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This report was given by Olga Rodriguez to the August 1976 SWP convention. Printed in SWP Internal Discussion Bulletin
Transcribed & marked up by Andrew Pollack for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The National Committee resolution on the Chicano struggle [“The Crisis of American Capitalism and the Struggle for Chicano Liberation”] states:
“Despite any temporary upturns, American capitalism has entered a long-term period of economic crisis and stagnation. The future will generally see higher, not lower, unemployment levels; high inflation rates; fewer, not more, social services; falling, not rising, standards of living for working people.
“In keeping with a centuries-old policy of divide and rule, the American ruling class will make every effort to shift a disproportionate burden of this economic crisis onto the Chicano population.”
A recent issue of the Spanish-language weekly El Sol de Texas offered a striking illustration of how Chicanos have fared under more than 100 years of American capitalist rule. While the bands struck up “The Yankee Doodle Boy” on the 200th birthday of the Declaration of Independence, health officials in New Mexico were treating Chicanos for bubonic plague. In another part of Aztlán— the Rio Grande Valley of Texas—a local television station aired a program last fall on the increased number of cases of leprosy in the “magic valley,” as the wealthy gringo ranchers call the area.
A common feature in these isolated regions of the Southwest that contributes to the thriving of diseases generally associated with the Dark Ages, or the most impoverished countries in the semicolonial world, is the absence of an adequate sanitation system. In many of the colonias of the valley, for example, running water is a rare service.
Infant mortality among Chicano migrant workers in these areas remains 125 percent higher than the national average, and the incidence of tuberculosis and other infectious diseases is 250 percent higher than in the rest of the country.
Chicanos in the barrios of major cities throughout the Southwest—where the bulk of the Chicano population lives— have not fared much better. Nearly one-third of the Chicano population in Aztlán occupy deteriorating and dilapidated housing.
These chronic problems plaguing the Chicano people are getting worse. The much-touted recovery of the economy has meant little to Chicanos. Nearly 13 percent of the Chicano work force was unemployed in March 1975. The jobless rate for Chicanos today remains nearly double the national average. In cities such as Los Angeles, Chicano unemployment is estimated by some to be as high as 45 percent, and for Chicano youth, a staggering 60 percent.
Chicanos had made some important economic and social strides forward in the late 1960s. But the effects of the last five years of economic crisis laid to rest the idea that the gap that separates the standards of living of Chicanos and whites could even be significantly narrowed, much less closed. The latest data available show that in 1974 the average Chicano family had an income of $9,498. That’s 74 percent of the income of $12,836 for the average family. More than one-third of all Chicano families live below the federal government’s poverty line. The income gap between Chicano and Anglo wages can be expected to widen.
Chicanos have been among the first victims of the government’s drive to roll back social gains. From the massive assault on social services, to the racist offensive abetted by the government at all levels, Chicano rights to equal education, decent housing, and jobs are being challenged.
A major component of this attack is the virulently racist campaign against Mexicanos and others living and working in the United States without immigration visas or work permits— the so-called illegal aliens.
The importance of this issue is underscored by the recent escalation of immigration raids and deportations in San Antonio. As the social and economic crisis of U.S. imperialism deepens, this issue will be driven to the fore. The conditions that compel Mexicanos and others to brave crossing the U.S. border without papers will become more severe in the period ahead.
Last April, the New York Times reported on a speech by Benjamin Holman, then director of the Community Relations Service, an agency of the U.S. Justice Department. Holman said that the present Latino population in the United States is fast approaching the 20 million mark. This figure represents those “citizen” Latinos whom the government counts, and the undocumented, or “illegal,” Latinos in the United States. This “brown tide” is “an evolving internal problem with both national and international consequences,” according to Holman.
The 1975 census update put the Latino population at 11.2 million—an increase of more than 1 million since 1970. The Immigration and Naturalization Service—la migra—estimates that there are more than 8 million workers from Latin America without immigration papers in the country today. Of these, 90 percent are Mexicanos. Sixty percent of us “legal” Latinos counted by the U.S. Census Bureau are Chicanos.
It is clear even from these distorted government studies that the Chicano population is growing. The question of further and more significant growth is posed by the massive Mexican immigration during the last decade.
In the first half of the twentieth century, Mexican immigration played a major role in boosting the size and social weight of the Chicano nationality. The Mexicanos who migrated then were quickly forced into the mold of oppression cast by American capitalist expansion in the Southwest in 1848.
While current immigration from Mexico needs closer study, it is safe to say that it is by far the most massive immigration ever from Mexico. Some important parallels and differences with earlier waves can be noted:
1. Mass immigration from Mexico in the past occurred during periods of deep social and economic upheaval—such as during and following the Mexican revolution which began in 1910, the worldwide depression of the 1930s, and during World War II. Semicolonial conditions in Mexico spurred immigration to the United States.
2. This immigration was encouraged by U.S. capitalism in the first half of the twentieth century. American capitalists were quick to recognize that the impoverished Mexicanos provide a highly exploitable, inexpensive labor pool. This was true particularly for the rapidly expanding agribusiness in the Southwest.
3. The basic pattern of Mexicano immigration had been from the rural areas in Mexico to the border towns in the Southwest.
