The Chicano Struggle and
Proletarian Revolution in the U.S.
A Paper for
Discussion
by a writing group of the
Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
June 2001
Introduction
In the fall of 1999 the Revolutionary Communist Party,
USA launched a great project--to produce a new programme for revolution in
the U.S.A. A party programme is a kind of road map for destroying the old
and creating the new. It is a tool for understanding society and the
world, and for identifying the forces who will make revolution. After much
work and with the efforts of many forces--combining the results of
research and investigation together with all the Party has learned over 25
years of experience in grasping and applying the revolutionary science of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM)--the RCP,USA has produced a new Draft
Programme! Now we are calling on people around the country to get their
hands on this Draft Programme, study it, and get down with us to wrestle
with its contents.
Our Party understands that to make revolution it takes
a big united front under the leadership of the working class (the
proletariat). And the key alliance--or the solid core--of
the united front the proletariat must build under its leadership is the
revolutionary alliance of the multinational class-conscious proletarian
movement as a whole together with the struggles of the Black, Chicano,
Puerto Rican, Native American, and other oppressed peoples against the
common enemy--the imperialist system and bourgeois dictatorship. The
struggles of the oppressed nationalities against their oppression as
peoples are a tremendously powerful force for revolution. All this is
definitely true for the Chicano people's struggle.
To better understand the changes in the makeup, the
conditions of life, and the struggle of Chicanos since the Party's last
programme was written over 20 years ago, a team under the leadership of
the Party was asked to carry out research and investigation into the lives
of the Chicano people and the Chicano movement today. We hit the library,
met with Chicano scholars and researchers, and interviewed many
youth--from those whose families have lived in New Mexico for five
generations to the children of recent immigrants.
The new Draft Programme incorporates the results of
that investigation, and we strongly urge everyone reading this paper to
also read the Draft Programme. But because the history and present-day
reality of the Chicano people is as complicated as it is important, the
Party has asked the team to write this position paper, to explain in more
detail the Party's analysis of the source of and solution to the
oppression of the Chicano people concentrated in the new Draft Programme,
and what that analysis is based on. While it puts forward and elaborates
on the Party's position on this question, as set forth in the Draft
Programme, this paper should be read more as a "paper for discussion" than
our "final word" on these questions. We hope that this paper will
contribute to and stimulate broad discussion and debate over the Party's
Draft Programme as a whole, while advancing and deepening our collective
understanding of why and how the proletarian revolution can put an end to
the national oppression that Chicanos face, as part of ending all
oppression.
A significant development in the past decade has been
the emergence of a new generation of Chicano youth that are busting
out into the streets in political action. These youth were energized
by the 1992 L.A. Rebellion that saw Black and other Latino(1)
proletarians and other basic masses rise up after
4 cops were acquitted in spite of the fact that their brutal beating
of Rodney King was caught on videotape for the whole world to see.
Chicano and Latino youth played a powerful role in the student walkouts
and protests against the anti-immigrant ballot measure Proposition
187 in California. And they were inspired and further challenged by
the rebellion of hundreds of indigenous peasants in Chiapas on January
1st, 1994--the day NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) went
into effect.(2)
Since then this new generation has been resisting the
war on immigrants and the militarization of the border from Texas to
California; battling to defend ethnic studies and affirmative action
programs under attack in California, and to win them on campuses in the
Midwest and East Coast; fighting against police brutality, repression and
the criminalization of a generation nationwide; taking part in the
international movement targeting the WTO/IMF and imperialist
globalization; and more.
The great leader of the Chinese revolution and the
world proletarian revolution--Mao Tsetung--once said: first people fight,
and then they seek philosophy. What he meant is that first people are
drawn into the struggle against injustice, and then that struggle itself
leads them to dig deeper into the causes for that
injustice--and other injustices--in search of the solution for
ending them. That definitely describes what is going on
today among growing sections of youth in general, including this new
Chicano generation. They aren't sitting around just taking these
attacks--they are "fighting in the daytime" and "debating philosophy at
night." Many of them are trying to find the answers to deep questions
about how to end the oppression faced by Chicanos and Latinos generally in
the U.S.--and how that relates to the overall struggle of oppressed and
exploited people here in the U.S., across the border in what U.S.
imperialism arrogantly calls its "back yard," and around the world. Why
are things the way they are, and how can they be radically changed? What
kind of change is needed, possible, and desirable? And what is it going to
take to bring that about? Our Party's new Draft Programme and this paper
need to find their way into the hands of all those searching for the
answer to "how to change the world."
Some Important Questions
In carrying out this investigation some basic questions emerged
that we think are key to understanding the specific history and
present-day reality of the Chicano people and the Party's analysis of the
Chicano national question. One question that has come up is who makes up
the Chicano oppressed nationality--who is a Chicano? As the Draft
Programme describes:
"The history of the Chicano people is rooted in the
conquest of the Southwest by the U.S. ruling class in the war they waged
on Mexico in 1846-48, the domination of U.S. imperialism over Mexico, the
maintenance of backward conditions in large parts of the Southwest, and
the persecution and exploitation of Mexican immigrants. Dispossessed of
their land, treated as foreigners in territory stolen by the U.S.,
persecuted if they defend their right to a culture and language different
from that of the European-American nation, discriminated against in jobs,
housing, education, and all realms of U.S. society--this common economic
and social history, and these shared conditions of oppression,
persecution, and discrimination, have forged the Chicano people into an
oppressed nationality within the U.S.
"Many Chicanos trace their roots to the Southwest
while many more are descendants of waves of immigrants from Mexico. The
Chicano people are historically linked to the Southwest and are
concentrated there today. But there are significant population
concentrations of Chicanos living in other parts of the U.S. Even within
the Southwest, Chicanos can differ in their language and culture. But
Chicanos share the common experience of oppression which is reproduced and
reinforced through the maintenance of the Southwest as a relatively
backward and impoverished region, imperialist domination of Mexico and the
superexploitation in the U.S. of immigrants drawn from Mexico, and the
caste-like concentration of Chicano and Mexicano people in the lower rungs
of the U.S. proletariat." (Draft Programme, p. 97)
Many of the youth in the forefront of the battles
today are the children of Mexican immigrants. These youth reflect one of
the distinguishing (and complicating) aspects of the Chicano national
question--the fact that the Chicano nationality is continually being added
to through the ongoing arrival of new immigrants from Mexico. As Mexican
immigrants remain in the U.S., many of them--and especially their
children--become incorporated into the Chicano national minority. Thus
Chicanos are a distinct, but also very diverse population, made up of
people of Mexican descent who were born, or who grew up, in the U.S. That
can mean having roots that go back to the Southwest before the U.S.
conquest, or having been born in Oaxaca in southern Mexico and emigrating
to the U.S. It can mean growing up in Chicago or San Antonio speaking
English, or in Los Angeles first speaking Spanish and then being ridiculed
in school until you mastered English. Getting a deeper understanding of
this diversity, and at the same time what it is that welds the Chicano
people into a distinct, oppressed nationality--and how that affects their
lives, their struggle, and the path to liberation--is one of the goals of
this paper.
This leads to another important, related
question--what it means to say that Chicanos are an oppressed national
minority. The great majority of Chicanos who are now concentrated in the
urban centers--mainly in the Southwest but also in the Midwest and
increasingly around the country--were not dispersed there from the
countryside of the Southwest, but from the countryside and cities of
Mexico. And this has occurred mainly since 1910. In addition, as we'll see
in the analysis of the history of the Chicano people that follows, the
actual history of the Southwest shows that in those areas of the U.S.
where Chicanos have lived for many, many generations, they did not develop
into a nation. We will address the difference between a nation and a
national minority in more detail later in this paper. But it should be
clear that recognizing that the Chicano people are an oppressed national
minority, not a nation, is important in order to see how
to fight for the emancipation of the Chicano people, not
whether Chicanos have a right to be free.
All of this points to the strategic significance of
the fact that U.S. imperialism shares a 2,000 mile border with a
country--Mexico--that it brutally dominates and exploits. The history and
present-day struggle of the Chicano people is inextricably bound up with
the domination of Mexico and the superexploitation of the Mexican
immigrants forced to come here as a result. Even though the paths to
revolution are different on the two sides of the border, the people of the
U.S. and the people of Mexico have a common enemy and a common struggle to
overthrow the criminal rule of the U.S. capitalist imperialist system.
Already we have seen in recent years the ways in which struggles on either
side of the border have reverberated across "la línea." For this
reason, the growing struggles of the Chicano and Mexicano people
in the U.S. are important in their own right and at the same time
represent a potentially powerful force linking--and strengthening--the
revolutionary movements on both sides of the border.
There are 3 parts to this paper: Part I looks at the
history and the present-day conditions of the Chicano people. Part II gets
into the underlying sources of the oppression of the Chicano people, and
how the victory of proletarian revolution and establishing a socialist
state can uproot all that oppression. And Part III comments on some of the
different views and programs that are out there within the movement today,
and where we have unity and where we have differences over what will bring
true liberation.
Part I: The History
and Present Conditions of the Chicano People
The day-to-day reality of the Chicano people is
marked with the scars of oppression and exploitation: the young, bald and
brown Chicano who has had his face pushed up against a wall by the police
more times than he can remember; the Chicano families where the parents
have slaved a lifetime making capitalists rich while they can barely make
ends meet; the Chicano college freshman who has overcome the "savage
inequalities" of an inner city education only to hear in not-so-soft
whispers that he or she is "only there because of affirmative action"; all
the Chicanos slapped on the back of the hand with a ruler for speaking
Spanish in school or swept into Special Ed classes because their first
language is Spanish; the Chicanos who are constantly fed the "John Wayne"
myth that the defenders of the Alamo were "heroes" who died at the hands
of those "bad" Mexicans. All this and more is the weight the Chicano
people bear.
Historically, the U.S. has benefited from murderous
plunder against the Mexicano and Chicano people. And today the
system continues to profit from maintaining the majority of Chicano people
in the lower rungs of the working class. National oppression enables the
ruling class to systematically oppress an entire people on the basis of
their Mexican heritage, their skin color and the way they speak--forcing
them into menial and often backbreaking work for the lowest wages.
Chicanos are overworked and underpaid, or pushed onto the unemployment
lines. Chicanos are segregated into poor, run down neighborhoods with the
worst schools and medical care, and where police brutality is rampant. It
has been over 150 years since the U.S. stole nearly half of Mexico's land,
but Chicanos still live with the effects of this history of theft and
conquest, and the continued domination of Mexico.
This oppressor/oppressed relationship is embedded in
the social fabric of the Southwest and the rest of the country--a whole
superstructure of prejudice and discrimination has been built up by the
system that demeans, disrespects and criminalizes the culture, language,
and even the existence of the Chicano people. Chicanos are constantly told
that they are an inferior people, that their Mexican heritage and Spanish
language are inferior, and that the reason they are treated like criminals
is because they act like them.
