WHAT COMES NEXT?

None of us would have ever imagined that in a matter of six weeks millions of our people from every community across the US would be in the streets protesting. Hundreds of thousands of our young people walking out into political struggle was an action very few of us have seen with our own eyes.

Nonetheless, this is what we have lived though in the span of less than two months. The last six weeks have politically transformed our reality as a people, not only within the United States but also throughout Latin America. Nothing will ever go back to how it was before the week of March 20, 2006.

It is essential now to do a basic assessment of what has been done and what is to come, otherwise the popular momentum will decline (as is inevitable with any spontaneous struggle) and there will be very little permanent qualitative progress for the movement as a whole.

BEFORE THE PROTESTS
This movement did not begin six weeks ago, nor was it created by the Democratic Party, the labor unions, the churches, social service agencies, radio and TV personalities. This movement has its origins dating back to 1492 and the conquest of these lands by European powers. This movement has been sustained by innumerable leaders, movements and popular organizations ever since.

This so-called immigration crisis must be looked at historically first and foremost. As stated, this whole contradiction started in 1492, with the 1848 war against Mexico with the theft of half of Mexican national territory as another historically relevant episode.

The current 2006 immigration crisis is based on the presence of 15 to 20 million people (primarily from Mexico/Latin America) living within the political borders of the United States illegally, i.e. without permission from the US government. What continental forces are capable of provoking the movement of millions of people out of their home countries into the foreign and hostile country in the north? It is an undeniable fact that the only political, economic and military force capable of producing such a mass movement of people is US imperialism/capitalism.

Through political interventions the US government has subverted political change in Latin America, sponsored undemocratic, violent, corrupt regimes and undermined popular governments throughout the continent. The result has been terrible poverty, generalized political instability, and popular discontent in every Latin American country.

Imposing an economic hegemony over Latin America, the US government has promoted generations of self-serving economic policies (most recently with NAFTA and CAFTA). The result has been generalized extreme poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

With over 60 direct military interventions into Latin America from 1823 to 2004 including coup de etas, blockades, right wing conspiracies, invasions, occupations, and the promotion of civil wars, it is the government of the United States that macro-imposed the Push factors driving millions of people to go north in search of a better life.

Once inside the US, our labor is exploited directly, while we are blamed for depressing the wages of US citizens. This is by design, as it is US imperialism abroad in conjunction with anti-labor laws domestically that has driven down wages within the US, to the benefit of US corporations and their stockholders. It is no secret that as unemployment goes up, so goes the stock market, the minimum wage has not been raised in three generations, and that more anti-worker legislation has been passed in the last twenty years than in the previous 200 years.

The only force capable of producing a mass migration of people from Latin America and maximizing profits by coordinating it domestically with anti-worker domestic policies is US imperialism/US capitalism. US imperialism/capitalism bear primary responsibility for the current immigration crisis.

THE PROTESTS
The contribution of Union del Barrio to the movement as it relates to the so-called immigration crisis spans 25 years and includes literally thousands of activities: meetings, marches, protests, forums, rallies, hunger strikes, caminatas, press events, etc. Although we did not play a central role in convoking the mass mobilizations of the past six weeks, we do take responsibility for having played an important role in the building of this movement. The last six weeks of unprecedented protests did not occur by magic.

An odd coalition among the Catholic Church, labor unions, and big business (i.e. US Chamber of Commerce) served as a medium to bring millions of people into the street. Leading from behind was the Democratic Party, looking to recover from its political bankruptcy at the hands of the Republican Party.

If we are to learn anything from history it must be that it was these same social forces that attempted to control the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and in many ways they were promoting the same things. In other words, whether intended or not, these social forces wish to impose on the current social movement the same mistakes of 50 years ago.

These powerful sectors of the liberal political class within the US have unceasingly called on all our communities to protest while prioritizing US patriotic symbols (US flags), slogans (God Bless America. or Hoy Marchamos, Manana Votamos.) and demands (Comprehensive Immigration Reform). It has been stated that the national flags of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, etc. offend US citizens, and if we want comprehensive immigration reform we must be politically sophisticated enough to present patriotic images and avoid at all costs being seen as anti-American. Generally, this covers the liberal perspective in relation to what has occurred over the last six weeks.

