EUGENE, Ore. -- (Feb. 21, 2011) -- The University of Oregon chapter of Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlan (M.E.Ch.A.) will host the seventh annual Raza Unida Youth Conference (RUYC) on Wednesday, Feb. 23. More than 500 high school students from Lane County and statewide will participate in a day of workshops, speakers and a campus tour.

"The purpose of the RUYC is to empower youth and give them the necessary tools to access higher education," said Andreina Bautista Patricio, conference coordinator. "We will also be giving them an introduction into important issues that are constantly affecting Latino and marginalized communities."

The keynote speaker for the event will be Renee Saucedo. She is the community empowerment coordinator at La Raza Centro Legal, a multicultural community social justice center based in the Mission District of San Francisco. She has worked on many campaigns and efforts dealing with the rights of undocumented workers, day laborers, domestic workers, the poor, homeless and youth. The keynote presentation is at 10 a.m. at McArthur Court.

The motto of Raza Unida Youth Conference is "Educacion; El Derecho De La Raza!" (Education; The Right of The People!) With this in mind, this year's conference theme will be "Immigration through the Eyes de La Mujer" (Immigration through the eyes of women.)

Two other nationally known activists will speak and work with the students. Xico González, an artist, poet and political and cultural activist based in Sacramento, will present an arts workshop at 11 a.m. Randy Shaw, executive director and supervising attorney of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic in San Francisco and author of "Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century" (University of California Press), will present a public address at 7 p.m. Feb. 24, at the UO Law Center.

MEDIA CONTACT: Rita Radostitz, communications director, UO Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity, 541-346-5741, rjr@uoregon.edu

SOURCE: Andreina Bautista Patricio or Lucero Castaneda Bugarin, conference coordinators and recruitment and retention co-directors, MeChA office 541-346-3508, andreina@uoregon.edu, lucero@uoregon.edu

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