While the U.S. has a history of oppression and
exploitation against the Chicano people, Chicanos have a rich history of
struggle against national oppression and against capitalist exploitation
as part of the multinational proletariat. They are a living example of
that most basic law of class society--"oppression breeds resistance."
Colonization, Conquest and Capitalist
Development
The Chicano, or
Mexican-American, people are an oppressed nationality in the U.S. whose
roots of oppression trace back to the original colonization of what is now
the southwestern portion of the U.S. Their forced subjugation as a people
and their long history of struggle against this subjugation is rooted in
the conquest of the Southwest by the U.S. ruling class in the U.S.-Mexican
War, the continuous domination of Mexico by U.S. imperialism, and the
maintenance of large parts of the Southwest as an oppressed region.
The year 1492 marked the beginning of a new stage in
human history when Columbus drifted onto the Americas. In Europe it
triggered tremendous activity among the rising merchant classes--the
budding capitalists straining against the constraints of feudalism--who
saw in the Americas a new source of wealth and power. Spain was one of the
leading countries scrambling to stake its claim on the Western
Hemisphere.
In 1519 Hernán Cortés led a small band of Spanish
soldiers into the territory of Mexico, where they encountered a number of
different peoples, including the dominant Aztecs, who commanded an
advanced civilization and large empire, and others such as the Zapotec,
Mixtec, and Mayan peoples. For various reasons, they were able to conquer
the Aztecs within a few years and then proceed to take over the areas
under their control, and the rest of the surrounding populations.
Eventually, this led to the establishment of a new civilization that
covered a large part of the continents of North and South
America--including what is now Central America, Mexico, and the U.S.
Southwest--dominated by the Spanish conquerors and populated by the
indigenous peoples. The Spanish faced great resistance on the part of the
native peoples as they spread their empire throughout the Americas. Spain
conquered Mexico gradually, through warfare and the devastation caused by
the diseases they brought with them. But throughout this period,
resistance to their rule continued on the part of the Native American and
Mexican peoples.
The Spanish conquest of these peoples all but
destroyed the previous societies, not just in terms of the institutions
and customs, but also large numbers of the existing populations. Few
Spanish women traveled to the "New World"--which came to be called New
Spain (Nueva España)--so the physical blending between the
Spanish and the indigenous people--often the result of plunder and
rape--created the mestizo. Out of all this, over several
centuries, arose a new culture, the modern culture of Mexico. In New Spain
the mestizo was looked down upon and exploited, and the remaining
indigenous peoples were kept in extremely oppressive conditions as a
result of new social relations imposed and enforced by the Spanish
conquerors.
It was the search for mineral wealth that drove early
Spanish explorers into what is now the Southwest of the U.S. Later,
permanent settlements were encouraged to fortify the frontier against
rival European powers. Colonizing these areas was not easy--the fierce
resistance of the Utes, Apaches, Comanches and Navajos made it difficult
for the settlers to gain control over the area.
These Spanish settlements were able to survive by
conquering and enslaving the Pueblo Indians, who had developed agriculture
and were a more settled people. In 1680 the Pueblos rose up against a
century of abuse, torture and disease in an organized, coordinated revolt
that drove all of the Spanish settlements out of the region for the next
fifteen years.
But by 1700 the Spanish were finally able to defeat
this revolt of the Pueblos. The conquest eventually decimated the Pueblos,
so the Spanish looked for new ways to settle and control the area. In the
northern part of New Mexico a large population of Indians and Mexican
peasants were granted communal land by the Spanish crown to encourage the
growth of settlements that would protect their interests in that area
against others who wanted to force them out--other Indians and the French.
In these areas villagers lived off subsistence crops, raised sheep on
communal land, and had communal water rights. Their isolation from Central
Mexico and relative stability enabled the people of northern New Mexico to
begin developing a society of their own, based on communal land grants and
distinct from other parts of Mexico and other Southwestern settlements.
These settlements started in the 1700s and still exist today.
The Southern part of New Mexico was settled
differently. In this area large tracts of land were granted to a few
Spanish elite who forced very poor Indian and Mexican peasants to work
their land. In this colony, just like in other parts of Mexico, Spanish
nobility ruled, while the Indians and the mestizos were at the bottom of
society. But, because of constant Indian raids these settlements grew
slowly. At the end of the 18th century there were only 8,000 settlers in
all of New Mexico.
In Texas, the Spaniards arrived with a cross in one
hand and a sword in the other. In East Texas they tried to establish
Catholic missions and armed garrisons, but the Comanches gave them no
peace. Settlers were more successful in the south of Texas between the Rio
Grande and the Nueces River. Here Spanish ranchers viciously exploited the
mestizos brought from Mexico to work their land. However, long distances
and hostile Indians prevented contact between this settlement and those in
New Mexico and California.
In contrast, in California the mission system was
successful. Twenty-one missions, three towns and three garrisons were
built between San Diego and San Francisco. The coastal Indians offered
little resistance and many were converted to Christianity and forced to
"serve God" by becoming slaves. The resistance of the nomadic Indians of
central California prevented the development of missions there. California
was the farthest from central Mexico and had the smallest population of
all the Spanish colonies by the 1820s.
In Arizona there were many attempts to settle. But as
a result of the resistance and attacks on settlements by the native
people, lack of money, and the Spanish struggle to keep control over
Mexico, the Spanish found it difficult to protect their interests in
Arizona.
To sum up: The first settlements in what is now the
U.S. Southwest and California were sparsely settled between 1600 and 1800
by the Spanish, relying on Mexican and Indian labor. Only Northern New
Mexico developed communal land grants. And the mission system based mainly
on Indian labor developed only in California. These colonized areas had
little or no contact with each other or with central Mexico. The distance
between them, difficult terrain, and the constant resistance and attacks
from Indigenous tribes, meant that each region had its own unique
development and had little in common, other than their general Mexican
heritage.
Mexican Independence from Spain
Between 1776 and 1836, several colonial independence
movements shook the Americas. One of the leaders of the Mexican revolution
was Father Miguel Hidalgo, who led a revolt that sparked the outbreak of
Mexico's war of independence. On September 16, 1810, Hidalgo shouted the
famous "Grito de Dolores"--"Long live our Lady of Guadalupe, down with bad
government, down with the Spaniards!" For the next eleven years there were
many more uprisings and in 1821 Mexico declared its independence from
Spain.
Even though the settlements in the Southwest were
considered part of Mexico, they did not participate to a great extent in
the independence movement because there was little or no contact between
them and Mexico. These borderland settlements were developing more
independently from the rest of Mexico. In what is now New Mexico, the
suppression of the Apaches led to a revival of immigration from Mexico,
resulting in the expansion of ranching and farming.
The Santa Fe Trail was opened in 1822 connecting Santa
Fe, New Mexico with U.S. markets. The opening of this trail reduced the
isolation of these provinces from the U.S., but increased their separation
from the rest of Mexico. Ruling class forces in Mexico did not like the
trade between the U.S. and Mexico's provinces and feared they would be
lost to the U.S. These Mexican ruling class forces led a revolt in 1835
that brought Lopez de Santa Anna to power. His regime imposed taxes on the
people who lived in the northern provinces. Rich and poor despised these
taxes--they had already become dependent on the goods the U.S. sold them
at a cheaper price. The revolt that followed was suppressed by Mexico and
New Mexico's large landowners, who quickly saw they had more to fear from
the Indians and peasants who were most active in the revolt than from
Mexico's central government.
The U.S.-Mexican War (1846-1848)
In the early 1800s two economic systems were competing
in the U.S.: slavery and capitalism. The southern slave system, with its
constant need for new land, was the driving force behind the seizure of
the territory of northwest Mexico (what is now the U.S. Southwest). But
the capitalists in the North also eyed the territory as a source of land,
gold and other mineral resources, and as an opening of trade to the West.
In 1836, slave owners, who had moved into the eastern part of Texas, stole
the land from Mexico and declared it the Independent Republic of Texas.
Despite warnings from the Mexican government, the U.S. annexed this
so-called republic in 1845, and this led to the U.S.-Mexican War.
Mexican and Indian peasants fought hard against U.S.
aggression in the Mexican provinces. A number of Irish immigrants who were
U.S. soldiers deserted to the Mexican side, forming the Batallón San
Patricio (Saint Patrick's Battalion). While few of the rich
landowners of New Mexico resisted the U.S., the masses of peasants and
Indians in these regions did resist. There was struggle throughout the
Southwest and California, but despite this resistance against the U.S.,
Mexico was defeated on February 2, 1848. By then U.S. troops had driven
deep into Mexican territory, reaching and encircling Mexico City. In this
way they were delivering a message that the U.S. was to be the dominant
force in this hemisphere.
At the end of the U.S.-Mexican War the U.S. ripped off
approximately 50% of Mexico's territory--the land richest in natural
resources, suitable for growing fruit, farming, grazing, rich in minerals
like copper and silver, and rich in oil reserves. The theft of this land
crippled Mexico's future economic development.
Approximately 75,000 Mexicans were living on
settlements in the Southwest at the end of the U.S.-Mexican War, 60,000 of
them in New Mexico. They were mainly poor farmers, peasants, ranch hands
and miners.
Mexico was forced to sign the Treaty of
Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which while stripping it of half its land, promised
that Mexicans in the Southwest of what was now U.S. territory were
entitled to Constitutional rights and "shall be maintained and protected
in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property." This treaty and the
protocol that was also signed guaranteed the Mexican people their land
grants, language and civil rights. But the treaty was treated as a mere
scrap of paper and never respected by the U.S. government.
Only nine days after the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
was signed gold was discovered in California. Thousands of people flooded
the area and the small Mexican population of 7,500 was completely overrun.
The state's population leaped to 67,000 by the end of 1848 and soared to
250,000 by 1849. Taxes, squatters, and court costs to affirm land titles
ruined Mexican ranchers. Some Mexicans worked as ranch hands or were
self-employed as artisans and craftsmen. But Mexicans who attempted to
mine gold were hit with "foreign" miner taxes that prevented them from
mining. The Mexican people resisted this wholesale rip-off. Tiburcio
Vasquez and Joaquin Murrieta, dismissed as criminals by prevailing
versions of California history, became outlaws rather than accept the
injustices coming down on Mexicans, and both of them headed up armed bands
that roamed California until they were captured and killed.
In Texas the war was over, but the people's struggle
wasn't. Big U.S. cattle barons and plantation owners set out to take over
everything and push the Mexicans out of the way. This is where the Texas
Rangers got their start--as the strong-armed thugs for the big ranchers,
using murder and robbery to terrorize the Mexican people into submission.
Poor Mexicans and displaced landowners rose up in resistance. Juan Cortina
led an important and heroic resistance movement in Texas, avoiding capture
and carrying out armed battles for over a decade.
