New Mexico Supreme Court Chief Justice Patricio Serna gazed down from his perch on the dais of the King Hall moot court room and smiled.

Gathered before him last Wednesday were rows of students and employees happily munching on pizza and getting ready to listen in to a discussion of "Latino Trailblazers in the Judiciary." The talk was part of King Hall's César Chávez Celebration, a week of special activities held to commemorate the March 31 birthday of the late civil rights and labor leader.

"I look out and see so much enthusiasm. I see motivation; I see courage; I see empowerment," he told the crowd. "When I was in law school it was such a lonely road."

And Serna's talk - he spoke that day with Professor Cruz Reynoso, the first Latino to serve on the California Supreme Court - was only one of several packed lunchtime presentations last week celebrating the accomplishments of Latinos.

But a few days before, the mood at the law school was hardly jubilant. On March 11, a member of the La Raza Law Students Association, which supports and recruits Latino law students, opened an envelope containing a white powder and a letter threatening the Latino community. The letter tested negative for anthrax in field tests.

A number of similar letters were sent to Latino-focused organizations over the next few days. The U.S. Justice Department is now investigating the letters as a hate crime.

At a forum March 13, more than 100 law school students and faculty and staff members gathered to show support for La Raza, which sponsored the César Chávez Celebration.

By the time the week got underway March 18, said Gregory Gillett, a La Raza officer, "the energy was amazing."

"When you are in school, it's easy to become numb to what's going on around you," he continued. "(For this week), people are out the doors for the presenters."

Molly Harcos, a third-year law student sitting in a back-row seat during Serna's and Reynoso's lecture, was a typical attendee of the week's activities. She is not a member of La Raza but said she supported the group's work all the same.

"They add so much to the school," she said. "It's good to learn about different perspectives."

Administrative assistant Pam Evans was one of several campus employees to sit in on the judiciary talk. She was pleased to hear that Reynoso had worked with Chávez during the 1950s when he was trying to rally workers in Southern California. She wanted to learn more about the civil rights leader, whose name she had heard only vaguely during farmworker protests near her Woodland home.

"I came out of it with a better idea of what he means to people," said Evans, who works in Resource Management and Planning. "He was out for the little guy trying to make a living."

Besides the discussion with Serna and Reynoso, La Raza also hosted talks on the farmworker movement, immigrant rights, Latino women's activism and lesbian and gay Latinos. One day, the organization met with a visiting group of Latino students from Sacramento's McClatchy High School to encourage them to pursue higher education. All activities were enthusiastically attended, organizers said.

"I think it's important that we recognize the response. It's not a response of indifference. It's a response of unity," Gillett said. "I think it's important that we hold on to that."

The organization has also been buoyed by a letter sent to La Raza Co-Chairs Rina Gonzales and Adrian Lopez by the president of the United Farm Workers - the organization founded by Chávez.

"Your decision to move forward with these public observances stands in sharp contrast to the cowardly acts of shadowy bigots," Arturo Rodriguez wrote.