanta Attack Statement and compilation of resources regarding Atlanta spa shootings from the Asian American Students Alliance at Yale Content warning: racial violence, Asian death, and s*xual violence We, the executive board of the Asian American Students Alliance at Yale (AASA), condemn the racist, ant...

Good Morning, if you have recently started following us and are interested in keeping up with our weekly programming and join our membership, please direct message us so we can add you to our Group Me!

To the Class of 2024: Welcome and Congrats on finishing your first week of college!!

We, the members of Asian American Students Alliance (AASA), Association of Native Americans at Yale (ANAAY), and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA), support the efforts of the Black Student Alliance at Yale, Yale Black Men’s Union, Yale Black Women Coalition, BlackOut, the Yale College Council, and the cause for justice in Minneapolis, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Louisville, New York City, and Washington, D.C.

In the words of YCC President Kahlil Green, “our collective influence exceeds that of any single one of us.” That is why, we, the members of AASA, ANAAY, and MEChA, stand with Yale Together, a cause dedicated to pooling together the resources of various student organizations to directly aid the Black community and Navajo Nation.

In addition, we urge our community members to support the health and legal fees associated with protesters and Black organizers here. And we encourage our community to unlearn racism and develop their allyship through anti-racism readings and materials here.

We can no longer be “shocked,” in the words of President Peter Salovey, when a Black person is harmed and killed at the hands of police. Just last year Yale Police Department officer Terrance Po***ck shot two unarmed, Black locals: Paul Witherspoon and Stephanie Washington. Police brutality targeting Black people is nothing new.

President Peter Salovey urges the Yale community to respond with “nothing less than action.” We agree. That is why we demand Yale defund and disarm the Yale Police Department. Yale Police harm and incarcerate Black locals at alarming rates--valuing Yale’s wealth and property over human life. Yale was built on looted Black labor. Yale’s archives are composed of looted gravesites and human remains. Yale’s $28 billion endowment goes untaxed, effectively looting resources from surrounding New Haven communities. We demand Yale University to donate to “Yale Together,” and we demand President Peter Salovey and Dean Marvin Chun to do more to effectively point the Yale community to fundraisers and anti-racism actionables.

In Solidarity,

Asian American Students Alliance (AASA)
Association of Native Americans at Yale (ANAAY)
Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA)

MEChA, ANAAY, AASA Joint Statement We, the members of Asian American Students Alliance (AASA), Association of Native Americans at Yale (ANAAY), and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA), support the efforts of the Black Student Alliance at Yale, Yale Black Men’s Union, Yale Black Women Coalition, BlackOut, the Yale Coll...

Black Lives Matter. Black Trans Lives Matter.

MEChA stands in solidarity with all the courageous protestors in the streets fighting for justice yesterday, today, and always. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and innumerable others have been lost to police brutality since this country’s founding. In 2019 alone, 1,099 people have been killed at the hands of those who were meant to ‘protect them’. The carceral and police systems are not in need of reform because they are working as they were intended to: protect the property of the white ruling class and oppress anybody that falls beyond the rigid walls of whiteness. As a result, police killings have become the leading cause of deaths among young men, and in communities of color where police contact is a constant, police violence has also become a vector for health inequality. This is why prisons and police must be abolished, and non-reformist reforms are imperative to achieving this end goal. This link offers in-depth readings about abolition work. We urge our community to push themselves out of their comfort zones, with radical ideas of Black liberation, sit in it, and envision what will effectively end the public health crisis of police brutality against Black communities.

We will never be free until all Black folks are free from the oppressive chains that Latin America’s colonizers locked around African slaves’ wrists 400 years ago. In order for this to ever happen, racism must be uprooted in every corner of our society. For Latinxs this means, at a bare minimum, we must reflect on our own anti-blackness and aim beyond “not seeing color” to acknowledging someone’s skin color as fundamental to their oppression. It is imperative to tackle our ingrained anti-blackness by uplifting Afro-Latinx voices and educating ourselves on how Black folks are inextricable from Latin America’s history and present. Educating ourselves by reading books and articles written by Afro-Latinxs authors is a start. MEChA is currently working on compiling our first Afro-Latinx author reading list, and we invite our community to engage with us and aid in these efforts. In the meantime, check out this list of resources for non-Black Latinxs (thank you to Carolina for providing this resource). Black slaves were essential for Latin America’s liberation, and our history texts often exclude these narratives. This link demonstrates the story of Gaspar Yanga, a West African prince that led his fellow slaves to the first free African settlement in the Americas in Mexico. As an organization whose roots claim Mexican mestizaje, MEChA will dedicate itself to educating its members on our anti-blackness and continuous erasure Indigenous and Black identities. This also applies to all who identify with “Latinx”. If you are a non-black Latinx, you benefit from anti-blackness. Recognizing this for yourself is crucial, but even more significant is addressing anti-blackness in our families and communities. These conversations are difficult, so here are some ways to talk about racism in Spanish with your families and close friends.

Lastly, it has been over a year since Stephanie Washington and Paul Witherspoon were shot by the Yale Police Department’s officers. The demands of Black Yale student organizations and Black New Haven organizations for disarming and defunding the police were never met by Yale’s administration. MEChA stands in solidarity with the messages from Black student organizations such as BMU, BSAY, BSDY, and all others calling for racial justice against the inequalities perpetuated by Yale University in New Haven, nationally, and globally.

Now more than ever is a time to inform ourselves on the injustices that Black communities face daily and to engage deeply in the work of dismantling the very systems that make these injustices a reality. Join us in taking action by contributing to MEChA’s Venmo ()that will be donated to mutual aid and/or bail funds in cities across the United States. We urge you to attend BLM protests (if you want information on how to safely attend the protests contact us!) or aid in whichever way the movement requires you to. Most of all, we ask that we all stay vigilant, compassionate, and unwavering as the fight goes on.

En poder y salud,
MEChA de Yale

Solidarity Statement A message from MEChA: Black Lives Matter. Black Trans Lives Matter. MEChA stands in solidarity with all the courageous protestors in the streets fighting for justice yesterday, today, and always. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and innumerable others have been los...

Since we can't be on campus to welcome new and old faces, here's a little snapshot of what MEChA has been up to (and will continue to do) throughout the years!