College and university students were a major force at the first-ever national civil and human rights rally to concentrate on Latino issues. The two-day event, which included a march and a student conference, was held in Washington, D.C., earlier this month.

Leticia Villareal, a student at Vassar and the administrative chair of East Coast Chicano Student Forum (ECCSF), said: "Latinos were finally given a voice that was heard on the front pages of The Washington Post. I had a lot of pride in seeing a lot of brown people around me marching for justice. It was incredible. "

The October 12 rally brought Latinos from across the nation to protest the anti-immigrant legislation and sentiment sweeping the country. According to most observers, at least half of the tens of thousands of protesters were students.

Although they mostly came from California, Texas! Michigan, Illinois and New York, virtually every state of the union was represented. In fact, the travel aspect of the event was all the more significant because Washington is so far from where the majority of the nation's Latino population live. Census data shows that most of the nation's 30 million Latinos live in the southwestern states of California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado.

As the three-mile march snaked through Washington's Latino barrio, one could see the surge in pride in the eyes of its residents. One could also sense that no longer would Latinos, locally or nationally, remain silent about the anti-immigrant sentiment they face and no longer would they consider this nation's capital as an alien country.

The event was sponsored by Coordinadora '96. which presented a seven-point platform to address concerns of the nation's Latino population. The platform included:

Amnesty for undocumented immigrants who entered before 1992 and acceleration of the naturalization process;