Unlike their predecessors, the new Mexican immigrants tend to move directly to major cities in the Southwest and Midwest in hopes of finding jobs in industry. For example, it is estimated that the Latino population in the Chicago-Great Lakes area now exceeds that of New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado combined. While this includes Puertorriquenos and other Latinos, most of these new immigrants are from Mexico.
The capitalists complain about the differences between Mexicanos coming to the United States today and those who came in previous immigration waves. As one cop in San Antonio put it: “They are younger and younger and more and more are from the cities, rather than the rural areas, especially those from Mexico. For this reason,” he added in dismay, “they are better able to blend into the city’s culture, making them a lot harder to detect.”
The tempo at which these Mexicano immigrants will be absorbed into the Chicano nationality is something that we cannot determine. But as the crisis deepens, the capitalist rulers will proceed to roll back the social gains the American working class and its allies won over decades of class struggle. In the process the hysteria against all “foreign” workers—including Chicanos—will continue to be whipped up to a fever pitch.
The question of Mexican immigration is increasingly urgent for the Chicano movement. In addition to massive deportations, the government is on a campaign to wipe out bilingual programs. Of the 20 million Latinos estimated to be in the United States today, more than 80 percent view Spanish as their first language, according to government statisticians. Instead of expanding bilingual programs the government is cutting back the few such programs that exist. The capitalists are trying to ram legislation through to curtail the rights of Chicanos, as well as Mexicanos and other Latinos with and without papers. They will try to make the “illegal aliens” the scapegoats for more of the nation’s economic and social woes—from rising; unemployment to the increase in crime and disease. No one should be surprised if Pennsylvania health officials announce that the cause of the mysterious deaths in Philadelphia among patriotic American Legionnaires was the presence of “illegal aliens” working as waiters!
The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld the INS’s right to establish immigration checkpoints near the Mexican border, and its right to stop all those suspected of being “illegal aliens.” The high court’s decision reversed an earlier ruling by a San Francisco court to close such checkpoints, because they constituted a violation of the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
The Border Patrol checkpoints are a frightening and degrading experience for any Chicano or Mexicano. We are the ones stopped and shaken down as “suspected illegals” because we are brown. The Supreme Court’s decision strikes another blow to the democratic rights of Chicanos and all working people to travel freely without harassment.
The capitalists will continue to counterpose jobs to full democratic and civil rights for all who live and work in this country. The narrow-minded, racist labor bureaucracy is an enthusiastic advocate of the government’s drive against undocumented workers, helping to embolden la migra.
Both San Antonio daily newspapers ran the same anti-Mexicano series to alert the public to what they portrayed as disease-ridden, job-stealing criminals pouring across the border. The local affiliate of a major network featured three-minute editorial spots every night for several nights, warning of the “alien invasion.” From what people in San Antonio tell me, the television spots were aired with as much drama as if there were indeed an invasion from outer space.
The kind of hysteria that is being whipped up against Mexicanos without papers has the ring of the xenophobic campaign that was carried out during the 1940s. That drive led to a week of vicious attacks by rampaging Anglo servicemen on Chicanos and Mexicanos in Los Angeles in the so-called Pachuco, or Zoot Suit, Riots. Only it’s a little different today. Chicanos are less willing to tolerate such blatant racist attacks.
In addition to these deportations, the government is attempting to silence all opposition to its racist drive. The arrests last month of two Chicano movement leaders in San Antonio illustrate this. Ignacio “Nacho” Pérez, a leader of the San Antonio Raza Unida Party and former leader of MAYO [Mexican-American Youth Organization], was indicted on charges of “shielding illegal aliens from detection.” Mario Cantú, the other victim of the government’s frame-up, was arrested last month by U.S. marshals on a charge of conspiracy to “harbor illegal aliens.” Cantú, a well-known activist in the antideportation movement and longtime leader of the Chicano movement in San Antonio, committed the “crime” of demanding that immigration authorities produce a search warrant before raiding his restaurant.
In a city that is majority Chicano and Mexicano, it’s not easy for the capitalists to convince Chicanos that massive dragnet raids to hunt out undocumented Mexicanos in the barrios, at churches, at funerals and weddings, and on the job are in their interest as Chicanos!
Of course, the government tries. The capitalists use the media they control to convince Chicanos, who suffer high unemployment in San Antonio and elsewhere, that Mexicanos are stealing jobs that rightfully belong to Chicanos. But more and more Chicanos are rejecting this lie. They don’t accept that the only way they can have a job is to deny human and civil rights to their Mexican brothers and sisters who happen to lack work visas. The government is then forced to fall back on methods of intimidation and violence to convince Chicanos and everyone else that they will pay a price if they fight for the rights of undocumented Raza workers.
The arrests of Cantú and Pérez have already begun to generate an angry response from Chicanos and others in San Antonio.
The main task before the Chicano movement today is to mount a counteroffensive to this and other assaults on the rights and living standards of Chicanos. Unfortunately, the Chicano movement and its allies have lacked an organized and united response to the government campaign. Let’s take a look at where those forces that have mobilized in the past in defense of undocumented workers stand today.
CASA (Centre de Acción Social Autonomo) grew out of the struggles of Chicanos in 1968 in response to, deportation of Mexicanos. The organization was founded in Los Angeles by Bert Corona and is still looked on by most activists in the Chicano movement as the main antideportation organization. CASA, however, no longer sees itself as an organization that fights solely for the rights of undocumented workers. Its present leadership in Los Angeles has turned instead in a sectarian and workerist direction.
