Raul Yzaguirre, one of President Joe Biden’s Medal of Freedom recipients from last week, has a history of working with far-left groups.
National Council of La Raza (NCLR), now called UnidosUS — where he served as CEO and president for 30 years — received more than $60 million from the federal government — funded by American taxpayers — since 2008. The non-profit has many connections to far-left organizations and even a school founded on a racial-separatist ideology.
In 2002, La Raza partnered with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund to prevent stronger Voter ID laws. The Sacramento Bee wrote that the two groups opposed Voter ID laws because “In too many cases, partisan poll workers have demanded identification from people of color – African Americans in the South or Hispanics in Southern California.”
Additionally, in November 2004, one of La Raza’s executives, Janet Murguia, appeared to support illegal immigrants voting after Arizona voters approved a ballot measure requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
La Raza also reportedly helped fund Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano De Aztlan (MEChA), a “radical” student organization that “recruits and indoctrinates Latino youths into a radical reconquista agenda,” Judicial Watch explained, adding that the group believes that it wil “eventually lead to the reclamation of the American southwest for the Mexican people.”
MECha refers to its supporters as “Mechistas” on its website while referring to America’s Southwest as part of Mexico. A report in July 2009 from Newsmax added:
Among these affiliates are several chapters of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán), which La Raza helps fund. Aztlán is what radical “Mechistas” — as they refer to themselves on La Raza’s Web site — call the American Southwest, which they claim still belongs to Mexico.
Its slogan is “Por La Raza todo, Fuera de La Raza nada” meaning “For The Race everything, outside the Race nothing.” One chapter says on La Raza’s site that its mission is “empowerment of our gente and the liberation of Aztlán.”
La Raza receives tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to set up charter schools such as the Aztlán Academy of Tucson, which flies the Mexican flag but not the American flag and teaches students “Aztec math.”
La Raza also provided extensive funding to Academia Semillas del Pueblo (ASDP), a “self-segregating” charter school funded by Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that seeks to “help disadvantaged Latinos to earn a quality education.”
- La Raza gave $20,000 in grant funds to the charter school in 2001, according to its 2001 990 Form.
- La Raza gave $100,000 in grant funds to the charter school in 2003, according to its 2003 990 Form.
- La Raza gave $100,000 in grant funds to the charter school in 2004, according to its 2004 990 Form.
- La Raza gave $50,000 in grant funds to the charter school in 2005, according to its 2005 990 Form.
However, Judicial Watch reported that the school’s actual purpose is to:
According to the evidence, Academia Semillas del Pueblo is not much more than a training ground for the Mexican reconquista movement, which seeks to conquer the American Southwest – by force or by ballot box – and return it to Mexico.
…
While it is true that California taxpayers have helped fund Academia Semillas del Pueblo, the school has also received support – financial and otherwise – from two leading organizations in the reconquista movement namely, The National Council of La Raza (The National Council of The Race), and the aforementioned M.E.Ch.A.
Judicial Watch added that the school’s principal, Marcos Aguilar, is a “Mexican revolutionary radical who believes the American Southwest belongs to Mexico.” According to records, Aguilar is firmly against assimilating Mexican immigrants into American life and has openly advocated for a “racist, separatist agenda.” He has also stated that the school is “a resistance, a starting point, like a fire in a continuous struggle for our cultural life.”
“We don’t necessarily want to go to White schools. What we want to do is teach ourselves, teach our children the way we have of teaching,” Aguilar said during an interview in 2006. “We don’t want to drink from a White water fountain, we have our own wells and our natural reservoirs and our way of collecting rain in our aqueducts… Ultimately the White way, the American way, the neo-liberal, capitalist way of life will eventually lead to our own destruction.”
Furthermore, during Yzaguirre’s tenure as president, he awarded the annual Chicano Hero Award in 1994 to Jose Angel Gutierrez, a Mexican-American professor who was outspoken against white people and pushed for Mexican “Reconquista.”
In 1969 Gutierrez said, “We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is if the worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him.”
In a 1998 interview, he discussed his dream of retaking the American Southwest:
Aztlán is one half of the one Mexico that we need to build. This is the Mexico on the other side, north of the Rio Grande, El Rio Bravo. We have been dismembered since 1826 in Texas, and 1848 in the rest of the Southwest. And then after 1853 in La Mesia, from Tucson to the border of California. So the mission of Aztlán is to put back together the original land where our ancestors came from. So our movement, then, has everything to do with the Mexico that exists. And that is, to make it bigger, to return it to its original homeland size [Emphasis added].
In 2004, Gutierrez stated during a “Latino Civil Rights Summit” in Kansas City, “We are the future of America. Unlike any prior generation, we now have the critical mass. We’re going to Latinize this country.”
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
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