Article

January 29, 2021

The failures of the DSA are going to get us killed

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Trump supporters breach the Capitol on January 6. I was visiting my mom and we were getting ready for dinner when I received frantic texts from comrades from Mexico City. “What is going in the US? I just saw the videos from the Capitol”. I assumed it was some Proud Boys getting violent as usual but when I turned on the TV and watched thousands of Trump supporters outside the Capitol and an armed stand-off inside, I knew this was different.
As we commented on the chaos over dinner, my grandmother, who is blind, began to tense up, she was getting worried, we were talking about civil war, Donald Trump and running away to Mexico. I tried to reassure them that things would be OK, and that this would be resolved appropriately, but deep down, I wasn’t—I’m not—so sure.

October 6, 2020

by Justin Akers Chacón

Us versus the billionaires and their parties

In a recent interview, Joe Biden was visually irritated when responding to a reporter who asked if his proposed policies are “socialist”. “Do I look like a socialist? Look at my career — my whole career. I am not a socialist…I beat the socialist!”

This back-handed slap at Bernie Sanders occurred precisely at the time that Sanders and the self-identified progressives and Socialists in Congress push for the 10-15 million people who voted for Sanders in the primaries to get behind Biden—despite deep ideological differences.

On the heels of the deployment of Federal police in several states to repress Black Lives Matter protests, and Trump accusing him of being soft on the movement against police violence, Biden defensively replied and criticized the protests. At a high-profile press conference at a steel mill in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with all of its dog-whistle

October 3, 2020

by Ivan Waldo

They came for us

Recent revelations by whistleblower Dawn Wooten, exposed that at ICE detention centers, doctors have been performing hysterectomies on unsuspecting patients. Her revelations, while appalling and detestable, are not surprising to me. I’ve seen this before. I know this movie well. It’s like The Ten Commandments playing on television during Good Friday, I know what happens next. I can quote this story line for line.
As a Latin American History scholar, I’ve spent many years familiarizing myself with people like Cornelius Rhoads, a former US Army doctor and hospital administrator who was oversaw racist and barbaric human experimentation projects. I have learned about forced sterilizations on colonial islands through documentaries like La Operación. I’ve combed through the published studies of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment on African American males who were injected with syphilis. I am well aware of the medical community’s penchant for using people in Africa to conduct clinical trials for prescription drugs.

September 30, 2020

by Héctor Reyes

Assimilate This! Is it possible or desirable to assimilate into a white supremacist, colonial settler, and imperialist nation?

Assimilation is this political plasticine that is frequently at the core of newspaper editorials, scapegoating by politicians, and ideological constructs of what it is to be a citizen of the United States of America (U.S.). As such, it refers to a myth-soaked narrative of the history of the U.S. as a nation; who is assumed to belong to it, or who can be allowed to earn a spot in that ark of glorified passengers known as “Americans.”
The term “American” sits at the center of this chauvinistic and exaggerated conception of who is a “red-blooded” inhabitant, and therefore a bona fide “citizen” of the U.S. It is a misguided and vainglorious term that robs the rest of the inhabitants of the Americas of such self-designation. For everyone born or naturalized in Latin America, Central America and the Caribbean

September 29, 2020

by Gerardo Rayo

To end racism and change the world, we need to burn down the past

The white base of a statue. Two men on the base. One of them pushes the other one. The man who is pushing is wearing a white shirt, a little bit stained, probably because of work in the fields. In his left hand he is holding and leaning on a sledgehammer. His skin is dark, brown, he wears a cap, and his right hand is fully extended, with a gesture of contempt and pride toward the other man whom he has toppled.

September 23, 2020

by Gerardo Rayo

Incendiar el pasado para acabar con el racismo (y transformar el mundo)

La base blanca de una estatua. Dos hombres sobre la base. Uno de ellos empuja al otro. El hombre que empuja lleva una camisa blanca, un poco percudida, seguramente por el trabajo en el campo. En su mano izquierda lleva un mazo sobre el que ahora se recarga. Su piel es oscura, morena, lleva una gorra y su mano derecha está completamente extendida, con ese ademán de desprecio y orgullo hacia el otro hombre a quien ha empujado. El hombre que empuja es indio. A su alrededor muchos otros indios ven el acontecimiento, son todos ellos los que empujan al mismo hombre contra el que dirigen su rabia. Es de día, el cielo se ve despejado.

September 21, 2020

by Puntorojo Editorial Collective

Puntorojo: first anniversary and relaunch

With this issue of Puntorojo, we celebrate our one-year anniversary and announce the re-launch of our magazine and our new Patreon page. We want to take this opportunity to thank our earliest supporters! We encourage you to follow us on social media, reflect on what we have published and accomplished, and join with us as we grow and take Puntorojo Magazine in new directions. With this issue of Puntorojo, we celebrate our one-year anniversary and announce the re-launch of our magazine and our new Patreon page. We want to take this opportunity to thank our earliest supporters! We encourage you and new supporters to follow us on social media, reflect on what we have published and accomplished over the first year, and join with us as we grow and take Puntorojo Magazine in new directions.

September 20, 2020

by Fernando Chavez

La máquina no se detiene

Los aromas a garnachas. La música de banda. El tianguis repleto. La vida que sigue. Ahí en el fondo, junto al puesto de discos piratas, venden unas mascarillas bonitas y baratas. Pregunte sin compromiso. Está la de Avengers para el niño. Arriba de esa, la de Paw Patrol. A usted tal vez le interese una del América. ¿No? ¿Qué tal la del Cruz Azul? Llévese la que quiera pero llévese una.
No vaya a hacerla de malas. Otro obrero muerto. Giovanni López, un albañil de 30 años de edad,

September 8, 2020

by Héctor Rivera

Biking is not a crime: justice for Dijon Kizzee

On Saturday, August 5, protestors blocked all northbound lanes of the 110 Freeway in South Los Angeles to demand justice for Dijon Kizzee, an African American man killed by two Los Angeles County Sheriff’s officers.

The protest began at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s station on Imperial Highway, where Black Lives Matter organizers had called a demonstration in solidarity with the Kizzee family. The demonstration got underway with a ritual prayer honoring the lives of those lost to police violence.

September 7, 2020

by Lupita Romero and Eric Nava-Perez

Honoring the past to forge a new future: the Chicano Moratorium 50 years on

This past weekend in Los Angeles, thousands took to the streets to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium, the largest Chicano-led mass protest in U.S. history. On August 29th, 1970, over 20,000 Mexican and Chicano youth poured throughout the streets of Los Angeles to protest the Vietnam war, police brutality, and ongoing inequality that the Mexican and Chicano community faced in California and throughout the southwest.