Union del Barrio supports, in principle, the struggle to help people get their papeles fixed, but it is dishonest and unprincipled to present this struggle for so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform as a pro-US struggle based on patriotic media images and who to offend or not to offend. If people in our communities choose to carry US flags so be it, but when the liberals tell people to leave their national flags at home and force US flags into our hands, this is unacceptable.

Where have the liberals been over the last 12 years as over 4000 people died at the border? Has the Democratic Party done anything other than move closer to the Republicans these last 12 years? In fact it was under the Democrats that many of the most deadly border policies were implemented such as Operation Gatekeeper in California and Operation Hold the Line in Texas. The liberal political class in the US is ideologically lost, and that they present themselves as our leaders should not be tolerated. It is a sad irony that they see it is reasonable to instruct the victims of US Imperialism to carry the US flag, sing the national anthem (in English and Spanish) and leave their national flags at home. The liberals have found it easy to repeat, The sleeping giant has awaken We disagree the truth is that our people are very much aware of our oppression; it was these self-declared liberal leaders that have been asleep for many years.

The May 1st National Boycott on the other hand was an important step for rising above the backward positions presented by the liberals. The Gran Paro divided along class lines the liberals from the people, while the criticism from the right wing was based on racism and classism. The Gran Paro took on a life of its own and did not depend on the liberal political class or radio/TV personalities for its diffusion. As a consequence the class and internationalist consciousness of our communities was raised, and a new self-awareness of how much power we could have was developed. The idea of the Gran Paro was an excellent call, we respect the correct analysis of the historical moment, and we supported it as best as we could.

THE BACKLASH
Even if 10 million of us march bowing and shuffling our feet, carrying 50 American flags each, singing the national anthem until our eyes pop out, they will hate us anyway. None of that will win the US population to respecting our humanity. On the contrary, we should expect nothing less than a storm of repression, from the state and from racists in general. In Houston the attack on a Latino youth beaten and sodomized for trying to kiss a white girl, the firebombing of a Mexican restaurant in Jamul, California, the death threats against Villaraigosa and Bustamante, and the Migra raids across the country are all recent examples of what inevitably will occur more often. In addition, there are the innumerable individual reprisals from job dismissals and verbal and physical confrontations that don't receive media attention We should expect nothing less than more frequent Border Patrol sweeps, home raids, mass deportations, increasing impunity for agents of the federal government, fostering of vigilante paramilitary organizations and checkpoints surrounding our neighborhoods.

Right wing critics, minutemen and radio/TV personalities will always find some way to attack our movement. What we have to do is organize ourselves until they become irrelevant. Let them rant and rave, build fences and find offense as they watch our people lose our fear of struggle. They are dishonest buffoons who sooner or later will be exposed for what they are. The day they become honest with their audiences is the day they explain how gas prices, the war in Iraq, low wages, and the immigration crisis are all connected as direct consequences of capitalism. When that day comes, then Lou Dobbs will no longer blame our people for the world the capitalist class created.

WHAT IS NEXT?
The only way to win our humanity is though struggle - disciplined, organized, dignified struggle on our own terms, here and throughout Latin America this is what we learned from the Black Power Movement and the Chicano Power Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.


Union del Barrio once again commits itself to delivering our best effort towards consolidating this social movement. We will continuously support the struggle for progress within our communities, particularly when these struggles are based on freedom and self-determination. We commit ourselves to the construction of human rights committees in every community; to the promotion of independent workers associations in every workplace; to reinforce independent parent committees in every public school; to channel the energy of our barrio youth into political organization; and to the consolidation of a true unity between university students and the community.

As a movement we must politically define, unite and organize ourselves in order to exert the political power proportionate to our economic power. We must frame this immigration issue within its proper historical context and be able to politically, socially and economically reframe the debate to serves the interests of our people, across all political borders here and in Latin America. Our rights as workers must be recentered in an international sense while set within the framework of our historical oppression.

With strategies based on community level agitation and organization, our resistance will be organic and mass based, and must be guided under a long-term vision of struggle. We must reinforce the bonds we share with liberation struggles throughout Latin America. We have to look south and forge new levels of organization towards building a continental unity constructing a better future for Nuestra America.

Concientizacion, Organizacion, Accion, Liberacion

Union Del Barrio

http://www.uniondelbarrio.org