Dear reader, draw your own conclusion;% 'Individuals, not Chicanos'

January 12, 1981

It was a summer "multicultural education program." Hispanics, blacks, and "a few token Anglos" from nearby public high schools were intensively studying the "three R's" at a so-called "elitist" independent school.

One of the summer faculty was himself a former member of a Hispanic gang. A teacher intern, he could hardly believe what was happening.

"Why, they ought to bring the sociologists out here to see this: representatives of half a dozen barrios studying in the same place without fighting. The only time anybody has been able to get rival gangs together was at a boxing tournament."

Why the absence of gang fights here? I asked Willis Moore, student coordinator of the summer program.

Willis replied as a young black man of experience: "Here they find themselves treated as individuals, not as 'Chicanos.'"

A negative incident later underscored the significance of the point Willis made.

Half a dozen of the Hispanic students were en route home one day via public transportation. The instant they entered the bus station, the attendant called the polic e.