In Southwest Texas and New Mexico U.S. expansion came
slower. At first the Anglo-Americans who migrated there married into
prominent Mexican families and became part of the elite. Step by step they
bought out or stole outright the land from the small Mexican farmers in
violation of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. Between 1850 and 1900, two
million acres belonging to individuals, 1.7 million acres of communal land
and 1.8 million acres of other New Mexican land were seized by the U.S.
government. The Anglo settlers in Texas set up new towns alongside and
separate from the old ones, while the Mexican people ended up as peons and
ranch hands. In this way, the conquest brought with it the beginnings of
institutionalized segregation and discrimination of the Mexican population
that remained.
A notorious alliance of politicians and twenty rich
New Mexican families, known as the Santa Fe Ring, worked together to
acquire large tracts of land. Conducting court only in English, imposing
high taxes, arbitrary laws, and expensive confirmation of land deeds, and
through outright robbery and murder, they seized the communal lands away
from the people. Many Mexicans lost their homes, and Mexican peasants
moved northward into the southern portion of Colorado where their
settlements still exist today.
The victory of capitalism over slavery in 1865 brought
bigger changes to the Southwest. This victory accelerated the downfall of
the feudal landlord-tenant setup that had existed in parts of the
Southwest. The development of the railroads encouraged the expansion of
large-scale capitalist agriculture, which ruined the landowners and forced
the peasants into the ranks of the working class in the mines, railroads
and truck farms, along with Irish and Chinese immigrants. The railroads
also encouraged the development of large cattle ranchers who could ship
their beef to the east. These powerful interests drove the smaller Mexican
sheepherders and small farmers out of business and into the working class
as well.
For the vast majority of Mexican people in the
Southwest, capitalism advanced by running roughshod over them and
subjugating them to its needs. A reign of terror was unleashed on them,
and their resistance to its domination was drowned in blood. Through this
brutal process the oppressed minority of Mexicans were transformed into a
new and distinct oppressed national minority within the U.S.--the
Mexican-American or Chicano people.
To sum up: as this history shows, when the U.S. seized
what is now the Southwest from Mexico the various Mexican settlements in
that region were small and isolated, not only from Mexico, but also from
each other. The conquest cut these settlements off from the
nation-building process that was taking place in Mexico. The consolidation
of U.S. capitalism over the Southwest held back the independent economic,
cultural, political and social development of the Mexican people in the
area. In so doing it forged them together into a single oppressed
nationality--Mexican-Americans or Chicanos--and welded them in their great
majority together with workers of other nationalities into the single U.S.
working class. All this set the stage for a higher level of struggle
against the common enemy in the decades to come.
Mexican Revolution of 1910
Revolution broke out in Mexico in 1910 as peasants
rose up demanding "Tierra y Libertad--Land and Liberty." Ninety-five
percent of the Mexican people were landless peasants and tenant farmers
and they fought for the land to be redistributed. Peasant leaders like
Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata led the Mexican people in resistance.
Organizations in the U.S. like the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM), led by
Ricardo Flores Magon, actively built support for the revolution among
Chicano and Mexicano workers. Magon was later imprisoned by the U.S.
government and murdered in prison.
This period saw the first large-scale migration of
Mexican workers into the U.S. The political and economic upheaval that
accompanied the Mexican Revolution led to hundreds of thousands coming to
the U.S.--nearly 10% of Mexico's population. The rapid development of U.S.
capitalist agricultural production and its hunt for cheap farm labor
greatly encouraged this migration as Mexican laborers poured into the
country to work the cotton fields of Texas and Arizona, harvest sugar
beets in Colorado, Michigan and the Great Lakes, and to pick California's
fruits and vegetables. At the same time, the expansion of U.S. capitalist
industry in the first decades of the 20th century sent recruiters to Texas
and Mexico to fill jobs in the mines and railroads in the Southwest, in
the Detroit auto plants, the Chicago steel mills, the slaughterhouses of
Chicago, Omaha, Kansas City, and other growing industries in the
Midwest.
The capitalists saw in these workers a source of cheap
labor and a force that could be used to divide the working class. But
working under dangerous conditions, performing backbreaking work, facing
wage discrimination and treated as second-class citizens with no rights,
Chicano and Mexicano workers united with the upsurge in the
working class movement and fought together with workers of all
nationalities in militant strikes in the fields and factories throughout
this period. In Ludlow, Colorado in April 1914, one of the most famous
strikes in this country's history took place as 9,000 miners, mainly
Chicano, Italian, and Slavic, struck for union recognition, wage increases
and better working and living conditions. J.D. Rockefeller called in
troops to "protect his property" and they machine-gunned workers and then
set fire to their homes, killing two women and eleven children in what has
been known ever since as the Ludlow massacre.
World War I and the Depression
The stepped-up war economy and the recruitment of workers into
the military during WW I (1914-1918) created a labor shortage that further
encouraged the influx of Chicanos and Mexicanos into heavy
industry. The war also cut off the flow of European immigrants to the
U.S., and Mexican workers were turned to as one of the main sources of
replacement for these European immigrants. Soon the Midwestern cities had
growing Chicano communities. There were 4,000 Chicanos in Chicago in 1917;
by 1930 this had increased to 20,000. But, following the Stock Market
crash of 1929, and the economic crisis that followed, the 1930s saw tens
of millions of workers laid off and wages cut by 50%.
The immigrants were used as scapegoats to take the
blame for the economic hard times. Chicanos were cut off relief and were
not allowed to work on government public works projects. It's estimated
that there were 3 million people of Mexican descent living in the U.S. at
the beginning of the depression. Of this number over 500,000--both
Chicanos and Mexicanos--were forced to return to Mexico. In
Detroit at least 12,000 of the 15,000 Chicanos and Mexicanos were
repatriated. Families were split up. Sometimes the parents ended up on one
side of the border, the children on the other, or with some of the
children in the U.S. while the others were deported. There were many cases
of people born in the U.S. being deported. In some cases those who had
been born in Mexico but had spent almost no time there were sent back to
live in a country they knew little about.
World War II
Nearly
500,000 Chicanos served in the armed forces during World War II, and for
many this meant breaking the rural isolation they had lived in, coming
into contact with new ideas and different people, including Chicanos from
other areas. The war also brought more Chicanos and Mexicanos
into the industrial and agricultural proletariat.
Sent off in large numbers to fight and die for U.S.
imperialist interests, "at home" Chicanos were still seen and treated like
second-class citizens and faced many forms of discrimination. They went to
segregated schools, and it was not uncommon for people of Mexican descent
to be denied access to public swimming pools and theatres, or to be
refused service in restaurants. In Texas los rinches, the Texas
Rangers, made it their sole purpose to harass Chicanos and
Mexicanos.
In 1943 bands of sailors, aided and encouraged by the
police, rioted in L.A. attacking Chicano youth. The reactionary press
called these the "Zoot Suit Riots," because of the style of dress of these
urban Chicano youth, and newspapers launched a propaganda barrage about
the "criminal nature" of the Chicano people. In fact the generation of the
"Zoot Suiters" brought a new character to Chicano culture, particularly in
the more urban areas--taking on racist attacks on Chicanos and defying the
dominant Anglo culture.
Bracero
Program
The war also caused a shortage
of labor in the fields, as many Blacks, Chicanos and poor whites that had
worked the fields during the depression went into the military. In need of
a cheap labor supply, in 1942 the U.S. and Mexican governments set up the
Bracero program. This program guaranteed a set number of Mexican workers
who would come to the U.S. and work for a particular harvest and then
would return to Mexico at the end of the season. (Not all Braceros worked
in the fields; some ended up working for the railroads laying tracks, and
others found their way to factories in the East Coast.) The agreement
stated that Braceros could not be drafted by the U.S., they would not take
jobs away from domestic workers, and there was to be no discrimination
against them. In reality they were forced into jobs with low pay, bad
working conditions, and with no right to organize or fight back. From 1942
to 1947, 220,000 Braceros were brought into the U.S. for farm labor, in a
program that lasted until the early 1960s. (Recently it has been uncovered
that hundreds of thousands of Braceros were robbed of tens of millions of
dollars through mandatory payroll deductions into "savings accounts" that
most Braceros never knew about, and that were never turned over to them
after they were sent back to Mexico.)
In the 1950s the INS carried out what they called
"Operation Wetback." Using midnight raids, street dragnets, and the use of
schools as concentration camps to hold people awaiting deportation, they
unleashed a reign of terror against immigrants and Chicanos, eventually
deporting millions of people, citizen and non-citizen alike.
By the 1950s there was a large Chicano population and
many had a similar history of being born or raised in the U.S. of parents
who had migrated from Mexico. This was a different generation than the
"Zoot suiters"--but many of these youth had heard stories about and
respected those youth of the 1940s. There was anger at being cast aside,
being treated as outsiders, hounded by the police, etc. The immigrant and
Chicano population that had helped build the Southwest--helped lay the
rails, build the bridges and roads, worked in the mines and the
fields--was little valued. And little was known about or considered worth
knowing about the country of Mexico they had come from--its whole history,
culture, and society. In the schools, these youth found that the
curriculum included almost nothing that taught students the history of the
Chicano people, and in society at large there was little recognition of
the contributions Chicanos had made to society. It was as though Chicanos
had never existed as a people, as though they had never accomplished
anything of worth. In the early '60s Chicanos at UCLA discovered that some
of the professional schools had never graduated a single Chicano--in the
city of Los Angeles, with its large Chicano population.
Out of all this a new sense of awareness of being an
oppressed people within U.S. society emerged, along with a culture of
resistance and new organizations reflecting this.
The Farmworkers Struggle
Chicano and Mexicano farmworkers joined
with striking Filipino campesinos in the grape fields of Delano,
California in September of 1965. This began a new period of struggle in
the fields of California and the Southwest. Under the leadership of what
became the United Farmworkers Union, this new drive mounted a major
challenge to the agri-business barons. Despite the fierce opposition of
the growers and the rest of their class, the farmworkers movement scored
significant gains and gave inspiration to workers of all nationalities,
and to the awakening Chicano movement. The struggle involved thousands of
farmworkers, and mobilized countless other workers (and people of other
strata) in solidarity, through the boycott of produce picked by
strikebreakers--"scabs"--and other support activity.
Workers from New York to Belgium refused to handle
scab grapes and forced union bureaucrats and liberal politicians to give
support to the struggle. Mass mobilizations brought workers and students
from the cities to the fields of Central California in solidarity,
returning with an even greater determination to step up the struggle
against oppression. Given its impact and the support it attracted, it's
not surprising that the bourgeoisie would do all they could to smash the
farmworker movement, while trying to keep it within the bounds of trade
unionism and on the reformist path. This did have an impact on the
direction the movement took, with its leaders wanting to paint it as a
moral, pacifist one while covering up and discouraging the very militancy
which made it such an inspiration to the world. The leadership fell in
with the ruling class line that "illegals" threaten American-born workers'
jobs and should be deported--even though many of the most militant
fighters among the farmworkers were workers without papers.
