Post by DAAA Collective on Oct 20, 2006 17:40:29 GMT -5
Cracks in the Border of Capital: May 1st and Beyond in Modesto
Starting around March and April, students in Modesto city schools, as well as Paterson, Ceres, and other local areas began walking out of their respected factories of social capital. They were protesting the newly proposed HR 4437 bill, which was being debated in the halls of American political power. What the bill proposes:
* Increased security forces and surveillance along the border.
* Give power to immigration officials within 100 miles of the border to expel without a hearing anyone believed to be a recently arrived illegal immigrant.
* Expand mandatory detention to apply to all non-citizens arriving at a port of entry or “along” the border.
* Limit the basic rights of immigrants to judicial review, even by the constitutionally guaranteed writ of habeas corpus.
* Criminalize all violations of immigration law, even if the violation was unintentional or the result of processing delays
* Give additional powers to detain non-citizens indefinitely without judicial review, potentially placing many non-citizens in a legal black hole that subjects them to a life sentence after having served a criminal sentence, or, in some cases, without ever having been convicted of a crime.
In Section 203 of the bill, it calls for the creation of a new federal crime of “illegal presence”. As defined in the bill it includes any violation, even technical, of any immigration law or regulation. Even if the immigrant was to fall “out of status” unintentionally, or do to paperwork delays. In essence, the bill makes every immigration violation, however minor, into a federal crime. As drafted, the bill also makes the new crime of “illegal presence” an “aggravated felony” for immigration purposes. This classification would have the further effect of restricting ordinary undocumented immigrants, (including those with pending applications), from many forms of administrative or judicial review. Those convicted of an, "aggravated felony", would be subject to indefinite detention and/or expedited removal. The bill also makes it a felony to HELP, anyone who is known to be “illegal”. This could include anything from teachers helping students, to doctors helping patients in hospitals. In essence, it criminalizes mutual aid.
In late March, the first major protests in the local area began happening against HR 4437. Self-organized protests by students began occurring in Ceres, and then in Modesto and elsewhere, (in the context of the local area). In Ceres, students circulated flyers and myspace messages, and one morning staged a wildcat walkout. School officials attempted to lock down the school, and locals pigs were called to the scene to keep the students from getting out of the schools, and going to join other students and community members. According to D.A.A.A. Collective members that participated in the Ceres High School walkouts, or viewed the events in Ceres, groups of roving protestors marched around the city unopposed, chanting, holding signs, and reclaiming the streets for hours.
It appears that anarchist affinity groups also made a statement that night. Banners were dropped from the freeway, were placed up in the farm worker labor camp, and also on the front of the school. Reading in Spanish and in English, the banners had slogans and messages such as, “The Border, the Pigs, Capitalism, the State - Fuck them All”, and “From Chiapas to Ceres - Smash the Border”.
On April 1st, students in the local area grew even more bold, and started to co-ordinate their activities between each other, and also across age boundaries, (high schoolers working with middle schoolers, etc). These walkouts started in the morning, and groups of kids hopped fences and ran out of school, to join roving bands of other kids, who then in turn marched to other schools. The kids marched close to 10 miles, all the way to the other side of town, and eventually ended up going to rest, and hold a rally at a community center when police began to become a large presence behind their march. D.A.A.A. Collective members missed the march, but got to the rally at the community center in time to talk with students.
With all of this activity going on, we of course had high hopes for May Day in Modesto. While in the beginning we were hoping for simply a nice turnout of a few hundred, the reality was 10,000 people or more coming out, (according to the Modesto Police). Protests were called by various organizations, but largely the grunt work was done by the radical group, Aztlan Rising, (who has since worked with the D.A.A.A. Collective on various projects), and the group developed a radical critique of US capitalism and imperialism, that went beyond the general flag waving that most of the left were promoting. The protest plan that was created and put forth by Aztlan Rising, was largely based out of working with students who already had experience with walkouts in the months before. The plan was simple. Kids walkout of school, which would hit the schools in the pocket, (schools get paid to have kids come), and then people would rally on Crows Landing road, (which was largely a working class Chicano area of town). The schools and the police reacted by putting out statements asking parents to not have their children walk out of school on May 1st, and instead asked them to go to an event happening at the community college. It was clear that the social order was willing and quite fine with people demonstrating, but if they disrupted “business as usual”, then they were in trouble.
