Newspaper Draws Latino Students’ Ire : Journalism: A Cal State Fullerton organization protests that a columnist poked fun at their effort to rename a building after Cesar E. Chavez. The editor, a Latina, defends her publication.

FULLERTON —  A joke playing off the name of late labor leader Cesar E. Chavez in a recent issue of Cal State Fullerton’s student newspaper has reignited tension between a Mexican American student group and the publication.

Members of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA) complained to Daily Titan Executive Editor Annette Chavez after sports columnist Adam Rank poked fun at MEChA’s campaign to rename a campus building after the labor leader, who died April 23, 1993. Students held a rally in May to support renaming the student services building after Chavez, who is internationally recognized as a crusader for farm workers’ rights.

“Now that (professional boxer) Julio Cesar Chavez has beaten Meldrick Taylor, do you think there will be more marches to name University Hall after him?” Rank wrote in his Sept. 23 column. “He won. Can we eat grapes again?”

Letters from MEChA members in response to the column appeared Friday in the Daily Titan.

Monica Hernandez, who wrote one of the letters, used boxing imagery to make the point that MEChA members will not relent in their activism. “If the Daily Titan decides to have front-row seats,” she wrote, then “you and your paper better be prepared for blood, sweat and spit slapping you in the face!”

Rank was not available for comment Friday.

Editor Chavez said she was chilled by the letter but did not report it to campus police.

Hernandez said Friday that she did not mean the letter as a threat, but just wanted to make clear that Latino students will continue to fight for their cause. And the comment in Rank’s column was inexcusable, said Hernandez, who is chairwoman of the campus Chicano Studies Student Assn.

MEChA secretary Dulce Medina wrote another of the letters. “We as Chicanos don’t think the joke was funny,” she said Friday.

Chavez said she allowed the joke to be published even though she expected an angry response.

“I chose to run it anyway, and, although I didn’t plan on having to defend my education or heritage because of it, I would still run it again,” Chavez, who is Mexican American, wrote in an editorial published Friday.

Cesar E. Chavez, the editorial states, was a “great historical figure,” and Rank’s joking comments about him “were not harmful, libelous, not to mention even significant compared to the thousands of other words we published in that issue.”

In an interview, she further defended her decision: “The joke was not about Cesar Chavez and did not belittle him,” she said. “It was just a dumb joke.”

MEChA members have differed with the newspaper in the past, Chavez said. Last year, for example, some students were upset when a review of a Mexican restaurant made light of meats such as beef tongue, which is used in Mexican cooking.

Medina said the newspaper does not portray MEChA fairly and does not write about MEChA’s volunteer work, such as inviting high school students to visit the campus.

Chavez said the Daily Titan has a minority-affairs reporter and covers events of special interest to Mexican Americans, including Latino Heritage Month events in October.