For other sections of the Chicano people the
farmworkers movement was an inspiration, not only because of their
resistance to exploitation, but also because in their fight the
farmworkers drew a spotlight on the national oppression all Chicanos face.
And they raised demands around many of the issues that Chicanos in the
community were fighting for--including for better housing, schooling and
medical care, and an end to all forms of discrimination.
The 1960s
National
liberation struggles were raging in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and
together with this, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China was
sending revolutionary shock waves across the planet. More and more,
revolution was becoming the currency. (It was announced in the late 1960s
that the Red Book of "Quotations of Chairman Mao" had outsold the Bible
worldwide!) Vietnam, a small Third World country, was militarily defeating
the "all-powerful" United States. Soldiers in the U.S. armed forces were
killing their own officers, deserting, and refusing to fight. All this was
the backdrop to the tremendous upheaval that erupted across this country.
Millions of young people from all walks of life and different
nationalities battled it out on the streets with the system against the
bloody Vietnam war. And over one hundred cities burned in rebellion across
the U.S. in the days following the murder of Dr. Martin Luther
King.
A new generation of Chicano activists hit the scene
with the force of an erupting volcano, inspired by the struggles of the
farmworkers and by the militant Black liberation movement, as well as by
the growing opposition to the Vietnam war among students and others. The
struggle of the Chicano people against national oppression reached new
heights during this period. Important battles were fought in New Mexico
over land grant rights, and a significant Chicano youth movement developed
in Colorado. High school "blowouts" shook East L.A. as thousands of
Chicano students hit the streets demanding a decent education. Student
struggles and organizations also developed in the high schools and college
campuses across the Southwest and beyond, demanding Chicano Studies
departments and open admissions. All the areas where Chicanos were
concentrated became strong centers of resistance.
The question of revolution was being posed as the
solution to the problems in society. Chicanos, like others, were demanding
an end to the oppressive conditions they lived in, asking what it was
going to take to really change this. There was an increasing need to chart
a road forward and Chicanos began organizing themselves into a number of
different groups. This growing political awareness and search for a way
out from under their oppression brought together over 3,000 Chicano
activists to a conference in Denver, Colorado in 1969. At this 1st
National Youth Conference in Denver the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán
was written. And a short time later, at a conference in Santa Barbara,
MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán) was organized as
a unified student organization. The struggle developed to a higher level
against the war in Vietnam, against language and cultural repression and
discrimination in schools and in society at large, against police
brutality in the neighborhoods; and political awareness and debate grew
over how to liberate the Chicano people and all people. Chicanos spread
their struggle in all arenas, including through a flourishing of
culture--poetry, songs, theatrical works, paintings, etc.-- all depicting
the life and struggles of the Chicano people. Some forces took up Marxism
and looked to the overthrow of U.S. imperialism as the solution.
Chicano Moratorium
On August 29, 1970, over 25,000 Chicanos from across the country
gathered in Los Angeles to demand an end to the Vietnam War and an end to
national oppression. This was the first time in history that there was
this type of gathering among Chicanos. On the morning of August 29th
people began to assemble at Laguna Park (later renamed Ruben Salazar
Park). There were Chicanos from Kansas City, Minnesota, Chicago, the
Southwest -- they had all come that day, along with Chicano and
Mexicano families from the Los Angeles area, to express their
outrage at the fact that thousands of Chicanos who had died in Vietnam and
to demand an end to the war. There were thousands of signs and banners
with different slogans, including "Raza Sí! Guerra No!" and among a
revolutionary section--"Raza Sí! Guerra Aquí!" People marched down
Whittier Blvd. in East Los Angeles receiving applause and support from the
Chicano community.
Once the rally began, the police used a minor incident
a block away as an excuse to attack the crowd with teargas and clubs. The
people fought back with whatever was at hand. The battle soon spread
throughout the community, with older people as well as the youth taking
part.
A member of the RCP who was at the Chicano Moratorium
explained that "the police attacked the demonstration not because of a few
unruly demonstrators but because the U.S. ruling class was under siege
around the world and inside the U.S. Only 3 months earlier national
guardsmen had murdered students at Kent State and at the all-Black Jackson
State campus. In this situation they could not allow an aroused Chicano
people to take matters into their own hands."
The battle lasted several hours. People who ordinarily
might not have gotten involved were compelled to support the demonstrators
because they saw that the attack on the Moratorium was unjustified.
Many allowed the demonstrators into their houses and then refused
to let the Sheriffs search for them.(3)
Three people were murdered by the Sheriffs that day,
including the well-known journalist Ruben Salazar who was shot in the head
with a tear gas canister inside a bar. But the ruling class and the cops
received a taste of the fury and strength of the Chicano people.
By the early 1970s, for a number of reasons, the great upsurges of
the '60s began to wind down.(4)
Some important struggles involving the masses of
Chicanos did take place in the years that followed, like the strike
by thousands of predominantly Chicana workers in 1972 against the
Farah pants plants of Texas and New Mexico, which rallied support
around the country and ended in 1974 with the workers winning most
of their demands. And there were important battles against police
brutality, like the Moody Park rebellion in Houston's North Side in
1978 that saw thousands of Chicanos rise up in two nights of fighting
against the police after police came in to mess with their Cinco de
Mayo celebration. The backdrop to this uprising was a year-long battle
for justice for José Campos Torres, who was beaten within an inch
of his life by police and then thrown into the bayou where he drowned--for
which the police involved were given a year's probation and a $1 fine!(5)
The Conditions of the Chicano People
Today
The powerful upheaval against national oppression in
the 1960s forced the power structure to put policies like affirmative
action into effect. At that time they saw affirmative action and ethnic
studies programs as concessions that they needed to and could make, yet
even while making these concessions they tried to use them as a way to
cool out the struggle.
In recent decades, big changes in the world and in the
worldwide capitalist imperialist system have driven the U.S. capitalists
to take a "hard look" at the way they run the U.S. economy. On the one
hand, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. imperialists no
longer have a rival superpower to contend with, particularly in the
military sphere, but in the "new globalized economy" they do face intense
economic competition from the rival capitalists based in Japan and Europe.
On every level their response has been to launch completely heartless
assaults on the lives of millions of people--from the poorest people in
the inner cities and Indian reservations to somewhat better off strata
that once held steady jobs in capitalist industry.
Now, powerful sections of the ruling class have
decided that they will gain much more by abolishing programs that
acknowledged inequality and justice in the U.S. They have calculated that
the interests of their class are best served by not even
pretending to be concerned about increasing opportunity
for Black and Chicano people, women and other oppressed sections of the
people.
Hand in hand with the system's changing needs in the
'90s came the increasing cultivation of the "reverse discrimination"'
and "minority politics" myths. Bourgeois mouthpieces like Linda Chavez(6)
claimed that "Mexican Americans are enjoying rapid
progress" similar to that of European Americans. She argued that the
descendants of Mexican immigrants were assimilating the same way that the
descendants of European immigrants did, but this success is being
overshadowed by the "pessimistic picture" created by Mexican immigration
and that is what makes Chicanos think that they are at a disadvantage.
Chavez pointed to the few "brown faces" in high places to claim that
Chicanos can "assimilate" and "make it" in this so-called "land of
opportunity."
The truth is that the oppression of the Chicano people
has persisted generation after generation. No matter how long Chicanos
have lived in this country, they are still discriminated against and most
are kept at the bottom of society in the lower rungs of the proletariat.
While there is more class differentiation among Chicanos today than in
earlier periods, and there has been some growth in the numbers of middle
class Chicanos, the reality remains that for large sections of the Chicano
people things aren't getting any better, they are getting worse.
There are colonias in South Texas along the
Mexico/U.S. border where over half a million Chicanos and Mexicanos live
in conditions comparable to those in the Third World, with no running
water, sewage systems, or roads, in unincorporated areas that are so
desolate they can't even be found on a map. Generations of Chicanos have
been born, raised, and raise their families in these colonias, where it is
not uncommon for a family to live on less than $6,000 a year. The
unemployment rate there averages 20%. Many of the inhabitants of the
colonias work part of the year as migrant workers and have to hire
themselves as day laborers or do odd jobs to try to survive. Half of the
colonia children will not graduate from high school because their
contribution to the family income is literally a matter of life and death.
Only 1% of the youth in the colonias will ever make it to college.
It is estimated that 90% of the 20 million or more Chicanos
in this country live in metropolitan areas. The median family income
for a Chicano family is less than two-thirds that of whites. At the
time of the 1990 Census(7)
one-quarter of all the Mexican-American families lived
under the "official" poverty line of $16,000 per family. Almost half of
the Chicanos in poverty in the U.S. today are children under the age of
18. The poverty rate of Chicanos as a whole is over 2 1/2 times as high as
the rate for whites, even though most poor Chicano families have working
adults.
Contrary to the claim that Chicanos are slowly
"climbing up the economic ladder"
(Out of the Barrio, Linda Chavez) Chicanos
are employed mainly in "blue collar" jobs, farm work, and service
occupations. Nearly one third of Chicanos are concentrated in just three
job categories --- operators, fabricators, or laborers. Chicanas, like
other groups of women workers, are heavily concentrated in clerical and
service work, which combined employed 2/3 of Chicana workers in 1991. To a
large degree, the jobs Chicanos have are in the sectors of the economy
that show the slowest growth.
Throughout the 1980s the movement of better paying
jobs to the suburbs and the dismantling of governmental support programs
and social spending on urban areas contributed to the worsening of
conditions for Chicanos, as it did for Blacks and other oppressed peoples
concentrated in the urban areas. Sharp federal program cuts throughout the
1980s devastated low income households. In other words, it was the
combination of the workings of the economy and conscious policy on
the part of the ruling class during the '80s that drove down the
conditions of Chicanos and other oppressed people in this country.
The 1980s were called by some the "decade of Latino
entrepreneurs." And there was a growth of small Chicano businesses in the
decade. However, it is extremely hard for these small businesses to get
loans, and most businesses find it difficult if not impossible to grow
beyond their initial size. Even in L.A., with 75,000 Latino-owned
businesses in 1995--the largest number of any city nationwide--these
businesses receive few government contracts, and can't break into the "old
boy" network of big companies. And this describes the situation before the
ending of affirmative action in California, eliminating even voluntary
quotas for distributing government contracts to businesses with women
and/or "minority" owners.
Today U.S.-born Chicano men average a year and a half
less education than white men and a third of a year less than Black
men. Compared to whites in either California or Texas, Chicanos are
more than 3 times more likely not to finish 12 years of schooling
and less than a third as likely to obtain a bachelor's degree. And
the increasing urban segregation across the nation is making the situation
worse. In 1972/3, 56.6 percent of Latinos(8)
attended schools that were predominantly minority; by
1991/92 this proportion had reached 73.4! Latinos now have the distinction
of being the most segregated grouping in U.S. schools. These statistics
mean "savage inequalities" for the students: school funding that produces
ten-fold differences in per-pupil expenditures (as in Texas, with Latino
school districts at the lowest end of the spectrum); half-hearted
instructional programs for Chicano and other Latino students; and tracking
systems that disproportionately place these students on nonacademic
educational paths.