Interestingly enough, the newspapers picked up on this story, and reported that the rallies called on Crows Landing would include marches, (which were not planned on by the organizers). When 10,000 people showed up to march in Modesto however, even the massive amount of police there were not enough to stop people from taking to the streets. Close to 10 members of the D.A.A.A. Collective were in the march, and made up a contingent. Lots of anarchist/radical literature in English and in Spanish was distributed, as well as bilingual posters for people to hold, (we ran out of those fast)! Marching behind a banner reading, “Working Class Solidarity - No Human is Illegal”, (in English and in Spanish), we chanted with the crowd and also drummed on bucket drums. Police did little to contain the march, although there was obviously a large police presence in the area. When our contingent marched passed the police outpost area, (pig SUV’s, horses, cars, etc), we chanted, “Tell me what a police state looks like - this is what a police state looks like!”, the pigs of course were not happy.
Realizing that those at the front of the march wanted to stop the now unpermitted march back at the original rally point, we made our way up to the front. After taking with people, and also encouraging the group in front to continue, the large mass then decided to head towards city hall. The long march into downtown began, although police made numerous attempts to stop marchers and create barricades, the large mass continued on. Eventually the march went into the downtown area, and a rally happened outside of city hall. Police guarded the entrance to city hall, but made no attempt to break up the demonstration. Speeches by people were made, and eventually the march then headed back to Crows Landing road. Mutual aid was practiced frequently throughout the march, with people stopping and handing out large amounts of water to those in the crowd. Generally a very festive feeling was all around, that the large mass of people were holding the streets, taking care of each other - and there wasn’t a thing that anyone in power could do about it.
While the walkouts showed the power of working class self-organization, the protests also made an impression on xenophobic anti-immigration activists. In June 2006, a new chapter of “Save Our State”, (SOS), formed in Modesto, and declared that it would be holding a protest in Modesto against illegal immigration. Quickly D.A.A.A. Collective and Aztlan Rising started working together to organize a counter protest. After initial meetings, and long nights flyer designing work, several outreach texts were made in Spanish and in English and we got to work getting them out to the community.
Soon Save Our State got wind of this new development, and we also got wind that white nationalist members of the online Stormfront community would be attending the rally in support of Save Our State. Save Our State members/supporters also made a barrage of racist and stupid comments on their online forums, some of them equating all Chicanos and Mexicanos with being gang members, and also stating that all parents who had allowed their children to skip out of school on May 1st were genetically stupid, among other things.
The arguments from Save Our State were the standard fare. “They are taking our jobs”, “they are a burden on the tax payer”, and that “their culture is polluting ours”, etc. Immigrants have always been a huge part of the American economy, because the American economy has always been based largely on the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor; whether it has been Irish, Chinese, African American, or Mexican immigrants. Immigrants contribute millions of dollars into the tax system, and often can’t get back the benefits they pay into. Despite the millions that they pay into, according to a study by Chapman University:
“…undocumented immigrants are barred from almost all government benefits, including food stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Medicaid, federal housing programs, Supplemental Security Income, Unemployment Insurance, Social Security, Medicare, and the earned income tax credit (EITC). Generally, the only benefits federally required for undocumented immigrants are emergency medical care…”
Save Our State supporters are also largely blind to the fact that illegal immigration has dramatically increased since the passing of NAFTA. This largely has been caused by NAFTA prohibiting agriculture subsidies towards the Mexican agricultural market. While US farmers continue to get large subsidies, many Mexican businesses go under, and workers are forced to illegally go across the border to search for agricultural work. Capital and jobs flow from one labor market to another, putting out of work thousands, while workers are stuck in those labor markets, trapped behind borders. The logic towards illegally crossing then becomes clear. Some SOSers do admit that corporations, and ‘free trade’, are somewhat to blame, yet they see the main problem created by it as illegal immigration. Instead of concentrating their energy at opposing the system that forces people to come here to support their families, (something that Save Our State leader Joe Turner in an interview said he would do in their place), Save Our State focuses on opposing those most impacted by the realities of capitalist globalization. What is interesting is that they constantly talk of the state as putting a “band aid” on the problem of illegal immigration, yet fail to address the reasons which are causing forced immigration in the first place. Their solution of a hugely militarized border, (which would largely only result in more deaths of border crossers), holds the same logic that harsher drug laws will somehow ‘win’ the ‘war on drugs’. More force and institutional violence won’t end social and economic realities, they will only make them worse.
Yet it is the xenophobia, and nativism which seems to be the major reason for many SOSers for getting involved with anti-immigration activism. The belief that outside cultures are destroying and polluting “ours”, (which begs the question that if it’s ‘our’ culture, how can people tell us what it has to be)? This is the reason that groups like Save Our State are such a breeding ground for white nationalist groups, and it came as no surprise to us that one person identified themselves to us in person as a neo-Nazi, and another as a poster on Stormfront.