While CASA maintains that the issue of deportations is an important one facing working people, it has taken a step away from mobilizing mass actions in defense of Mexicanos and others without papers. The Los Angeles leadership of CASA, which basically sets policy for CASA supporters elsewhere, now defines CASA as a mass revolutionary workers’ organization. They stated in a special magazine they passed out to participants at the National Chicano Forum in Salt Lake City:
“... in summing up our experiences of the last decade and putting these experiences in the proper historical context of the Mexican workers’ involvement in class struggles both here and south of the border we come to the conclusion that we must: organize the unorganized, unite with honest forces committed to building Socialism, forge a unity for the historical task at hand, and be prepared to wage principled struggle for the unity of our people and our class.”
Their only proposal, for how to respond to massive deportations is contained in the “Call” in the same publication. They write:
“We call for the united resistance of the Mexican people. We must refuse to produce any documents in response to the racist demands of the immigration agents.”
While such sentiments of solidarity are admirable, they are hardly the way the mass of Chicanos and other working people— who are confused on the question of undocumented workers—can be convinced of the need to support and fight for the rights of Mexicanos and others without papers. In reality, the call for individual acts of resistance is an ultraleft cover for not organizing this important fight.
The slogan that CASA and other supporters of undocumented workers successfully organized around in the past is the one on the banner hanging in the front of this hall— “Raza Sí, Migra No! No deportations!”—that is the slogan that brought hundreds of people without papers into action demanding their rights.
The Socialist Workers Party stands on that slogan. We will work with CASA and anyone else who tries to mobilize people into action around this or similar demands. As revolutionary Marxists, we understand that ultimately the only solution to this problem is the abolition of imperialism’s borders. These borders were set up by the capitalists and divide us one from another. Our demand is “For a World Without Borders—Por un Mundo sin Fronteras!”
The escalation of deportations and stepped-up harassment of Mexicanos without papers poses new challenges to the Chicano movement. Many opportunities will arise when our party can help initiate actions along with others around this issue, as our comrades in San Antonio have been able to do. The new San Antonio branch’s quick response to the migra raids over the last two months has helped to present the party as a fighter for the rights of the most oppressed and exploited workers. This has won us new respect among Chicano activists in that city.
We want to work with CASA where possible. That organization continues to draw to its ranks some activists who seriously want to fight against la migra. CASA also attracts some Chicanos interested in the fight against U.S. imperialism in Latin America, particularly in the fight for Puerto Rican independence.
In this regard, it is important to point out that the Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP) has had an influence on the Chicano movement, especially on the leadership of CASA. An example of this is CASA’s evolving position on the Chicano nationality. Its position that there is no such thing as a separate Chicano nationality, but that Chicanos are simply part of the Mexican nationality, appears to be nothing more than a mechanical application of the PSP’s position on Puerto Ricans in the United States vis-a-vis Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico. The PSP and CASA Los Angeles have worked together on a number of activities—the most recent one being the July 4 actions for Puerto Rican independence. CASA was the main organizer of these demonstrations in San Antonio, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Later at this convention, Catarino Garza will discuss the PSP in his report on Puerto Ricans in the United States. Because of the growing solidarity among Chicanos with the movement for Puerto Rican independence and other struggles of the Puerto Rican people, and the attractiveness of the PSP to some sectors of the Chicano movement, it is important to understand the question of Puerto Rico.
A major component of the Chicano movement and its leadership is the Raza Unida parties. The activists in these parties, as well as other Chicano militants, face an immediate test with the upcoming presidential elections.
The Democratic and Republican shell game is already in full swing. We can expect that the pressure on the Chicano movement will be fierce. Many activists, including Raza Unida Party militants, will be taken in by the demagogy of the capitalist politicians—particularly the Democratic Party’s Carter-Mondale ticket.
A recent Militant interview with a young Raza Unida Party leader in Austin, Texas, indicated how some militants see the problems with the elections. He explained that the main difficulty facing the small Chicano parties is not so much to convince Chicanos not to vote for the Democrats, but, as this Chicano put it, “to change them from not voting, not participating,” in politics. He pointed out that in the major urban centers in the Southwest, more than 80 percent of the eligible Chicano voters are either not registered to vote, or are registered but simply don’t bother to vote.
At the January 1976 National Committee Plenum, Jack [Barnes, SWP national secretary] said:
“The polls show that more young people are independents, not Republicans or Democrats, than at any time since polling began. Many have the attitude, to hell with politics, it stinks. And they are right; capitalist politics stinks.” [“The Economic Squeeze and the Workers’ Response,” Prospects for Socialism in America (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1976), pp. 168-69.]
Well, that very sentiment is pervasive among Chicanos today, especially among Chicano youth. Like the majority of the electorate, Chicanos didn’t turn out for those charades they call the Democratic and Republican primaries. The central reason is that Chicanos didn’t see any reason why they should participate. Chicanos don’t yet see an alternative that represents and fights for Chicanos in the political and all other arenas of life in the United States on a year-round basis.
The Raza Unida parties represent the most advanced initiatives in the direction of a mass Chicano political party, independent of and in opposition to the Democratic and Republican parties. At the same time, however, they are small and are at different levels of development around the country.
