Justin Akers Chacón

December 22, 2019

Keep families together/Cages are cages

These prints were created in support of undocumented folks as well as being a criticism of the United States. Amerikkka has spread fear, weapons, corruption, and violence across the world, creating conditions that force people to risk their lives to escape in search of survival. Folks migrating to the United States continue to live in fear and are being persecuted, put in cages, and killed. As an artist and a formerly undocumented person, I create art that helps undocumented folks heal and calls for their protection and for solidarity with their fight. I will never stop fighting for the safety, happiness, and rights of undocumented people.

December 21, 2019

by Justin Akers Chacón

Support all undocumented youth

This print was created in support of undocumented folks as well as being a criticism of the United States. Amerikkka has spread fear, weapons, corruption, and violence across the world, creating conditions that force people to risk their lives to escape in search of survival. Folks migrating to the United States continue to live in fear and are being persecuted, put in cages, and killed. As an artist and a formerly undocumented person, I create art that helps undocumented folks heal and calls for their protection and for solidarity with their fight. I will never stop fighting for the safety, happiness, and rights of undocumented people.

November 19, 2019

by Justin Akers Chacón

De nopal y espinas

“Nopalito de mi corazón, quiero besarte pero mis labios no saben cómo recibir tu amor.” (Little nopal of my heart, I want to kiss you but my lips do not know how to receive your love.)

I open my artist statement with a line of prose written by spoken word artist, Chris “L7” Cuadrado, because his vision sparked intrigue in me. I want to dig deeper about the ways in which a person, especially as one who self-identifies as Xicana, navigates their relationship with others and how they sustain their well-being in a white supremacist capitalist Imperialist hetero-ableist Patriarchy. The imagery or symbol that is of interest to me and in my work is the cactus, as a Mexican cultural symbol, and the human body. This body of work illustrates the human body as a site of oppression and the mind as a site of resistance to systems of patriarchy.

November 19, 2019

by Justin Akers Chacón

Mother nature is on fire

This piece reflects how there is mass forest fires occurring everywhere, especially in the Amazon Forest. I read an article about if more of the forest were to burn, it won’t be able to recover and will continue to die. The woman is center is suppose to be a native woman, who are often the leaders for environmental movements and for reclamation of indigenous land. Her hair is the smoke from the forest of the earth burning.

November 19, 2019

by Justin Akers Chacón

Servin’ em up

Among the bum rush for the 2020 Democratic Party nomination bid, Latinx, Chicanx workers should be reminded that Julián Castro isn’t their friend, nor does he represents their class interests. The Democratic Party along with Republicans are parties of the bosses that hold up workers in a circus and spectacle of blackmail every few years, exchanging one mask for the other. Nowadays the mask has dropped, for the true ugly face of American capitalism is embodied in the Trump administration and that makes Democrats worried. In such a racist climate, workers must unite against the system as a whole cause if they do not, no matter what social movement for change that will exist–every 4 years it stops and dies at the ballot box for the Democrats. ¡Cuidado Compa!

November 17, 2019

by Justin Akers Chacón

Chicago Boys del Siglo 21: ¿Cómo piensa el enemigo del pueblo Chilenx?

Esta semana tuve la oportunidad a último minuto de asistir a una charla sobre las protestas en Chile, en nada más ni nada menos, que la Universidad de Chicago. No sabía exactamente con qué me iba a encontrar, pero lo que descubrí fue algo más siniestro de lo que me había imaginado. Una sala llena de tecnócratas- Chicago Boys del siglo 21- analizando las protestas en Chile. Casi llamaron a seguridad, una señora sentada a mi lado se quejó porque yo ‘gesticulaba’ mucho cuando hablaba, y hasta me acusaron de machista y ‘violentar’ a una abogada Chilena de ojos azules, por interrumpirla cuando hablaba puras mentiras. Pero al fin, me quedé en la sala con el propósito de reportar sobre cómo el enemigo del pueblo Chilenx piensa.

