Latino Students at UCLA Protest Fraternity Party
About 50 Chicano students demonstrated in front of a UCLA fraternity that had staged a “tequila sunrise” party Friday morning that the protesters said was racist.
Francisco Arellano, a spokesman for MEChA, a Chicano students’ group at UCLA, said the party was not only derogatory--party-goers were seen wearing sombreros and serapes in a mocking manner as they drank shots of tequila--but it also was in violation of a campus policy prohibiting parties with themes based on race, ethnicity, culture or gender.
The policy, Arellano said, was instituted last year after a UCLA fraternity held a “Viva Zapata” party that the Chicano students said was insulting to the Latino culture.
UCLA administrators said they were looking into the Friday party. Members of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, which held the party, could not be reached for comment. The party was held in the fraternity house on Gayley Avenue next to the campus.
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