It’s true that many Chicanos aren’t voting for the Democrats; that both capitalist; parties continue their policy of blatant disregard for the rights and needs of Chicanos. It would be a mistake to assume from this, however, that the Chicano masses no longer have illusions in the capitalist parties, or that the Democratic and Republican parties have abandoned the field to the Raza Unida parties.
On the contrary. Because of the absence of a mass labor party or mass Chicano political party and the lack of a tradition of independent working class political action and organizations in the labor movement and among its allies, Chicanos remain tied to the capitalist parties.
A recent issue of the Militant reported on two meetings Jimmy Carter had with Mexican-American leaders. The gatherings in Houston drew Chicano Democratic Party leaders from all over the Southwest. Carter had these meetings before the Democratic Party national convention in order to win the pledge of these so-called leaders to get out the Chicano vote for Carter. To woo his audience, Carter unveiled his position on undocumented workers at one of the meetings. Basically, his position is not unlike that of most capitalists. It boils down to: “Deport ‘em!”
These Mexican-American elected officials are not concerned with Carter’s position on la migra or any other problem Chicanos face. What they are most preoccupied with is securing a post or two in a Carter administration. Carter, for his part, has promised a place on his “intimate” staff for a Chicano if the Chicano vote is delivered and he wins the November election. I agree wholeheartedly with Miguel [Pendas]’s sentiments on this, which he expressed in the Militant These vendidos (sellouts) and Carter deserve each other!
As for Ford’s impact on Chicanos, the only thing I’ve been able to find is an article that appeared in the July 30-August 13 Chicano Times. The article is entitled “World’s Largest Tamale Enroute to White House,” and is datelined San Antonio:
“San Antonians gave the World’s Largest Tamale, a 100 lb. specimen, a hearty send-off when over 2,000 people attended a festival at Mission County Park July 27.
“The tamale is being presented to President Gerald Ford as San Antonio’s bicentennial gift to the nation’s president.
“The gift was sponsored by the National Taco Council.”
The article continues:
“The idea for a new tamale was proposed by Cecilio Maldonado. It was inspired by President Ford’s unique method of eating tamales. During President Ford’s recent trip to San Antonio he tried to eat both the shuck and the tamale.”
We can expect that Carter will try to win the same kind of activists in the Chicano movement that we want to win to our campaign. As Alberto Bustamante of the Viva Carter committee in San Antonio put it: “We do not want to exclude anyone who wants to help Carter, including the Raza Unida people and Republicans.”
In 1972 the Raza Unida parties had discussions on what attitude to take toward the presidential candidates that year. These parties were just beginning to be established in a number of new areas at that time. New partidos were established in New Mexico and Arizona, while the Texas and Colorado parties were in the midst of their most ambitious statewide election campaigns. These election campaigns helped establish Raza Unida groupings in such major cities as Houston, Fort Worth, and Corpus Christi.
The 1972 National Convention of the Raza Unida Parties indicated the depth of opposition to the Democratic and Republican parties. In spite of pressure from the Democrats— particularly the McGovern campaign—the convention took a firm position for maintaining the RUPs as independent parties and voted against support to either Nixon or McGovern.
While there is no indication that any of the Raza Unida parties around the country support Democrats in the coming elections, the pressure on them to do so is very great. There has not really been much discussion among Raza Unida Party leaders and activists on the elections. And there has been little preparation of the partido’s supporters for the 1976 elections.
The Texas Raza Unida Party, for example, decided against running a statewide election campaign. It opted instead for concentrating its efforts on winning offices in small South Texas towns where the Chicano majority could bring electoral victories. Because of this decision, there will be no Raza Unida alternative on the ballot for members and supporters of the partido in most major Texas cities. The absence of such campaigns or any other organized activities to involve RUP members and supporters makes it difficult to build the RUP in urban centers and to counter the Democratic and Republican candidates’ demagogy.
Pressure of a different kind is coming down on Raza Unida parties in places such as Crystal City and Zavala County, where the RUP has control of the city and county administrations. The RUP administrations are forced to rely on federal funds to ensure even basic social services for the impoverished town. These federal monies—totaling at least $10 million, according to the Dallas Times Herald—can be pulled back any time the capitalist politicians in Washington decide. The possibility of a change in the federal administration thus puts a very real pressure on the RUP administrations in these small towns.
The RUP in Colorado to our knowledge is not running candidates. The party there, and its leaders in the Crusade for Justice, continue to be the focus of a well-organized and well-executed government campaign of harassment and violence.
In California, some chapters of the Raza Unida Party in Los Angeles are petitioning to place several candidates for state legislative offices on the ballot in the November elections. Our comrades in Los Angeles are discussing how we can help the RUP in San Fernando in its effort to get candidates on the ballot. A leader of the San Fernando chapter of the RUP endorsed the SWP’s petitioning effort in California.
A slate of RUP candidates this fall in Los Angeles would be an important step in building the partido in that city.
The New Mexico party is one that we are just beginning to know better. The compańeros and compańeras who traveled from Nuevo Mexico to attend our convention are welcome, indeed. Our party looks forward to further and deeper collaboration with the RUP in New Mexico.
