Racism
La lucha contra el fascismo: lecciones del pasado
Las crisis sanitarias y económicas desatadas por el COVID-19 han movilizado las fuerzas de extrema derecha en todo el mundo. La izquierda socialista necesita aprender de las luchas del Siglo XX para confrontar estas fuerzas antes de que se transformen en movimientos de masas. Puntorojo ofrece esta reseña sobre el libro Fighting Fascism (2017), publicado por Haymarket Books en inglés, para presentar a nuestros lectores un resumen de las teorías y estrategias aplicadas por la Comunista Internacional para luchar contra este fenómeno reaccionario. Ante la crisis actual, organizarnos en amplias coaliciones contra la extrema derecha es una cuestión de vida o muerte para los socialistas, la lucha feminista, y los movimientos indígenas.
Los Demócratas: partido sangriento del imperialismo, guerra, y opresión
Ese momento ha vuelto, llega cada cuatro años, cuando la gente nos dice que es nuestro deber votar…votar por el mal menor, votar contra los republicanos, votar por los demócratas. En este momento algunas personas están entusiasmadas con el demócrata Bernie Sanders, esa gran esperanza para los liberales.
Muchos justifican su apoyo a Sanders por diciendo que el empujara a los demócratas hacia la izquierda y los regresara a sus raíces “progresistas.” La verdad es que los demócratas no son el partido del mal menor y sus raíces están lejos de ser “progresistas.” No es un aliado de la clase obrera y de los oprimidos, y nunca lo fue. El Partido Demócrata es el otro partido de la clase dominante angloamericana, es un partido que hace cumplir el encarcelamiento en masa y las deportaciones en masa, ejecuta guerras imperialistas y apoya dictaduras sangrientas en otros países. Esto es lo que es Partido Demócrata: un partido capitalista e imperialista.
El plan de inmigración de Bernie Sanders: una respuesta desde la primera línea de lucha
Vivo en Queens, Nueva York, uno de los lugares más diversos en el país. Era tan solo una niña recién llegada de México cuando los eventos del 11 de septiembre sucedieron e introdujeron un periodo de militarización social disfrazado en discurso de “seguridad nacional.” Entre los asquerososataques racistas por parte del partido republicano y el pretendido apoyo de los funcionarios demócratas, la voz de inmigrantes indocumentados generalmente ha sido ignorada, particularmente cuando nuestra voz no se alinea con la de los demócratas o si vamos más allá de simplemente registrar a nuestra comunidad documentada para que voten “azul.” Esta era ha sido efectivamente marcada por la represión y el chivo expiatorio de las comunidades inmigrantes.
Fighting for justice while feeding the nation: Farmworkers at the frontlines
Here in Washington State farmworkers are being asked to continue working. On the east side of Washington where the majority of farms grow apples, cherries, and pears, there are currently about 5000 workers that have come through the H2A visa program. That number is supposed to go up to over 20,000 when they reach peak harvest. We have seen just how exploitative this program is to workers.
The continental repression of Central Americans: interview with Víctor Interiano
I feel that within the imagination of most people who are neither Salvadoran, of Salvadoran descent, or Central American, El Salvador as a nation, people, and culture is a blank book with only four bookmarks for reference: the civil war, present-day mass migration, MS-13, and pupusas.
One of the greatest misconceptions and purposeful misrepresentations that has been constructed around El Salvador (and in general, Guatemala and Honduras) is a perpetual and contradictory dichotomy of simultaneous victimhood and criminality.
In the United States we are either pitiable victims of war, political repression, or poverty as long as we remain within our lands. But the moment we migrate, we become MS-13 terrorists and invaders that merit no asylum.
What is known about Salvadoran history and culture, even among progressive or leftist circles in the U.S., is largely informed from solidarity work around the 1980s civil war and interactions (between mostly white college students) and representatives of various liberation fronts.
Today, at times, it feels like many of our friends and allies still don’t know us.
This characteristic of being unknowable is not of our choosing or making. It is an unfortunate side-effect of the willful ignorance that comes with being absorbed into and propagating the hegemonic white supremacist culture of the United States.
Which is unfortunate, because to know us is to understand that Salvadorans are born fighters. Resistance is in our blood, from the anticolonial rebellion led by Anastasio Aquino in the 19th century, to the 1932 Indigenous Uprising, to the 1944 National Strike that brought down a dictatorship; we are a people in continuous mobilization for justice.
Las masacres de Gilroy y El Paso: Trump y la larga historia del racismo anti-mexicano en los Estados Unidos
Es triste decir que, al enterarme del tiroteo masivo del 28 de julio de2019 en el Festival del Ajo en Gilroy (“Gilroy Garlic Festival”), cometidopor un supremacista blanco, estaba desconcertado y enfurecido, mas nosorprendido. Días más tarde, mi conmoción, ira, y aprehensiónaumentaron cuando supe de otro tiroteo, también a manos de unsupremacista blanco, esta vez en El Paso, Tejas. Nuevamente, no mesorprendió que algo así pudiera suceder hoy en los Estados Unidos.
The Gilroy and El Paso massacres: Trump and the long history of anti-Mexican racism in the United States
It’s sad to say that I was shocked and angered but not surprised when I heard of the July 28, 2019 mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, which was carried out by a white supremacist. I felt more shock, anger, and apprehension a few days later when I heard of yet another mass shooting carried out by another white supremacist, this time in El Paso, Tejas. Again, I wasn’t surprised that something like this could happen in the U.S. today.
Trump started his campaign for president about three years ago by calling Mexicans “rapists” and “criminals.” He has called us “enemies” of the U.S. and promised to build a wall to keep us out of this country. Once in office, he has called Central Americans “animals,” and their nations “shithole countries.” Political pundits like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham have followed suit by claiming that immigration from poor countries makes the U.S. “dirty” and are “destroying America.” They have called Mexico a “hostile foreign power,’ implying that Mexicans in the U.S. are subversive agents. They have said that immigration is a threat to the U.S., which will lead to a less safe country and that it will result in the death of “America.”
The Mexican condition in the US
As of the 2010 census, there were 31,798,258 Mexicans in the U.S., out of a total population of 308,745,538 and out of a total Latino population of 50,477,594. Mexicans make up 10.1% of the total population in this country and 62.9% of Latinos. Most Mexicans live in the Southwest, 46.5% of Latinos are in California and Texas alone, an area that used to be part of Mexico.
Of the 31 million Mexicans in the U.S., 11.7 million were born in Mexico. In 2010, the average median earnings for them was $23,810, lower than the average of $33,130 for foreign born residents in the U.S. The percentage of these Mexicans living in poverty was 29%, higher than the national average of 10% and the national average for foreign born residents, which was 17%. 54% of immigrants from Mexico had less than a high school education, which is more than the national average of 9% and the national average for all foreign born of 27%. The percentage of Mexicans immigrants without a high school diploma was higher than for immigrants from Asia, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, South America, and Central America.
Of these Mexican immigrants, 4.9 million were undocumented in 2017, a drop from 6.9 million ten years earlier. The significant numbers of immigrants deported under Obama is in large part responsible for this decrease in numbers of undocumented Mexicans in the U.S. Over half (53%) of these immigrants live in California and Texas, with 10% living in Los Angeles County alone.