Between 1980 and 1990 the proportion of Latinos (men
and women) with bachelor's degrees increased from 7.7% to 10%. A 1999
California study found that still only about 10% of the state's
3rd-generation Chicanos (and other Latinos) had a bachelor's degree or
higher, compared with 30% for non-Latinos. About 17% of 3rd-generation
Latinos had no high school diploma, compared with 6.7% of
non-Latinos.
And the attacks in the 1990s (and since) on access to
higher education for the oppressed nationalities are having a significant
impact. A student at UCLA wrote that the first freshman class to be
admitted under California's Prop. 209 outlawing affirmative action had a
33% drop in both Chicano and Latino students, with predictions that things
could get worse. A Chicano historian we interviewed in California
predicts: "Chicano youth are going to get increasingly segregated into
community colleges, even more than they are now, which is where the
majority of Chicano youth are enrolled. And you're also going to have the
phenomenon where some of the UC and Cal State campuses_ are going to be
discreetly identified as minority campuses, and minority students will be
shunted into them." The result of these policies is going to be a
strengthening of the bonds of national oppression already holding the
Chicano people "in their place."
Part
II: The Source of -- and Solution to -- the Oppression of the Chicano
People
What accounts for the continuing
oppression of the Chicano people? Why is it that whether you are the child
of recent Mexican immigrants or your ancestors have lived in the U.S.
Southwest for centuries, you cannot escape national oppression?
There are two sources--one historical, and one
international--for the ongoing oppression and discrimination against
Chicanos. First is their historic subjugation as a "conquered" people,
which is woven into the social fabric of this country as a result of and a
justification for the theft of Mexican land and the brutal oppression of
the Mexican people who remained there following the conquest. "Remember
the Alamo"--the chauvinist rallying cry justifying U.S. expansionism--is
still taught to children in Texas and throughout the U.S. In the period
after the U.S. defeat of Mexico in 1848, Anglos and Mexicans in these
territories confronted each other as conquerors and conquered. The Mexican
population had their lands appropriated, their rights stripped from them,
and their struggles against this injustice and oppression crushed, as they
were forged into an oppressed, and overwhelmingly proletarian, national
minority. Going hand in hand with and justifying this oppression, a whole
superstructure of laws and racist attitudes of Anglo/white superiority was
erected.
One hundred fifty years later this oppression and
discrimination continues because it is built into the social structure of
the Southwest and the country as a whole, and because capitalism profits
and overall benefits from it. It enables the South Texas region to be
maintained as a source of migrant laborers living in Third World
conditions. And it keeps the majority of Chicanos locked into the lower
rungs of the proletariat throughout the Southwest, the Midwest and beyond,
working backbreaking and mind-numbing jobs for low pay, living in barrios
with the worst, most segregated schools, police brutality, etc.
And this oppression is further reinforced and
reproduced by the fact that the U.S. shares a 2,000 mile border with a
country that it keeps locked into an oppressor/oppressed relationship. The
U.S. dominates, subjugates and superexploits Mexico, and at the same time
is deeply dependent on Mexican immigrant labor as a crucial source of
wealth for the U.S. capitalists, keeping the overwhelming majority of
Mexican immigrants in the bottom rungs of the working class. To maintain
this setup and deal with the potential threat they see to their own
stability, the U.S. rulers have institutionalized discrimination against
those of Mexican descent and Latinos in general. They outlaw the use of
the Spanish language in schools and workplaces, and in general treat the
ability to speak Spanish as a "liability" rather than as something
positive. They hunt down and criminalize so-called "illegals" and in the
process create a situation where anyone who "looks
Mexican" is treated with suspicion. They deny immigrants access to
colleges and to medical care. They degrade Mexican culture, and they lie
about the relations between the U.S. and Mexico, historically and down to
the present day, to cover up and justify their plunder--blaming Mexico's
problems on its own "corruption" and "backwardness."
Not only are recent immigrants subjected to this U.S.
chauvinist oppression, but so are Chicanos who have been here for some
time, including those who are U.S. citizens. Chicanos have to prove that
they "belong" here, and they have to accept the worst education, jobs, and
housing. They have to live in a society that degrades their roots, their
relatives and ancestors, including the roots of their culture and
language. There is no way these imperialists can continue to dominate
Mexico and exploit immigrant labor without maintaining the oppression of
the Chicano people as a whole.
Impact of
the Recent Upsurge in Mexican (and Central American) Immigration
Recent decades have seen an unprecedented influx of
immigrants from Mexico. The U.S. rulers like to claim that it is the image
of "streets paved with gold," or the "promise of the American Dream" that
has made millions of people from Mexico leave their homes and loved ones,
travel miles across a desert, mountain, river, or climb razor-sharp barbed
wire, and risk death, not only because of these physical obstacles, but
also as targets of the murdering Migra armed with the latest technology in
hunting human beings. In fact, millions of people have been forced to
cross the U.S./Mexico border as a direct result of U.S. imperialist
domination and plunder of Mexico.
So-called "modernization" in Mexico drips with the
blood of the oppressed. Imperialist capital enters Mexico covered with the
blood of the people of the world who produced it--from the fields of
California to the sweatshops of South Korea to the gold mines of South
Africa. And it leaves Mexico in the form of profits dripping with the
blood of campesinos in the countryside, of women workers slaving away and
losing their youth in the plants along the border, of the children forced
to sell gum in the streets to survive, and of millions forced to leave
their families and hire out their labor.
The inability of the Mexican economy--distorted to
serve imperialism--to provide jobs to absorb the growing numbers of
Mexican laborers into the workforce with wages they can survive on is at
the heart of the forces "pushing" Mexicans across the border. And the ever
increasing number of Mexican people seeking wage labor in Mexico and in
the U.S. is to a large degree the result of their being driven from the
countryside of Mexico through the workings of the imperialist-dominated
system. At the same time, there is the greater possibility of finding work
in a U.S. economy more dependent than ever on low-wage immigrant labor,
and the chance to send part of those meager earnings back home to support
their families. This is what "pulls" these immigrants into U.S. sweatshops
and into the proletariat here.
Once they are in the U.S., immigrants fill the bottom
rung of the U.S. economy, performing backbreaking work in sweatshops,
kitchens, hotels, office buildings, etc. Paid extra low wages, their
labor contributes to producing extra high profits for the capitalists.
At the same time, life in the "promised land" means living in the
worst housing and neighborhoods, being denied access to medical care,
forced to send their children to the worst schools, while facing the
risk of being deported by la Migra at any time because they dared
to cross the border without papers. As these immigrants remain in
the U.S., many of them--and especially their children--become part
of the Chicano people.(9)
The immigrants from Mexico (and throughout Central
America) have lived the human cost of the workings of imperialism. Their
presence, along with immigrants from other parts of the world, "has
greatly strengthened the internationalist character of the revolutionary
movement in the U.S. The majority of immigrants are an integral part of
the single multinational proletariat in the U.S., enriching the potential
and forces for proletarian revolution in the belly of the beast." (Draft
Programme, p. 101) But the U.S. rulers see the immigrant presence here as
a source of instability and upheaval, and increasingly they treat them as
a potential threat that undermines the U.S., at the same time as this
economy increasingly relies on their labor. And in turn, the children of
these immigrants have emerged among the front line fighters in the recent
upsurge against U.S. government attacks.
In the late 1980s the U.S. began to raise the specter
of uncontrollable immigration and started passing laws outlawing the
employment of "illegal aliens." This turned into a full-fledged war on
immigrants after the 1992 L.A. rebellion. That uprising--which brought
Blacks, Chicanos, recent immigrants from Mexico and Central America and
many others into the street in a revolt against the Rodney King verdict
and the whole structure of national oppression that it revealed--inspired
oppressed peoples in ghettos and barrios across the country, and people
around the world. It woke up middle class forces to the reality of the
police state that was being enforced on those at the bottom of this
society. It knocked the smirk off the face of an arrogant U.S. imperialism
that had slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in a lopsided war
only a year earlier. And it sent President Bush (senior) scrambling to
L.A. to assure his class that the government was in control.
The imperialists got a glimpse of the potential for
further upheaval and the role that these immigrants could play. They
stepped up funding and training for the INS in the use of the latest and
most high-tech weapons, sensory devices, and dogs to hunt people labeled
"criminal aliens." They increased the clampdown on the border and the
anti-immigrant propaganda perpetrated by the bourgeois media, cultivating
an environment that made it acceptable for the border patrol,
anti-immigrant vigilantes, and all the armed enforcers (Sheriffs, Marines,
etc.) to create widespread fear among immigrants and unleash further
brutality against them.
In 1994, as a result of this kind of
highly-orchestrated campaign, California voters passed Proposition 187
(the first of many anti-immigrant ballot measures), which called for
undocumented immigrants to be denied basic needs like healthcare and
education. Thousands of Chicano, Mexicano, and Central American youth
flooded the streets in a rebellious movement to stop the war on
immigrants. Although many of the youth on the streets were Chicanos that
would not be directly affected by the law, they felt a deep connection
with those targeted by the war on immigrants.
More on the Relationship between the Struggle of Chicanos
and Mexicanos, and the Question of the Border
The Chicano people and the people of Mexico have the
same enemy--U.S. imperialism--and the same fight. Proletarian revolution
in the U.S., and the overthrow of U.S. domination of Mexico, is the
solution to the oppression of both these peoples. Today there are tens of
millions on each side of the U.S./Mexico border whose lives directly
connect with the lives and struggles on the other side, and who, to a
significant degree, see and respond to the struggles taking place on
either side as "their own." The killing of Ezekiel Hernández, a U.S.
citizen, by U.S. Marines hunting "illegal aliens" near the border in South
Texas, drew angry outcries in Mexico as well as in the U.S. Attempts in
Texas to execute Mexican citizens have provoked strong opposition in both
countries and even official protests by the Mexican government. And the
movement confronting imperialist globalization has seen Mexican youth in
Cancún, youth in the U.S. and other countries, all face bloody police
attacks on their protests.
And, as we've already described, the uprising against
NAFTA by the indigenous peasants in Chiapas (and U.S. military support for
the Mexican army's bloody attacks on their encampments) has helped to
raise the political understanding of a new generation of rebellious youth
and bring them into political life here "in the belly of the beast." All
of this points to a great strategic advantage for the struggle for
liberation and proletarian revolution throughout this region. It is the
responsibility of the class-conscious proletariat in this country to unite
with and spread these "shoots" of internationalism, and to build support
for and unity between the struggles against U.S. imperialism developing on
both sides of the border.