The New Mexico party is running an ambitious slate of candidates for county and local offices. It is also challenging one of the longest-standing, highest-ranked Chicano elected officials—Senator Joseph Montoya. We are sure the RUP candidate—Ernesto Borunda—will give this vendido a run for his money, and the money of his big-business backers. The New Mexico party has a lot of potential for growth through this campaign. The activists in this party are not only running in the elections to provide an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans at the ballot box, but also participating in the fight against cutbacks in education and attacks on bilingual-bicultural programs, and they have been involved for several years in a battle in Rio Arriba County against the sheriff, who has used his office to try to destroy the small party.
The partido is petitioning to get on the ballot. New Mexico is the only state where Chicanos are nearly half of the state’s population. Together with American Indians, they are the majority. As you know, the New Mexico partido decided to endorse the Camejo-Reid ticket. These Chicanos felt our “Bill of Rights for Working People” was in harmony with their Declaration of Human Rights—the partido’s platform. We welcome this support and hope that other politically independent-minded Chicano activists will follow the example of the New Mexico RUP.
Before going on, I want to say a few words about the recent government attack on the Raza Unida Party in Texas. There is no question that the capitalists want to prevent any mass independent Chicano political party from ever developing. They will use any method they can to stop initiatives in that direction, as they did to destroy the Black Panther Party.
The Crystal City Raza Unida Party, which was the first such independent formation in Texas and which currently has a majority on the school board, city council, and Zavala County offices, is divided into two factions. One faction opposes the leadership of José Angel Gutiérrez, the founder of the RUP, charging he runs the party like a dictator. This faction recently won a majority of seats on the Crystal City school board. The other wing of the partido there maintains a majority of county offices. Both factions in the party claim to oppose the Democratic and Republican parties. The split has brought bitter charges and countercharges from each side against the other. The capitalists have been quick to take advantage of the divisions in the partido to try to destroy it.
Last June, two former RUP school superintendents from Crystal City and another RUP former city official were indicted on eleven counts of official misconduct and theft. According to an article in the Dallas Times Herald, the indictments are the initial results of a Texas grand jury investigation of the Crystal City and Zavala County administrations. The investigation, which is still in progress, was requested by the Texas Education Agency, allegedly after complaints from anti-Gutierrez school board members.
In addition to this attack on the Crystal City Raza Unida Party, Ramsey Muńiz and his brother have been arrested on charges of possession of illegal drugs with intent to sell. Muńiz was the RUP’s candidate in the 1972 and 1974 gubernatorial races in Texas. Next to Gutierrez, he is perhaps the best-known leader and spokesperson for the Raza Unida Party.
What is obviously behind these indictments and the grand jury probe is a concerted effort to discredit the leadership of the Raza Unida Party and the partido itself in the eyes of the Chicano masses. We must see these attacks as yet another attempt by the rulers to isolate, discredit, and destroy the Raza Unida Party in Crystal City and throughout Texas. If such a campaign succeeds, it would be a serious blow to independent action by Chicanos and all working people.
We will cover these developments in our press and tell the truth about who the real crooks are. It’s not the Raza Unida parties. The real criminals and corrupters of politics are the Democrats and Republicans who run the government. Their crimes not only involve the theft of millions of dollars through kickbacks and bribes, or defending the world’s most hated criminals, or spying on, intimidating, and harassing their opponents, but the murders of millions upon millions of the oppressed and exploited around the world.
The spectacle of these modern-day Jesse Jameses in the Texas attorney general’s office—with the aid of those “lovers of Chicano rights,” the Texas Rangers—charging the RUPs with misconduct and theft is disgusting!
If responded to politically, the attack can be turned around to the benefit of the RUPs and all opponents of the capitalist parties. It can help to unmask the real crooks. We would be the first to add our voices to a call by the Raza Unida Party of Crystal City and Texas to demand that all government files on these parties and on the entire Chicano movement be opened up to expose the disruption and COINTELPRO-like programs the capitalists have carried out and are carrying out in an effort to destroy the RUPs and the Chicano movement.
Attempts to destroy the United Farm Workers union provide another example of the government’s anti-Chicano campaign. The fifteen-year struggle by the UFW in California has been met with violence, sabotage, and assassination in an unrelenting drive to crush the union. The Democratic Party has been a leading participant in this campaign from the very beginning, not only in California, but in Texas, Florida, Ohio, and everywhere campesinos fight for justice in the fields.
It is a testimony to the deep commitment and militancy of the campesinos, and the international solidarity they have inspired, that this highly organized effort by the agribusiness monopolies, abetted by the Democrats and Republicans, has failed up to this point.
The passage of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA) gave the UFW a chance to challenge the growers and Teamster bureaucrats for the allegiance of the campesinos. The law itself was weighted against the UFW, and in a number of key respects represented big concessions on the part of the farm workers’ union. The growers and Teamster bureaucrats for their part blatantly flouted the law, with no response from the so-called friends of the UFW in the California state legislature or governor’s mansion.
But, despite massive rigging, intimidation, violence, and right-wing vigilante attacks against it, the UFW won a stunning 68 percent of the union representation elections. There is no room for doubt that the UFW is the choice of farm workers in California’s fields.
It is this that the growers, their allies in the Teamster officialdom, and the capitalist politicians—including Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr.—find hard to swallow. That is what motivates them to undermine even their own law—the ALRA.
