In March of 1969, 15oo Mexican American youth rallied at Denver’s Crusade for Justice under the leadership of Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzalez. They proclaimed a “Chicano” identity and , inspired by the need for higher education that had been denied to them, they met a month later in Santa Barbara, California. There they hammered out El Plan de Santa Bárbara, an ambitious plan for a Mexican American Studies curriculum and for the creation of a national Chicano student organization which they called El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, or more commonly M.E.Ch.A. Fifty years later hundreds of thousands of Latino have benefited from the Plan and have gone on to succeed in high education. Armando Vásquez Ramos, one of the co-signers of the Plan de Santa Barbara recalls the historic Plan.