November 17, 2019

by Justin Akers Chacón

“We are at the beginning of the end of neoliberalism in Chile”

We can say that, in effect, the Chilean ruling classes really sold the image of a “Chilean Jaguar” as an indisputable model of economic growth for Latin America. President Sebastián Piñera even spoke of an “oasis of stability” in Latin American. Less than a week after these remarks, we witnessed the beginning of an unprecedented mobilization and then the president declared on television that: “the country is at war”. In reality, behind this showcase of “modern” and neoliberal Chile we find some of the deepest social inequalities in the world and especially in Latin America. The violence of capitalism applied since 1973 with the dictatorship and after 1975 with the “neoliberal turn” brought about by the Chicago Boys, was continued after the 1990s under the various democratic governments.

October 20, 2019

by Justin Akers Chacón

The Anti-Migrant International

In early December of 2017 the Trump Administration officially withdrew the United States from the UN Global Pact on Migration, claiming the 2016 accord “undermine[s] the sovereign right of the United States to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders.” The aligned governments of Israel, Hungary, Poland, Australia, Austria, and several other countries followed suit in withdrawing their support, or by publicly repudiating the agreement. Rightwing parties in Germany, France, Italy and Denmark also vocalized their opposition, pledging to withdraw once in power.

October 20, 2019

by Justin Akers Chacón

Rent control rebels

The Tenant’s Union arose from the need to avoid further displacement in low-income communities. I have been a community organizer for more than 15 years in City Heights (a community in San Diego). City Heights is a predominantly immigrant, multicultural, and low-income community. I began organizing alongside 300 other parents to improve the schools for our children, including providing access to bilingual education. Through this work, I learned that there were a lot of problems with housing, and we began to focus on this issue as well as living conditions are highly connected to school dropout.

August 9, 2019

by Justin Akers Chacón

Lanzamiento de Puntorojo

Puntorojo es una revista digital que publica las voces y los puntos de vista de la generación actual de pensadores Mexicanxs, Chicanox, Latinxs, radicales transfronterizos y transnacionales. En estos se encuentran trabajadores, académicos, activistas, artivistas, historiadores, y otros cuyas perspectivas únicas han sido informadas y formadas tanto por los efectos de la dominación imperialista Estadounidense en toda América como por su resistencia a todos los aspectos opresivos del capitalismo e imperialismo que se manifiestan en todo momento en la vida diaria. Esta lucha — la lucha de clases– está alcanzando un punto crítico. La humanidad vive una época de crisis global, conflicto, y de transformación potencial.

Las clases trabajadoras y de gente oprimida en toda América están agitando y rechazando las fuerzas destructivas y explotadoras del sistema capitalista, y las fuerzas políticas que lo mantienen internacionalmente. Esta dupla, referida aquí como imperialismo, es administrada por los Estados Unidos, la clases en el poder, y sus aliados en la región. Estos elementos promueven y favorecen dictaduras corruptas y regímenes fascistas que se alinean con sus objetivos; mientras que al mismo tiempo, trata de destronar gobiernos no alineados por medio de golpes de estado, invasiones, bloqueos y sabotajes económicos, así como abastecer con ayuda material a grupos y movimientos reaccionarios en la oposición.

El imperialismo fuerza el desplazamiento de millones de gentes a través de áreas fronterizas mientras que criminaliza y penaliza la migración. Expande su infraestructura de la persecución de inmigrantes, migrantes, y refugiados para extraer la mayor riqueza por medio de la super-explotación de su mano de obra o de generar dividendos por su encarcelamiento. Destruye preciados y esenciales hábitats y ecosistemas por medio de la extracción rapaz, mientras arma y militariza sociedades para imponer desigualdades cada vez más grandes dentro de naciones y entre naciones. Mantiene y aprueba partidos políticos, fuerzas armadas, sistemas judiciales, instituciones sociales, así como una gama de barreras físicas como tácticas ideológicas que profundizan la opresión a la gente de clase trabajadora, gente indígena, mujeres, y a otros por su identidad sexual o de género.