We understand that the strategy for revolution in
Mexico must be forged by a vanguard party of the revolutionary proletariat
in that country. But, as our Party's new Draft Programme emphasizes, in
speaking about the U.S. proletariat's policy towards borders:
"The current border between the U.S. and Mexico is a
two-thousand-mile bloody scar gouged out by Yankee imperialism. Today,
from one side, this border is like a sieve, allowing U.S. capital to flow
freely into Mexico, exploiting its people and resources and wreaking havoc
with its air, water and, above all, the lives of its people. From the
other side, this border is a militarized zone, criminalizing and
terrorizing those coming north in a desperate search to find work and feed
their families and/or fleeing bloody repression.
"The revolutionary struggles in the U.S. and Mexico
will be closely intertwined, as people north and south of the current
border strive to defeat our common enemy. Advances in each country will
spur forward the struggle in the other, at times spilling over the border,
pounding at a crucial faultline and potential great vulnerability of U.S.
imperialism--its close interconnection with Mexico in a relation of
imperialist domination and oppression. All this will greatly strengthen
the revolutionary struggle overall." (Draft Programme, p. 89)
How Socialism Will Uproot the National
Oppression of the Chicano People
With regard to the oppression of the Chicano people
and all oppressed nationalities in this country, the starting point and
the heart of the analysis in our Draft Programme is that the only way to
put an end to this oppression is by overthrowing this
capitalist-imperialist system. This is because national oppression and
vicious racism are so thoroughly built into the foundation and structure
of capitalist society in the U.S. (and the whole structure of U.S.
imperialist rule and domination in the world), so fundamental to the way
this system operates and so crucial to the way it is held together, that
the U.S. imperialists could not abolish and uproot this oppression and the
whole structure of white supremacy even if they wanted to.
For this reason the struggles of the Chicano people
and all the oppressed nationalities in this country for liberation are a
powerful challenge to the system. Because Chicanos, Black people and other
oppressed peoples are in their majority part of the single U.S.
proletariat, concentrated in its most down-pressed sections, their fight
for equality and emancipation is bound by a thousand links with the
struggle for socialism and lends it great strength. The forging of the
strategic alliance--between the struggle of the multinational proletariat
to abolish all oppression, and the struggles of the Chicano people and
other oppressed nationalities to end their oppression as peoples--has as
its basis the reality that these objectives are realizable only through
the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of proletarian revolution; and
the forging of this alliance is crucial to the victory of the socialist
revolution in this country.
As set forth in our Party's Draft Programme, with the
victory of the socialist revolution, the proletariat will do what the
bourgeoisie can never do--lead the masses of people in eliminating
national oppression and establishing genuine equality.
From the start the new socialist state will ban
discrimination in employment and housing. The army of police will be
destroyed, and in their place will be armed and organized revolutionary
militias made up of the masses themselves. Segregation in neighborhoods,
schools, etc. will be banned and integration promoted.
The new proletarian state will provide the resources,
support, and leadership required to overcome all inequalities between
nationalities and all barriers to full and equal participation in every
sphere and on all levels of society. This will have nothing in common with
the hypocritical tokenism of the bourgeoisie, but will be based instead on
recognizing the crucial importance of fully overcoming the legacies of
discrimination and national oppression and backing this up with the power
and moral force of the proletarian dictatorship.
Immediately after the seizure of power, the policy of
"raising up the bottom" will be applied across the board. Party members
and other class-conscious people will set an example in practice, in
self-sacrifice and voluntary labor, in order to ensure that the
neighborhoods at the very bottom are rebuilt and improved first.
With state power in the hands of the revolutionary
proletariat, we can finally do away with all the racism and chauvinism
that the bourgeoisie insists is part of "unchangeable human nature." This
won't all be eliminated overnight, but the first and giant step is
sweeping away the capitalist system, which produces and thrives on this
garbage. People will be free from the dog-eat-dog existence of capitalism
and won't have to compete for jobs, housing, education, and the like. This
will uproot a major prop of racist ideas among the people. We know the
influence of racism is deeply embedded in U.S. society. It will take a
many-sided and deep struggle to uproot it. Education about the lives,
cultures, and history of oppression and resistance of all the formerly
oppressed nationalities will be widely and deeply carried out, and the
lies of the bourgeoisie will be ruthlessly and thoroughly exposed.
The new socialist state will put an end to the
"English-first" and "English-only" policies of the bourgeoisie, and the
state will provide resources and will mobilize and rely on the masses to
make sure that people will not be forced to speak English in order to
participate fully in the life of society and in the struggle to transform
it. In areas where many people have Spanish as their first language, both
English and Spanish will be taught in the schools to students of all
nationalities, and this will be promoted more generally in society.
English will not be the only linking language in society, and efforts will
be made (beginning in the areas with large concentrations of Spanish and
English speakers) to work toward the goal of making the entire population
fluent in both Spanish and English.
The proletariat will promote a flowering of the
cultures of the formerly oppressed nationalities, and will support the
development of distinct national forms of culture, while not confining
artists to any particular community or cultural form. Traditional forms
among the various peoples will be respected and developed and, at the same
time, will be increasingly infused with revolutionary content. At the same
time a lively intermingling of cultures of different peoples, not only in
the U.S. but throughout the world, will be encouraged in socialist
society.
The proletarian state will uphold the right of the
masses of Chicano people to land denied them through the violation of the
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which sealed the U.S. ripoff of land from
Mexico in 1848. This Treaty supposedly guaranteed Chicanos certain basic
rights--like the right to land, water, and the equality of the Spanish
language. But like the treaties the U.S. made with the Native peoples,
these rights were quickly trampled upon.
In the struggle to uproot the legacy of national
oppression and white supremacy, one important policy of the proletarian
state will be to uphold the right of Chicanos--as well as Black people,
Native Americans, etc.--to forms of autonomy/self-government. For Chicanos
this would mean the right to establish autonomy (i.e., self-government
within the larger proletarian state) in large areas of the Southwest. This
may take the form of a single autonomous region or several autonomous
areas. This will mean that, in contrast to things like the "Indian
reservations" under the present system, the real needs of Chicanos and
other oppressed peoples for some land and resources under their autonomous
authority will be met. Areas that have been kept in a backward state, like
South Texas, will be provided special assistance from the socialist state
to promote development that meets the needs of the people.
The people in the autonomous areas or regions will
have the right to self-government under overall guiding principles that
promote equality, not inequality; unity not division between different
peoples; and that serve to eliminate, not foster, exploitation and
oppression. Autonomy will mean, in regard to language and culture, that
the styles, forms, and expressions common to an oppressed people will be
given priority in publications, in the creation of cultural works, etc.,
within the geographic area where autonomy is applied. And these will be
popularized throughout society as well.
None of these land and autonomy policies will mean
that Chicanos will have to live in Chicano autonomous areas. Many Chicanos
will want to live, work, and struggle side by side with people of all
other nationalities in other areas of the new multinational socialist
state. But the proletarian state, while favoring and encouraging unity and
integration, will ensure formerly oppressed peoples the right to autonomy
as part of the policy of promoting real equality between different nations
and peoples.
All the policies for achieving real equality,
including equality of languages and cultures, will apply to immigrants,
and the proletarian state will encourage and cherish the full
participation of immigrants in all aspects of building the new socialist
society. All forms of discrimination against immigrants in jobs, housing,
health care, and education will be abolished. No human being will be
treated as "illegal." And the apparatus that terrorized immigrants--la
Migra, the police, military border patrols, and paramilitary
vigilantes--will be smashed.
And in regard to the southern border--where the new
border will be and how it is demarcated will be determined by the
development and outcome of the revolutionary struggles in both the U.S.
and Mexico. But the border will NOT be used as a means to terrorize and
exploit the masses of immigrants and to reinforce the domination of
Mexico. (For more on all these questions see the Draft Programme.)
Part III: A Look At Other Viewpoints and
Approaches --
Where We Have Unity and Where We Have Differences
Over What Will Bring True Liberation
The class-conscious proletariat strongly supports and
actively takes part in the Chicano people's resistance to national
oppression. Throughout the history of this country, this struggle has been
a powerful force shaking the foundations of society, and it is bound to be
a source of many more outpourings and rebellions in the period ahead. But
the question is whether we're willing to settle for just "rattling our
chains," while leaving the system intact. Or are we going to set our
sights on smashing those chains once and for all, by contributing all we
can to making all-the-way proletarian revolution that can put an end to
all forms of exploitation and oppression.
For the proletariat and the masses of oppressed people
to free ourselves, we have to want liberation badly enough that we're
willing to be scientific about it. What does that mean?
First, it means being clear about what is your starting point. Are you
about fighting for the real needs and the real interests of the masses of
people, or something less? Then you have to look honestly at what it will
take to do that. You have to confront the cold truth that this system is
completely worthless and cannot be reformed. In other words, you have to
see the need for revolution. You have to wrangle over what kind of
struggle it is going to take to deal with this system. You have to grapple
with what kind of strategy and what kind of leadership we will need to
lead the people to wage and win that struggle. And you have to decide what
kind of society we are going to build in place of the old one, and how we
will do that.
In the section that follows we want to take a look at
other approaches and views towards putting an end to the oppression the
Chicano people face. We will dig into what we see as the strengths and
weaknesses of these different viewpoints and approaches, with the aim of
encouraging the kind of wrangling and debate that can deepen our unity
around a correct analysis, strategy, and concrete program for liberation
through proletarian revolution. Mao Tsetung once said: "The enemy will not
perish of himself_ [They] will not step down from the stage of history of
their own accord." We need to make revolution, and we need to do it as
fast as possible!
The Strategy of
Reformism vs. The Struggle for Revolution
The rulers of this country have united around a program for the masses
of people: prisons, punishment, and patriarchy. Today's battles are
bringing the youth and the masses of people right up against the brutality
of this system and its laws, against its police, and against the economic
realities of capitalism. This experience is leading a section of these
fighters to the fundamental truth that "revolution is the hope of
the hopeless." But others see the strength of the system--not just
its military strength, but the forces in society, particularly the
middle class, who go along with it, and the divisions among different
sections of the people--and can't see how a revolutionary movement
under the leadership of the proletariat could topple this system through
a real people's war. And this view can be reinforced by the ruling
class' promotion of the "invincibility" of their military power.(10)
At the same time, with all the slanders of socialism
propagated by those who control the machinery of public opinion, many of
the new generation are not so sure revolution is
desirable. All of this makes people susceptible to the
arguments of middle class reformists and bourgeois politicians that
revolution is not necessary--that Chicanos and other
oppressed and exploited people can gain emancipation simply through waging
mass struggles, or through the ballot box, without the need for a violent
revolution to overthrow the capitalist system.
