We examine further. We see that our lands were stolen from us. We see that the only payment was in poverty, starvation, disease, racist mockeries made of our language and culture and race. This was the payment for the labor which our people put into the building of this country, for the lands that were unjustly stolen from us. This country has seen fit to use and brutalize our people and to attempt at the same time to trick us into thinking that it bears no responsibility for our oppression and that its greatest desire is to help us. The two political parties in this country, and particularly the Democratic Party, have been the primary tools of our oppression.
Because we see through the trickery of the Democratic and Republican politicians and see that these two political parties have completely failed us in their promises and understand that in reality they have been working for the benefit of the wealthy Anglos by furthering and perpetuating the oppression of our people.
Because our people are still starving, are still being miseducated, are being increasingly brutalized by police authority;
Because poverty and death from curable diseases are still rampant among our people;
Because our people are not given the benefit of the justice that is due them as citizens of this land and therefore fill the jails in outrageous numbers;
Because the denial of education and job opportunities to our women has placed them in an even more oppressed situation than the men of La Raza;
And because this total, racist oppression of our people is an integral part of an economic system which uses as its political arm the two-party system, two parties working for the same wealthy few, two parties between which there is no significant difference in our eyes;
Given that these factors of oppression form the common denominator that unites us, THEREFORE, WE THE PEOPLE OF LA RAZA, have decided to reject the existing political parties of our oppressors and take it upon ourselves to form LA RAZA UN IDA PARTY, which will serve as a unifying force in our struggle for self-determination.
We understand that our real liberation and freedom will only come about through independent political action on our part. Independent political action, of which electoral activity is but one aspect, means involving La Raza Unida Party at all levels of struggle in actions which will serve to involve and educate our people. We recognize that self-determination can only come about through the full and total participation of La Raza in the struggle.
Because of the cultural genocide committed against our indigenous population by an outside invader and in full recognition of the daily oppression, humiliation, degradation, psychological and spiritual assassination, economic exploitation and the continuing misery of our people in violation of their basic constitutional and human rights, we consider it not only our right but our obligation to struggle for our full and complete liberation by any means necessary.
These oppressive conditions that form the common denominator that unites us give rise to a spiritual cohesiveness, a collective consciousness, that forms the basis of RAZA NATIONALISM.
We further specify that although the protection of our culture and the continuing maintenance of it will be a necessary part of our struggle, we recognize that our culture alone cannot produce our freedom and that only an organized and protracted struggle, confronting our oppressors at every level and involving the greatest number of our people, can bring about our goal of complete self-determination and total freedom.
II. La Raza Unida Party will not support any candidate of the Democratic or Republican Party or any individual who supports these parties.
III. Membership: Any person of La Raza registered in La Raza Unida Party and/or who works actively to support the program and activities of the party will be considered a member with the right to participate in all decision-making processes of the party on the basis of one person, one vote.
By "La Raza" we mean those people who are descendants of or come from Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Antilles.