The UFW is in a critical stage in its struggle in California. The fight that began there in 1965, and escalated in 1973 with the Teamster bureaucrats signing sweetheart contracts with grape growers, is far from over. The outcome can mean either a tremendous leap forward in the job of organizing the nation’s three million unorganized farm workers, or another setback in the long uphill battle to win collective-bargaining rights and justice for the campesinos.
The UFW has survived up to this point because it uses methods and strategies radically different from those employed by the AFL-CIO union bureaucracy. The UFW’s roots among the superexploited campesinos and the Chicano masses run very deep. And the UFW has appealed to Chicanos and other allies for support. But, in at least one important respect, the UFW is like traditional trade unions in that, in trying to win its aims, the UFW leaders place heavy reliance on the Democratic Party and politicians like Edmund G. Brown, Jr.
The Democratic Party’s role last spring in strangling the Agricultural Labor Relations Board [ALRB] is only the latest effort on its part to cheat the farm workers out of their victories. After the California legislature defeated a motion to fund the ALRB, UFW leaders announced the union would petition to place an initiative on the ballot to get California voters to adopt a bill that would take the farm labor act out of the hands of the state legislature and make funding automatic. Because they hoped that Governor Brown would put such an initiative on the ballot for them, the farm workers postponed petitioning for several weeks In a letter appealing for funds to aid in the effort to get the proposition on the California ballot, César Chávez blamed the demise of the ALRB on “rural Democrats and Republicans in the legislature.” The fact is that it was liberal Democrats, led by Leo McCarthy, speaker of the California assembly, who fought hard to prevent appropriations for the board. And Brown did nothing to oppose this cynical move to nullify the UFW gains in the elections.
While Chávez correctly attacked McCarthy for his role in sabotaging the ALRB, he remained silent on Brown’s role Leo McCarthy was rewarded for his work when he was appointed Browns presidential campaign manager. Chávez broke the silence around Brown and placed his name in nomination for the Democratic Party presidential candidate at the national convention.
We have to keep in mind that the United Farm Workers union is a product of the radicalization of the 1960s. The union has tremendous moral authority and support among Chicanos and others fighting for social justice—and rightly so.
The fact that the UFW was able to collect more than 700,000 signatures in a record twenty-nine days to place its initiative on the California ballot shows the real potential the campesinos have. The UFW can get Proposition Fourteen—the farm labor initiative-passed only if they rely on their own strength and that of their supporters across the country. This is the best weapon they have to beat the grower-paid Madison Avenue admen who are pouring into California to inundate television, radio, newspapers, and billboards with slick advertising to sway supporters of the UFW. The growers are already raising a $2.5 million war chest to defeat the measure.
The human billboards that went out at 6 a.m. to win support for Democrat Tom Hayden in his bid for the Democratic Party nomination for U.S. senator from California; the hard-working boycott staffers in Baltimore who were told to go to New Jersey to work for Brown in the primaries in that state; and the dedicated UFW volunteers who worked hard at La Paz’s [UFW national headquarters] request to get people to write in Brown in the Oregon primaries are important and invaluable resources for the UFW. If reoriented to concentrate their efforts on mobilizing support for the boycott, they can beat the Madison Avenue admen at their own game.
The campesinos have worked too hard, sacrificed too much, and fought too long; to he asked to place their hopes on any capitalist politician—much less a reconverted Jesuit backstabber like Brown or a “born again” peanut entrepreneur like Carter. Every single gain the campesinos have won has been won through their own efforts and those of people around the country and the world who support them. Every victory the campesinos have chalked up has been in spite of the Democrats and Republicans.
The only consistent allies of the UFW are in the Chicano barrios throughout the Southwest, on the campuses, in the factories and workplaces, and everywhere people are fighting for their rights and for justice.
The recent merger of the UFW with the Puerto Rican farm workers’ organization—ATA (Asociación de Trabajadores Agrícolas)—helps mobilize another important ally of the campesinos—Puerto Ricans in this country and in Puerto Rico. These are the campesinos’ allies, not the Browns, Carters, and Kennedys, who have helped at every turn to cheat the farm workers out of their hard-fought victories.
We will continue to build support for and participate in UFW boycott activities wherever we can. We support the efforts of other farm workers trying to win justice, such as those in Texas and Florida and the Midwest. We see these struggles as complementary to and giving reinforcement to the struggles of the UFW in California. The campesinos need and deserve one strong fighting union in the United States. That is our perspective, and we believe every effort by farm workers across this country is an important step in that direction that should be actively supported arid aided.
The campesinos have a difficult task ahead of them. To defend the gains already won and to progress in the fight to organize the three million farm workers, it is necessary to fight not only the growers, but the Democratic and Republican parties. A break by the UFW from the stranglehold of the Democratic Party and charting a course independent of both capitalist parties along with other Chicanos like those in the Raza Unida parties would be a giant step forward for the campesinos themselves in their own struggles. It would be a powerful example for all Chicanos and working people to follow.
The dialogue we have carried on with the UFW activists and supporters in the pages of the Militant on this important question of political independence has not been without its effect. It has helped to win people over to a perspective of a massive boycott movement, independent of maneuvers by the Democrats, and it will convince more. The roots of this union among Chicanos, the character of the movement as la causa, means that the UFW leadership can respond to the pressure of new events and reevaluate its positions and perspectives. The new challenges that are being posed for the entire Chicano movement and the trade union movement will generate new struggles among the campesinos, as well as new leaders.
