"I'VE ALWAYS THOUGHT that Mexican-Americans should not begin to ally with other people until our house is in order. But I think our house is now in order, and the time is right to coalesce with other progressive groups," William C. Velasquez says. And Velasquez, currently executive director of Southwest Voter Registration Project, should know. He's spent the last decade-and-a-half preparing for this time.

In 1966, Velasquez dropped out of graduate school to work for Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers in his native Texas. The product of a strong union family, Velasquez explains simply. "Farmworkers were in severe need. I felt it was an obligation."

As a member of the UFW, he defied antiriot acts, led boycotts and organized marches. He also antagonized Mexican-American politicians. "At that time," he says, "the UFW was considered unpopular with the Anglos." The problem was that because the non-Anglos were politically inactive, there was no pressure to pay attention to their cause. The solution was La Raza.

La Raza was, at its inception in 1968, a Mexican-American third party, formed "as a reaction to the Democratic party practice of herding Mexicans to the polls for nothing in return." When Velasquez chaired its first convention, "it was an authentic, real people's movement."

The movement began to succeed in the early seventies, when the party scored a political victory in Crystal City, Texas. "I was the only one who could write worth a goddam, so I did fundraising," Velasquez recalls of his role in the campaign.

But the success, as far as Velasquez was concerned, did the party in. It became unresponsive, radical, and too ambitious--"These guys thought they would have someone running for president"--and he left it soon after for another vehicle of Mexican-American political organization, the Voter Registration Board.

"It took five years to get tax exemption" for the Voter Registration Board, Velasquez boasts proudly of his group's first successful battle. As he flips through piles of documents, he rattles off some other accomplishments: Since 1977, the organization has filed 50 gerrymandering suits and has yet to lose one; between 1976 and 1979, the number of elected Mexican-American officials in Texas increased more than one-fourth; during the same period, voter registration jumped 300,000.

Velasquez' goal now is not numbers but results. California and Texas, both with substantial Mexican-American populations, control a substantial portion of the electoral votes for the presidency. Mexican-Americans in those states, Velasquez posits, have the potential to swing "the votes necessary to become president."

Velasquez believes Mexican-Americans could exercise influence not only in domestic issues, but also in foreign policy questions, especially those involving Central America. "We are going to get involved with the making of public policy," he predicts, and then adds, firmly: "By the end of the decade."

Cleta Deatherage, Eddie Mahe and William C. Velasquez are Fellows at the Institute of Politics this semester.