A Little Pleasure Before Business : ‘Folklor de las Americas’ Concert at OCC Will Benefit Scholarship Fund for Local Latinos

Music and dance will highlight Sunday’s third annual “Folklor de las Americas” concert at Orange Coast College to raise scholarship funds for local Latino students.

The 2:30 p.m. concert will feature the Xipe Totec Aztec dance group; Fiesta Folklorico, performing traditional Mexican folk dance; and Saul Reynoso, singing Mexican folk songs to live mariachi accompaniment. It is sponsored by OCC’s MEChA Club, which promotes higher education for Latinos. MEChA is the acronym for Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or Chicano Student Movement.

A small amount of money raised from past MEChA Club concerts has been given to a few OCC students transferring to California universities. Organizers hope eventually to give OCC scholarships to needy area high-school students.

Each year, two or three transferring students have received $300 apiece for relocation expenses, said Alex Guillen, an OCC academic counselor and instructor of career planning and study skills.

“We’re trying to get together scholarship funds to encourage local students to come to OCC,” he said.

This year’s concert probably won’t raise enough money for that, Guillen said, because it will be at the school’s 238-seat Fine Arts Recital Hall. It has previously been staged at the campus’s Robert B. Moore Theatre--with about four times as many seats--but that venue is closed through July for renovations.

“We wanted to continue” presenting the annual concert, Guillen said. “We didn’t want to break the rhythm.”

MEChA has chapters at University of California and California State University system campuses and at community colleges and high schools in the state, Guillen said.

Founded around 1970, MEChA has its roots in the “plan of Santa Barbara,” a document drafted at UC Santa Barbara by Latinos who wanted to “encourage Latinos to pursue higher education” and to further their advancement in society, he said.

The OCC chapter has a mentor program pairing OCC and at-risk Costa Mesa High School students for tutoring, he added. “A lot of times, these high-school students are in gangs, and it’s great if they can have role models.”

The hoped-for scholarships may never amount to much financially, he said. They would, however, provide incentive and “recognition, which enhances self-esteem,” often lacking in youths from low-income families.

Reynoso and the groups performing Sunday are based in Orange County.

Reynoso will sing ranchera ballads heard in the Mexican countryside; Xipe Totec will perform dances, in honor of spring and the earth, to the rustling sound of chachayotl seeds attached to dancers’ ankles; Fiesta Folklorico, which has a strong local following, will dance steps traditional to Mexican villages, Guillen said.

“Folklor de las Americas” begins Sunday at 2:30 p.m. in the Orange Coast College Fine Arts Recital Hall, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. $9 (advance), $11 (at the door). (714) 432-5880.