The defense of the UFW remains a central task before both the Chicano and labor movements.
It is not only out of the struggles in the fields, in the schools, on the job, that new leadership for the Chicano movement will develop. The fight of Chicanas against their triple oppression in American society is pushing forward some of the most militant and capable leaders of the Chicano people in the fight for liberation.
In his 1910 speech to Mexican women, Ricardo Flores Magón, a leader of the Partido Liberal de Mexico and revolutionary journalist and agitator, called upon la mexicana to support the revolution. Magón argued:
“Man’s bondage is yours and perhaps yours is more sorrowful, more sinister and more infamous. . . .
“Humiliated, degraded, bound by the chains of tradition to an irrational inferiority, Indoctrinated in the affairs of heaven by clerics, but totally ignorant of world problems, she [woman] is suddenly caught in the whirlwind of industrial production which above all requires cheap labor to sustain the competition created by the voracious ‘princes of capital’ who exploit her circumstances. . . .
“Companeras ... in times of anguish, do not look up to the heavens for solutions and explanations because in that lies the greatest contribution to your eternal bondage. The solution is here on earth. That solution is rebellion.”
The young Chicanas today are responding to the appeals Magón made to their sisters in Mexico more than fifty years ago. Only this time, the rebelliousness is deeper. Chicanas demand more than a supportive role in the struggle for liberation. They want to be, are, and will be part and parcel of the leadership of the battles Chicanos as a whole wage against oppression. Moreover, Chicanas are demanding—and correctly so—that the Chicano movement take up the struggles of Chicanas and recognize their demands as important and central to the overall fight for the liberation of all of La Raza.
Consciousness about the role of feminism in the Chicano struggle has made progress since the time when it was common for Chicano leaders to state that the role of la chicana was to “stand behind her man” in the fight for liberation. But rising consciousness among Chicanas of their oppression as women over the last half decade and the penetration of the ideas of feminism in society as a whole have made such open anti-Chicana statements unacceptable. This does not necessarily mean that Chicanas no longer have to fight against such attitudes. The necessary discussion and debate on the role of Chicana feminism and the fight for Chicana rights in the Chicano movement has only just begun. It is an essential discussion for the advancement of the fight for Chicano liberation, and we have something very important to bring to such a discussion.
Chicanas are participating in several important struggles now, such as the fight against forced sterilization and for child care. We want to be part of these struggles and report them in our press.
We want to hold forums on the importance to Chicanas of the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, and to involve Chicana activists in a discussion on this important issue. There is still a lot of confusion within the Chicano movement on what the ERA represents.
Another issue that is beginning to cause angry explosions in Chicano barrios across the country is cop killings and general police brutality in the Chicano community. This issue has galvanized Chicanos into action and forced organizations that previously relied almost exclusively on court actions not only to participate in protest activities, but in some cases to initiate and lead such fights.
The case of the cop killing in Castroville, which is near San Antonio, is a good example of this. The murder of Ricardo Morales by a racist cop and the light sentence this cop got in the courts has brought together a broad coalition of forces in the Chicano community. The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is playing a leading role in pressing demands that the federal government reopen the case. The federal government’s refusal to respond to these demands was met with a chorus of denunciations by Chicano and civil liberties leaders. The pressure was so great that even Lloyd Bentsen, U.S. senator from Texas, was forced to add his voice to those demanding a federal investigation into the killing.
The San Antonio SWP is participating in this fight to bring the racist cop to justice. Through this, the party is becoming known and respected by Chicano activists in the city. Our work in the protests against the killings of Chicanos in National City, San José, and Oakland are helping to establish our branches in the Chicano communities in these cities.
The discussions and debates on perspectives taking place in the Chicano movement today are part of a process of trying to come to grips with the big questions and challenges posed by the economic crisis and its effects on the Chicano masses. Different things can happen and different groups can play new roles.
The party is part of these discussions. We are in a different position than we were in in 1971. At our convention in 1971, we made a big step forward in coordinating our participation in the Chicano struggles. Our party was new to many of the radicalizing Chicano activists.
Today, the SWP is seen by thousands of movement activists as the socialists. The Militant is respected and recognized as an important voice defending Chicanos and telling the truth about their struggles. The revolutionary socialist analysis of events in the Chicano struggle as well as other developments in the class struggle are reprinted in many Chicano newspapers. More and more Chicano SWPers are seen by Chicano movement activists as important participants and leaders in the unfolding discussions of perspectives.
The extent to which the party and our ideas are seen as a legitimate part of the Chicano movement was driven home to me at the National Chicano Forum in Salt Lake City in May. At that conference, our members took the floor in discussions about the role of socialism in the Chicano struggle, why Chicanos should support the ERA, and the other debates. In one workshop, one of our members was a little taken aback when, after introducing himself as a supporter of the Socialist Workers presidential ticket, he got a rousing ovation.
The interest in our ideas was reflected in the informal political discussions we had with participants, as well as the brisk business at the Pathfinder literature table and the sales of Militant subscriptions to 53 of the 400 conference participants. At least as many already had subscriptions or read the paper regularly. The hottest seller at the Chicano forum was our analysis of the present crisis, Prospects for Socialism in America. Nearly thirty Chicano militants bought copies at the conference.