Reformism denies that this whole capitalist system is
based on exploitation and oppression--and cannot
exist without it. It denies that the interests of the rulers of this
country are fundamentally and antagonistically opposed to those of
the proletariat, and the masses of people. The ruling class maintains
this system by keeping the masses of people in a state of combined
"pacification and suppression." Even when it is forced to grant concessions
in the face of mass struggle and upheaval, the capitalist class pursues
its interests as ruthlessly as necessary. The problem with reformism,
then, is not that people can never wrench concessions from the ruling
class (and not that it is wrong to try to do this(11)
) but that this cannot solve the fundamental problem
and cannot meet the fundamental needs of the people and bring about their
emancipation. And over time--usually before too long--concessions that are
made are taken back and overwhelmed by the workings of the system and the
actions of the ruling class. This reformist approach ends up demoralizing
the masses while letting the capitalist system off the hook. For that
reason reformism is acceptable to and often promoted by the rulers and
mouthpieces of the system themselves.
For all the arguments about how this reformist
approach is more practical--or more
realistic--than working for revolution, in fact there is
nothing more un-realistic than thinking you can reform
the teeth out of this vampire system.
The starting point of our Party and the
class-conscious proletariat is the need to get rid of this system through
waging and winning a people's war. We understand that the whole system we
now live under is based on exploitation--here and around the world. This
system is completely worthless and no basic change for the better can come
about until it is overthrown. Our approach is to work at all times to push
things closer to and to prepare for the conditions where the armed
struggle can be launched. "How does what we are doing today prepare us for
and get us into position to be able to actually launch and win the
revolutionary war, when the time is ripe?"--this is the yardstick with
which our Party measures its work for revolution in the U.S.
Does this mean that there is no point in waging
battles against racist oppression or the millions of other injustices
people face? Just the opposite. Resisting the attacks by the system and
its enforcers plays a potentially powerful role in keeping the people from
being beaten down, and at the same time in creating the conditions for
waging the ultimate struggle for state power. But it does mean that, in
leading the people to fight back against national oppression and other
outrages of this system, we have to do it in a way that is guided by
revolutionary ideology and serves revolutionary aims. In all we do our
goal should be to increase the consciousness, and also the organization
and fighting capacity of the people. We have to set our sights on
preparing the masses of people to wage people's war when the time is
ripe.
Conscious reformists try to hide their own
non-revolutionary outlook by saying the masses will never go for
revolution. They argue that if we tell the people the truth--that only
revolution can put an end to their oppression--the people won't support
us. But in general it does not help the masses, and in fact it actually
holds them back, to come to them with anything less than the whole truth
of what is fundamentally required for humanity's liberation. Just as it
does not help a patient to have their doctor lie to them about how serious
their illness is, and tell them to take two aspirins when in fact what
they need is radical surgery. Revolution and revolutionary work is not a
popularity contest. It is a serious responsibility to carry out the all
round work of preparing the masses of people to realize their true
revolutionary interests through seizing power and transforming all of
society as part of the world revolution. And that includes arming the
masses with this revolutionary understanding so that they can become
revolutionary communist leaders themselves.
Others argue that it is wrong in
principle--or arrogant--to take responsibility for
leading the people to make revolution--for being the vanguard. Again,
those who say this have either given up any hope that liberation is
possible, or have bought into some utopian, reformist scheme that aiming
for something far short of the revolutionary overthrow of the existing
order and the revolutionary transformation of all existing conditions and
relations is all that is needed. Such people are about
leading the masses--but with this approach there is nowhere they can lead
them except down a blind alley. What is wrong with this outlook is that,
whatever people's intentions, they don't proceed from the fundamental
interests and needs of the masses of people. They don't proceed from the
actual problem that people face, the actual conditions and relations that
people are shackled to.
As soon as you begin to grapple with what it is going
to take to really carry through the struggle to overthrow U.S. imperialism
and continue, together with the international proletariat, to see
that struggle through to the end of class society, you immediately
come up against the need for a vanguard leadership. There is no way
you can do what has to be done, and lead the people where their struggle
needs to go, without a leading group that can develop the ideology,
the vision, the strategy, and the organization necessary to do that.
In this country the RCP is taking that responsibility.(12)
Revolution or reform, vanguard proletarian leadership
or reformist bourgeois leadership--these are crucial questions that
confront the movements of today.
Elections are the Wrong
Arena:
It's Going to Come Down
to Revolutionary War
As this paper is
being written, the results of the 2000 U.S. Census are beginning to be
made public. The tremendous growth in the numbers of people of Mexican
descent throughout the Southwest and the rest of the country is fueling
peoples' outrage at their continued status as "marginalized" and oppressed
peoples. Because of this, politicians are working overtime to channel that
anger back into support for the system by arguing that the people should
focus their efforts on "gaining political power through the electoral
arena." At the same time they tell people that they have no one but
themselves to blame for their continuing oppression if they don't devote
all their efforts to getting more "brown faces in high places"--as people
have been characterizing it since the 1960s. But who can deny that the
decades since the '60s have seen Chicano politicians elected to higher
political office in greater numbers than ever before--for both bourgeois
political parties--while the conditions of life for the vast majority of
Chicanos and the masses of people in general have only gotten
worse.
Oppressed nationalities, as well as women, have had
plenty of experience with politicians who "look like them" but act like
the bourgeoisie--going along with and helping to implement the repressive
agenda of the ruling class, despite paying lip-service to representing
"their people." (And we only have to look to Mexico to see that just
having people of your own nationality running things does not solve the
problem of what class is in charge, and how that affects the conditions of
the masses of oppressed people.) The experience with Chicano politicians
is no different. Inevitably, once they are elected to political office,
and regardless of their promises (or in some cases even their intentions)
they eventually--and usually very quickly--go against the interests of the
masses of people. Among other things, they are caught in the "logic" of
the system, where if you want "to get anything done," you have to "go
along" with the prevailing ways of doing things--which all serve the
ruling class. And the fact is, regardless of who is elected to office, the
ruling class has always been able to carry out its cruel agenda of
oppression and exploitation against the working class and oppressed people
here in the U.S. and worldwide.
This is because the problem is more fundamental than
just that people keep electing the wrong Chicanos--or the wrong
politicians in general--to office. This whole capitalist system is based
on oppression and exploitation. And the political system--the
superstructure of laws, the politicians and the bureaucracy, the cops and
prisons, etc.--exists fundamentally to meet the needs of that oppressive
setup and the bourgeois class that politically dominates and benefits from
it. That's why, as long as you are working within the system--trying to
"make it work"--you become its instrument, doing its bidding, whatever the
consequences are for the people. For this reason there is no way out of
all the misery people have to go through so long as we accept the
framework of working within the same system that is the cause of that
misery. It is extremely crucial to understand that the solution to all
this madness cannot be found inside the "ballot box" or through
participating in the "electoral process."
Many young activists today have come into political
life through the battles to prevent the passage of various reactionary
ballot initiatives. In some cases and to a certain extent, such struggles
can be useful for exposing the reactionary program that the ruling class
is trying to force on the people. But you cannot let yourself get locked
into limiting the struggle to resisting/opposing these electoral attacks.
RCP Chairman Bob Avakian has summed up about elections: "To state it in a
single sentence, elections: are controlled by the bourgeoisie; are not the
means through which basic decisions are made in any case; and are really
for the primary purpose of legitimizing the system and the policies and
actions of the ruling class, giving them the mantle of a 'popular
mandate,' and of channeling, confining, and controlling the political
activity of the masses of people."
This is an extremely important orientation for
understanding what these ballot initiatives represent. More than anything,
their purpose is to enable the rulers to claim they have the "mandate of
the people" for reactionary policies that have already been decided on in
the think-tanks, the backrooms and the boardrooms of the ruling class. If
we let these electoral battles "channel, confine or control" our political
activity in the effort to influence their outcome, then the ruling class
will have succeeded in legitimizing their system and their policies. And
we will be incapable of even challenging the political terms that the
ruling class sets; instead of mobilizing masses to transform the political
terrain, we will always be acting on a terrain and in a political
atmosphere that is unfavorable for us and favorable for our oppressors.
And they will succeed in derailing and demoralizing the masses of people
and their struggles against oppression.
We cannot vote in a better society or an end to
national oppression or oppression in general. The proletariat and the
masses of people need to overthrow the bourgeoisie in order for real
change to come about.
Indigenism
Many
Chicano youth today identify with the history, the culture, and the
struggles of the indigenous people of the U.S. and Mexico. Often this is
part of trying to understand and to deal with their own history and the
present-day reality of oppression they face. Many youth are also attracted
to the indigenous way of life because they hate what technology in the
hands of capitalism has done to people here and around the world. They see
rejecting Western culture and going back to their "indigenous roots" as a
first step toward ending their oppression. In addition, these youth are
disgusted by the crass way that capitalism worships money and the
relentless drive to make it at whatever cost to people and the
environment, and find in indigenous beliefs an answer to the sense of
emptiness and longing for something loftier that they feel.
There is much that the class-conscious proletariat
unites with in their sentiments. The "rosy dawn" of this present-day
system arrived drenched in the blood of tens of millions of native peoples
wiped out through war, disease and enslavement within a few years of the
arrival of the European colonizers. The fact that these youth identify
with the struggles of the indigenous peoples here and in Mexico can
contribute to their understanding that the oppressed and exploited
internationally have a common struggle against a common enemy--the
present-day imperialist system--a system that more and more threatens life
itself on the planet.
The quest to learn about and identify with the
civilizations of the past--and in particular those of the indigenous
peoples, which have in the main been buried--is a part of Chicano culture.
There is much from these cultures and civilizations that needs to be
learned from and preserved. And further, it is necessary and correct to
rebel against a form of "self-hatred" and national inferiority that has
led some Mexicans and Chicanos to emphasize only the Spanish side of their
heritage. But there is in some cases a tendency to deny the fact that
Chicanos and indigenous people also have different, distinct histories,
and to argue instead that all the indigenous people and people of Mexican
descent on both sides of the border are the same. Making such sweeping
statements oversimplifies the historical development of all the different
peoples living in the regions of the Southwest and Mexico (and the rest of
Latin America) before and after the Spanish and U.S. conquests, and does
not give full recognition to the distinct histories of these peoples.
Rather than helping to unite all the struggles of the people, it
undermines that unity by denying the specific histories (and conflicts)
and present-day differences in the conditions and demands of these
different peoples.
The history of the Southwest is not the history of a
single people. While the indigenous and then the Mexican and Chicano
people of the Southwest suffered from the domination of the Spaniards and
then the U.S. capitalists, the Navajo, Hopi, Pueblo and other Indians
there have histories, cultures, and conditions that are distinct from
those of the Chicano people there. And saying that all the people of
Mexico are indigenous doesn't take into account that there are distinct
indigenous peoples and cultures within Mexico that face discrimination and
brutal oppression at the hands of the Mexican ruling classes in
partnership with the U.S. imperialists. And who can deny what a huge
difference it makes in the lives of the people to be born above, rather
than below, "la línea."
If we are serious about ending oppression we have to
get to the bottom of the way things really are, and how they got that way.
