Much has changed and some things haven't changed. Beware the unholy trinity of the 1960s, still with us: reactionary nationalism, sexism and homophob… - Elizabeth Martínez

But the ferocious attempt to block any non-Eurocentric, non-traditional educational effort has shown the need to expose the attack on multiculturalism, while insisting that it be defined as anti-racism. Interpreted that way, and not simply as additive, it is truly subversive, for it defies the centrality of a Euro-dominated nationhood. Let us define multiculturalism, then, as a united front against White Supremacy. Anglo teachers, students and activists should recognize that today's reactionary opposition to a genuine multiculturalism signifies a chilling repression of independent thinking in general. It signifies a readiness to curb any systemic critique of U.S. society. Yet even those apparently concerned about social justice seem indifferent to such threats as compared to the perceived threat of diminished race-power. One wants to holler: "Yo, gringitos-wake up! They'll be coming for you in the morning, if you don't stand with the rest of us tonight."

White radicals of the 1960s-many of them called "the New Left"-learned tactics from African Americans, who had learned some of theirs from Asians (Gandhi) and who also adopted tactics from white workers of an earlier era. Native Americans took tactics from Blacks. Asian-American youths were inspired by young Puerto Rican activists. Chicano organizations copied from the Black Panther Party, as in their breakfast program. Yet the "New Left" is usually staked out with Eurocentric boundaries in our books on the 1960s. Even many people of color define the New Left as white, and would deny that their activism had anything to do with a new, old or any other kind of Left. The New Left was indeed born primarily white. But its vision of a society in which the exploited and oppressed become an empowered collectivity did inspire people across racial and national lines. That vision generated an international political culture that stirred youth from Paris to Mexico to Tokyo and lives on today. Who cannot be reminded of that New Left ideal, "participatory democracy" (a phrase used by Students for a Democratic Society), when hearing of how 3,000 Chinese students voted on every major decision in Tiananmen Square in May 1989?

Transformation will elude us until we envision our society in very new ways. This requires ending the inequality-based system called capitalism, a monstrous task when we recall that our nation was born capitalist-without passing through primitive communalism, feudalism, and so forth so most people here identify as such. It was also born racist, thanks to unbridled genocide. We need a vision, then, in which we abolish the prevailing definition of the United States as a nation with a single, Euro-American culture and identity. Then we must re-imagine it as a community of communities that recognize their inter-dependence and relate on the basis of mutual respect. The nation's very boundaries may have to change; after all, they're only two centuries old and they were drawn through conquest and genocide. Think sin fronteras-without borders. Think what may seem unthinkable, and envision revolution.