ORGANIZING THE BARRIO: A BILINGUAL LESSON

By Juan Montoya
When I went to graduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I was roomies with Mario Compean, the last candidate for governor of Texas under the Raza Unida banner.

Needless to say, Mario didn't win when he ran in 1978, but he did learn the values of third-party politics.
Anyway, Mario was getting his education administration graduate degree from the UW and we spent many hours discussing the advent of Chicano politics over cases of Leinenkugel Beer which – like Miller and Blue Ribbon Beer – has breweries in Wisconsin, in Chippewa Falls, to be exact. In fact, almost every little town in that brewsky-loving state has private breweries in local taverns.
During one of these debaucheries (at that time Leinies weren't expensive, that changed after they became a national fad) Mario mused to tell us stories of his days organizing la raza across Central Texas. One of these was our favorite (and his) and concerned the teaching of public meeting etiquette to farm workers. You might need a bit of bilingualism to understand it. If you don't, get a camarada to translate.
According to Mario, one night the Raza Unida organizers were in a small town outside Crystal City trying to teach the people the rules on how to run a meeting. The responses were to be expected, but sometimes surprising.
As he told it, people were rising up, asking for the floor and then complaining on why they had to do what Roberto said.

"Porque tenemos que hacer lo que dice ese Roberto?," one complained.
Patiently, they were told that there wasn't anybody named Roberto, but that the rules of running a meeting were contained in a tome called Robert's Rules Of Order.
And do the meeting continued with audience members fighting over who had the floor, what Robertosaid about it, etc.
Finally, in the middle of the hubbub, an elderly farmworker stood up and defiantly challenged the chair wanting to know why everybody wanted to throw out the "mochito."
"Yo nomas quiero saben que les hizo el mocho," he asked.
The organizers looked at each other befuddled.
"Cual mocho, señor?" they asked him.
"Pos yo oigo que todos dicen 'que sacen el mocho' y 'que sacen el mocho.' Yo nomas quiero que me digan que les hizo el mochito."
"Oh, no," they finally realized. "Estan diciendo que 'I second the motion, señor. Que estan de acuerdo con la propuesta."