Understanding the actual history and looking scientifically at all its
aspects will enable us to unravel this history of oppression and get to
the source of the problem and what actually unites us. It is capitalism
that colonized this continent and committed genocide against native
peoples, it is capitalism that continues to exploit indigenous people (and
all people), and it is capitalism that has intentionally stolen and tried
to stamp out the people's history of struggle against this oppression. And
it is capitalist imperialism that is exploiting and dominating Mexico and
other oppressed nations. If we do not grasp that it is the capitalist
system that is the cause of the problems facing all the people, we may be
led to mistakenly blame Western culture, or white people, and won't be
able to unite all who can be united of all nationalities, and ally with
those struggling internationally against that same system in the struggle
to overthrow the rule of capital and build a new world without oppression
and exploitation.
Seeing entire peoples destroyed by lumber interests,
or watching as the natural resources of the earth are exploited for quick
profit, can lead people to conclude that technology itself is the problem
and what is threatening the destruction of the environment. And in
response the argument is made that the solution is to go back to an
earlier period in history before the development of technology. It has to
be said that when you study the experience of peoples in that period, life
was not so "idyllic." We're not talking about the "standard of
living"--the truth is that for millions throughout the hemisphere the way
they are forced to live today is more arduous than it was
500 years ago. But those societies often had their own class hierarchies,
including in relation to women, and also violence and killing between
tribes was commonplace. (For instance, Aztec society before the Spanish
arrived not only had hierarchical relations, and exploitation and
oppression among the Aztecs themselves, but there was also domination and
plunder of other peoples--which is one factor that enabled the Spanish to
rally some of those peoples to fight with them against the Aztecs.)
But the more basic problem with the idea of going back
to "the way things were" as a fundamental solution to the problems brought
on by this capitalist era is that humanity has moved beyond the historical
stage where the mode of existence of hunting and gathering, or simple
agriculture, can provide for a human population that exceeds 6 billion
people worldwide. The truth is that it would not be possible to feed and
house the people of the planet, or even just people in this country,
without technology. And therefore it cannot serve the needs of the vast
majority of people to try to go back to an earlier way of life--or an
idealized version of that way of life--without technology. Our starting
point must be the needs of the people today, and how these needs will be
fulfilled.
At the same time there are important things that can
and need to be learned from the experience of the indigenous peoples,
including their appreciation of the need for society to maintain the
well-being of the natural environment. And incorporating this is part of
what will be achieved through the proletarian revolution in bringing
forward a whole new way of life without exploitation and
oppression.
It is important therefore to understand and make the
distinction that it is not technology per se, but how capitalism develops
and utilizes technology, that is destroying people's lives and the planet
we inhabit. The problem isn't technology--the problem is that
technology is now in the hands of capitalism:
"The imperialists in their endless quest to turn every
thing into a means for private profit--and in their monstrous methods of
warfare to enforce and extend their domination--tear down forests, pollute
water and air, threaten the earth's atmosphere, devastate ecological
systems, and generally wreak havoc on the earth and its resources. They
are not fit to be caretakers of the earth. Their system has not only
brought tremendous suffering for many generations ---every day they cause
further destruction to the environment that will affect people all over
the world for many generations to come." (Draft Programme, pg.7)
On the other hand, once the proletariat has seized
power, technology and its development will be in hands that will guide and
wield it to serve the needs of the people and the advancement of society,
recognizing the need to restore and protect the environment:
"The proletariat's policy with regard to the
environment is one of 'socialist sustainable development.' The proletariat
will step by step repair the destruction of the forests, soil, water, and
air. It will develop industrial and agricultural systems that are
economically productive, ecologically rational, and socially just. In all,
the new society aims to interact with nature in a planned way that
preserves ecological systems and fosters a deeper understanding and
appreciation among the people for the richness of the natural world."
(Draft Programme, pg. 17)
Finally, as we have noted above, many youth turn to
indigenous spirituality as a rejection of the emptiness of the ruling
class' values, its insistence on selfishness as the "bottom line"
of all human motivation, and the decadence and degradation it spews
forth. And often these youth are also rebelling against the Catholic
Church and its traditional religious values that uphold and reinforce
the oppression of women, wage slavery, and more. There is a lot to
unite with in their criticism of this society's ideals and morality
and in their search for some alternative beliefs that originate from
the oppressed rather than the oppressor. Communists approach this
question differently--we do not believe in supernatural forces or
beings of any kind and instead understand that it is the masses of
people themselves who will achieve their own emancipation. And we
see that the role of religion in general is to instill in the masses
a sense that they are powerless before God and the forces of nature
and those that rule over them in society, and to console them in their
misery, rather than arousing them to rise up and abolish the source
of it through revolutionary struggle. But we also know there are many
people who, out of religious conviction or similar ideals, are propelled
to fight against injustice, oppression, and sometimes to consciously
fight against imperialism. So we urge people to take up this yardstick
in evaluating whatever set of beliefs they are gravitating towards--do
those beliefs lead them to accommodate with their oppression--to make
their peace with it--or to overthrow it?(13)
Fighting For Socialism, Not a Separate
Nation-State, Is the Road to
Chicano Liberation
The concept of Aztlán(14)
as the mythic homeland of the Chicano people was
popularized during the Chicano youth conference held in March of 1969 in
Denver, Colorado. "El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán," which was a
product of this conference, was just that--a spiritual declaration of
Chicano independence and identity, and a demand for freedom and an end to
oppression. Aztlán means different things to different people--but it
remains a powerful symbol and central theme within the Chicano movement
because it touches on some very real problems faced by the Chicano people
and their desire to be free from oppression. For many Chicanos Aztlán
symbolizes their common identity as a distinct people, and their common
struggle for equality and for freedom.
Some people raise that after--or instead
of--revolution, Chicanos should aim to set up a separate nation-state in
the Southwest. The heart of their argument is that the Chicano people
constitute a nation rather than an oppressed national minority; that the
Southwest is the "historic homeland" of the Chicano people; and that
forming a separate Chicano nation-state in the territory of the Southwest
is the way to end their oppression. Sometimes this program is put forward
as the struggle to "reclaim Aztlán." But this whole analysis is not based
on an accurate understanding of the history of the Southwest or of Chicano
history; it misunderstands the distinct character of Chicanos as an
oppressed national minority; and therefore it cannot contribute to forging
a correct strategy for ending their oppression.
To begin with, as we've seen, the complex history of
the Southwest involves not only the theft of land from Mexico and the
subjugation of the Mexican population who remained there, but also the
suppression of the Native peoples who had been there long before the
Spanish arrived, and who waged their own wars of resistance to the
development of Spanish/Mexican settlements in the region and to the
westward expansion of the U.S. Later these Native peoples were forced onto
concentration-camp-like "reservations." The Native Americans also are a
part of the history of the Southwest, and they too have just demands for
compensation and for land that must be taken into account. And for that
matter, Mexico, too, can legitimately claim that this is their territory,
stolen in an unjust war--an issue that could come into play in the form of
a revolutionary struggle challenging the border from below.
The Draft Programme provides for and upholds the right
of Chicanos to autonomy--self-government--within the overall unified
socialist state--in areas of their historic concentration. In doing so, it
also takes this actual complex history into account:
"The application of autonomy policies with regard to
the Chicano people will need to take into account several factors: how the
revolution unfolds in the U.S.; how proletarian revolution in the U.S.
interrelates with revolution in Mexico; developments in the U.S./Mexico
border region; and the requirement that the proletariat respect the
historical land claims of other oppressed peoples in the Southwest,
especially the Native peoples." (Draft Programme, p. 97)
But is it the case that Chicanos constitute a separate
nation? As we have seen, when the U.S. seized the Southwest territory from
Mexico the Mexican settlements there were not sufficiently developed, and
their isolation from each other and from Mexico was too great to give rise
to their own development into a nation. With the conquest these
settlements were no longer connected to Mexico and the nation-forming
process taking place there. And in the Southwest in the period that
followed the conquest, the Mexican population living there did not develop
as a nation. Mexicans in the Southwest were subjected to brutal oppression
that forged them into a distinct oppressed people within the U.S.--but a
separate Chicano nation never came into being.
And it is important to understand the unique process
of development and transformation that the Chicano people in this country
have gone through since that time. Over the last century waves of
migration from Mexico have added and continue to add tremendously to this
population, so that today the vast majority of Chicanos trace their roots
not to the Southwest, but to Mexico. For them Aztlán may be a unifying
symbol, but it has no connection to their actual homeland. And, as we have
pointed out, as these immigrants stay in the U.S., many of them--and
especially their children--are integrated into the already-existing
oppressed Chicano people.
There is a distinct Chicano people, whose relationship
to Mexico is part of their defining characteristic. Chicanos have a
culture that is influenced and affected by Mexico, but is different from
it. Their heritage--and historic and present-day national
oppression--continues to infuse Chicanos with a common identity. But the
makeup and character of the Chicano population also reflects the wide
diversity of its origins. Chicanos have different histories and roots,
speak different languages (Spanish and English and many wonderful
variations of both). And, although (as pointed out in our Party's Draft
Programme) Chicanos share a certain economic as well as social history,
this never has been on the level of a common economic life--an economic
life rooted in a common territory and "woven together" throughout that
territory--that is characteristic of a nation.
A nation is a "historically constituted, stable
community of people formed on the basis of a common language, territory,
economic life and psychological makeup manifested in a common culture"
(Marxism and the National Question, J.V. Stalin). Modern nations first
arose and developed with the rise and development of capitalism. For
various reasons, some have become dominant over others and, while not
always the case, generally the nations where capitalism has developed more
quickly have dominated and oppressed other, less
capitalistically-developed nations. And, in fact, this domination often
prevented groups of people from developing into a nation at all.
The terms "nation" and "national minority" have
specific meanings. The purpose in determining whether a people are a
nation or a national minority is not to rate them according to how much
they have suffered--or whether or not they have a right to be free of
oppression. The point is to understand the historic development they have
gone through and what this means for the future of the struggle. Nations
have an internal cohesion that makes it possible for them to form separate
states, not because anyone has granted them this possibility, but because
this possibility has been created by their actual historical development.
For this reason the proletariat upholds the right of self-determination,
the right to secede from the dominant nation and set up a separate
state--though whether or not the proletariat would favor this would depend
on the specific circumstances and how best to unite the people and weaken
the stranglehold of imperialism over them.
Oppressed national minorities, on the other hand,
which have also been subjugated to the needs of the developing capitalism
of dominant nations, do not have the right to secession. Not because the
right has not been granted to them, but because their actual historical
development has not created the conditions for their development as a
nation.
The actual historical development of the Chicano
people has not created the basis for a separate Chicano nation-state to be
established. But the Chicano people do have the right to
be free --free of national inequality and racism. That
freedom can come about--but only through overthrowing the capitalist
system that is responsible for and profits from national
oppression--through allying with and taking up the proletarian
revolution.
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