US Imperialism

March 7, 2020

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.

January 31, 2020

by Justin Akers Chacón

Declaración en solidaridad con los refugiados centroamericanos

La semana pasada, el ejército Mexicano, actuando como policía fronteriza, atacó a cientos de civiles migrantes indefensos, la mayoría de los cuales son de Centro Américanos, con spray de pimienta, matando al menos a una persona y arrestando a más de 800 personas que buscaban asilo.

Nosotros, MeXicanos, nacidos o con raíces en México, viviendo en los Estados Unidos, denunciamos el uso de violencia militar por parte del gobierno de Estados Unidos y de México en contra de migrantes inocentes. Además, rechazamos los esfuerzos de Estados Unidos para controlar y militarizar las fronteras de Centroamérica, por medio de acuerdos ejecutivos con México, Guatemala, Honduras y El Salvador, que van en contra de la política de movimiento libre que existía anteriormente entre estos países.

January 31, 2020

by Puntorojo Editorial Collective

Statement of solidarity with Central American refugees

Last week, the Mexican military, acting as border enforcement, attacked hundreds of unarmed migrant civilians, most of whom are Central American, with tear gas, killing at least one person and arresting more than 800 asylum seekers, more than 350 of whom were deported this tuesday.

As MeXicanos, born in or with roots in Mexico, living in the U.S. we strongly denounce the United States and Mexican government’s use of military violence against innocent migrants. Moreover, we oppose the United States efforts to enforce and militarize Mexico’s southern border and those of Central America, including Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, going against a policy of free movement that previously existed between these countries.

January 23, 2020

by Justin Akers Chacón

Abriendo la frontera a través de la lucha de clases y solidaridad

El capitalismo norteamericano se ha transformado en dos realidades superpuestas, y aun así totalmente contradictorias para el capital y el trabajo. En ninguna parte es esto más evidente que observando lo que ha sucedido entre los Estados Unidos y México en las últimas tres décadas. A través de los auspicios del estado, sus dos principales partidos políticos y sus homólogos menores a través de las fronteras nacionales, la clase capitalista de los Estados Unidos ha transformado la región en una economía singular para el capital sin fronteras.[1]

January 13, 2020

by Justin Akers Chacón

Opening the border through class struggle and solidarity

North American capitalism has been transformed into two over-lapping, yet starkly contradictory realities for capital and labor. Nowhere is this more apparent than through observation of what has taken place between the United States and Mexico over the last three decades. Through the aegis of the state, its two major political parties, and its junior counterparts across national boundaries, the US capitalist class has transformed the region into a singular borderless economy for capital.

Integration in this form has been accomplished through what are mischaracterized as “free-trade agreements” (FTAs). These were imposed under authoritarian conditions. Freedom was conspicuously absent when FTAs were dictated to the Mexican people during economic crisis as conditional in exchange for emergency loans. These “structural adjustment programs” required by outside entities such as the International Monetary

December 20, 2019

by Lupita Romero

Bernie Sanders’s immigration plan: a response from the front-lines of struggle

I live in Queens, New York, one of the most diverse areas in the country. I arrived from Mexico as a child in the post 9/11 period of social militarization, carried out under the veil of “national security”. This era has been marked by scapegoating and repression. Between Republican’s nauseatingly racist attacks on our civil rights and the shallow support of establishment Democrats, the voice of undocumented immigrants is ignored in elections if it does not fall in line behind the Democratic Party, or if we go beyond merely focusing our efforts to register our documented community to vote “blue”.

Despite being taxpayers, we are not allowed to vote, run for office or donate to, fund-raise, or directly campaign for candidates in most local elections and in no state or federal elections. For this reason, civil society and immigrant rights organizations are constrained to waging limited legal challenges and legislative reforms that rely on building alliance with Democrats at the cost of independent action and accountability to the larger community. This marginalization in the electoral arena

December 17, 2019

by Blas Reies

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.”

November 22, 2019

by Blas Reies

Lessons from the coup in Bolivia

What is happening in Bolivia is a coup d’état by the racist, right-wing, and fascist forces
of the country. These are forces that are working to facilitate the attempts of the Anglo-
American imperialists to exploit Bolivia’s resources.

This coup is a threat to the peasants, workers, poor, women, and indigenous people of
Bolivia. It is an undisputed fact that the social programs implemented by the government of Evo
Morales have improved the lives of these people. For example, it has greatly decreased the
percentage of people that live in poverty, it has diminished the level of economic inequality, it
introduced the teleférico public transit system in La Paz, it has built new roads, and it has given
economic aid to the most vulnerable sectors of society.

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.