The absence of any serious red-baiting or attempts to exclude us from the conference—a problem that marred earlier movement conferences—is an indication of the growing interest in socialism in general. It was also a reflection of the respect with which our members and our party are viewed by growing numbers of Chicanos.
For those of us who have participated in the Chicano movement for a while, the change is striking. The advances our party has made in this work, our deeper understanding of the movement, are not the result of fancy maneuvers or gimmicks. They are the result of patient, consistent, and persistent propaganda activity and initiatives. The role the Militant has played and will continue to play shouldn’t be underestimated in the work of increasing our effective participation in Chicano struggles.
You may recall that shortly after our 1971 convention, the Militant decided to send Harry Ring, one of its central staff members, to Los Angeles to establish and head the Southwest bureau of the paper. That decision was based on an understanding of the importance of the rise of Chicano nationalism for the American revolution, and thus the need to closely follow in our press developments in the Chicano struggle. This was particularly the case with the developing Raza Unida parties and the farm workers’ movement.
Through the Militant and our election campaigns, the party has become known to growing numbers of Chicanos as a revolutionary defender of the rights of undocumented Mexicano workers, the farm workers, the Raza Unida parties, and the emerging struggles of Chicanas. This is what helps to win respect and increasing numbers of Chicano cadres to our party.
What we have to do in the period ahead is more—much, much more—of the same.
Our election campaigns, particularly the presidential campaign of Camejo and Reid, give us the best opportunity to reach with our ideas literally thousands of radicalizing Chicanos. They are waiting to hear about us. Peter [Camejo] will be going to New Mexico for several days in the fall on a tour that the New Mexico RUP is organizing for him.
As the only presidential campaign that supports the farm workers unconditionally, demands an end to la migra’s racist deportations, supports the independent campaigns of Raza Unida parties, fights for bilingual and bicultural education and for the right of the Chicano people to control their own communities, we have unprecedented opportunities to win support among Chicanos.
We want to go on a major drive following this convention to win new campaign supporters and new Chicano militants to our ranks. The national campaign committee is launching a drive to sign up more Chicano endorsers. We are asking these endorsers to put their names on a campaign ad appealing to others in the Chicano community to support and vote for Camejo and Reid this November. The ad will be placed in a variety of Chicano publications in order to reach and win the support of even more Chicanos with our ideas through our election campaign.
We already have an important start with the endorsements of the New Mexico Raza Unida Party and of the editors of Caracol, a Chicano magazine published in San Antonio, among others. Those endorsements are not flukes, in our opinion. They reflect what is going on in the Chicano movement and real opportunities for our party to win further significant support among Chicanos.
Sales of the Militant and subscriptions to the Militant remain an indispensable task in our participation in Chicano struggles. The subscription drive we’re launching out of this convention provides us with a very important opportunity to meet and talk to hundreds of Chicanos who are looking for an alternative to this rotten system.
The launching of a new Spanish-language magazine similar in content to Intercontinental Press is going to give us a unique tool for reaching a layer of politicizing Chicanos we could not reach before, because of the lack of a Spanish-language organ. This magazine cannot be, and is not, a substitute for a newspaper in Spanish similar to the Militant addressed to the growing Latino population in this country. We need such a publication; and we will have it when we have the finances and Spanish-speaking personnel necessary to make it possible.
The mass revolutionary party in the United States will be a bilingual party. That means that growing numbers of American revolutionists must make an effort to learn to speak and understand the language of an important and growing component of the coming American revolution. James P. Cannon [late SWP national chairman] thought that the study of languages was so important that he refers to this throughout his Letters from Prison [New York: Pathfinder Press, 1973]. He himself dedicated months of study to this important project.
Some of our new party branches in areas with large Chicano, Puerto Rican, and other Latino populations are offering classes to those members interested in studying Spanish. Efforts of these kinds will stand the party in good stead for future battles.
As revolutionary Marxists, we understand that Chicano liberation cannot be fully realized without the American socialist revolution. The resolution before us for consideration concludes:
“Only a party that is deeply rooted in the working class, especially among its most oppressed sectors, can lead the American working class and its allies to power. This involves systematic work in all sectors of the mass movement to recruit the most capable fighters to the party. There is no way that the working class can achieve its aims unless it brings together in a common fighting party and develops into revolutionary cadres the most resolute revolutionists of the working class and the best fighters from all the oppressed national minorities—Black, Chicano, Puerto Rican, Native American, and Asian-American.
“As the nucleus of the future mass revolutionary socialist party, the SWP puts forward a program and perspective of struggle that can help mobilize Chicanos and all working people to fight for their interests. The working class cannot achieve its goals without the Chicano people and other nationally oppressed peoples achieving theirs.
“The deepening contradictions of U.S. imperialism and the heavy burden this will place on the Chicano population will generate increased smuggles in the period ahead. The SWP must be a part of these struggles, rooting itself more deeply in the Chicano masses.”
Central to our work in the Chicano struggle is to win more Chicano revolutionists to our party and to educate and train them as revolutionary cadres. Our ability to do this, as the resolution states, “will be a fundamental test of our capacities as a revolutionary party.”
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