The protest against Save Our State went well, with both sides having around 30 or so people. D.A.A.A. Collective made a large banner reading, “Solidarity Knows No Borders - www.modanarcho.tk”, and made lots of signs and posters. We also made large amounts of flyers detailing the connections between neo-Nazi groups and Save Our State. At first, both groups stayed on opposite sides of the street during the protest, but after about 30 minutes, we crossed over, and took over the Save Our State corner. This resulted in several shouting matches, and heated discussions, as excited onlookers took our flyers, and the SOSers just held their flags.
In the end, Save Our State received rather poor media coverage, thanks to the laughable quotes of James Glenn from Fremont. He was quoted in the Modesto Bee several times saying, "You're illegal. Your mama's illegal; your daddy is illegal. Go home!" At this point, the chapter now seems defunct, and they appear to be infighting online. They had one smaller rally afterwards, (according to friends, only about 5-7 were there), but did not publicize it on the internet, probably because they feared a counter protest.
Our eyes remained open towards the ongoing struggles over the immigration issue. Recently we lead a workshop on immigration and resistance from an anarchist perspective, and have also been showing a new DVD produced by Aztlan Rising featuring footage from May Day and the SOS protest. We are still willing to take to the streets in solidarity with other workers - or fight the fascists who would defend the systems of capital, state, and white supremacy.
Starting around March and April, students in Modesto city schools, as well as Paterson, Ceres, and other local areas began walking out of their respected factories of social capital. They were protesting the newly proposed HR 4437 bill, which was being debated in the halls of American political power. What the bill proposes:
* Increased security forces and surveillance along the border.
* Give power to immigration officials within 100 miles of the border to expel without a hearing anyone believed to be a recently arrived illegal immigrant.
* Expand mandatory detention to apply to all non-citizens arriving at a port of entry or “along” the border.
* Limit the basic rights of immigrants to judicial review, even by the constitutionally guaranteed writ of habeas corpus.
* Criminalize all violations of immigration law, even if the violation was unintentional or the result of processing delays
* Give additional powers to detain non-citizens indefinitely without judicial review, potentially placing many non-citizens in a legal black hole that subjects them to a life sentence after having served a criminal sentence, or, in some cases, without ever having been convicted of a crime.
In Section 203 of the bill, it calls for the creation of a new federal crime of “illegal presence”. As defined in the bill it includes any violation, even technical, of any immigration law or regulation. Even if the immigrant was to fall “out of status” unintentionally, or do to paperwork delays. In essence, the bill makes every immigration violation, however minor, into a federal crime. As drafted, the bill also makes the new crime of “illegal presence” an “aggravated felony” for immigration purposes. This classification would have the further effect of restricting ordinary undocumented immigrants, (including those with pending applications), from many forms of administrative or judicial review. Those convicted of an, "aggravated felony", would be subject to indefinite detention and/or expedited removal. The bill also makes it a felony to HELP, anyone who is known to be “illegal”. This could include anything from teachers helping students, to doctors helping patients in hospitals. In essence, it criminalizes mutual aid.
In late March, the first major protests in the local area began happening against HR 4437. Self-organized protests by students began occurring in Ceres, and then in Modesto and elsewhere, (in the context of the local area). In Ceres, students circulated flyers and myspace messages, and one morning staged a wildcat walkout. School officials attempted to lock down the school, and locals pigs were called to the scene to keep the students from getting out of the schools, and going to join other students and community members. According to D.A.A.A. Collective members that participated in the Ceres High School walkouts, or viewed the events in Ceres, groups of roving protestors marched around the city unopposed, chanting, holding signs, and reclaiming the streets for hours.
It appears that anarchist affinity groups also made a statement that night. Banners were dropped from the freeway, were placed up in the farm worker labor camp, and also on the front of the school. Reading in Spanish and in English, the banners had slogans and messages such as, “The Border, the Pigs, Capitalism, the State - Fuck them All”, and “From Chiapas to Ceres - Smash the Border”.
On April 1st, students in the local area grew even more bold, and started to co-ordinate their activities between each other, and also across age boundaries, (high schoolers working with middle schoolers, etc). These walkouts started in the morning, and groups of kids hopped fences and ran out of school, to join roving bands of other kids, who then in turn marched to other schools. The kids marched close to 10 miles, all the way to the other side of town, and eventually ended up going to rest, and hold a rally at a community center when police began to become a large presence behind their march. D.A.A.A. Collective members missed the march, but got to the rally at the community center in time to talk with students.
With all of this activity going on, we of course had high hopes for May Day in Modesto. While in the beginning we were hoping for simply a nice turnout of a few hundred, the reality was 10,000 people or more coming out, (according to the Modesto Police). Protests were called by various organizations, but largely the grunt work was done by the radical group, Aztlan Rising, (who has since worked with the D.A.A.A. Collective on various projects), and the group developed a radical critique of US capitalism and imperialism, that went beyond the general flag waving that most of the left were promoting. The protest plan that was created and put forth by Aztlan Rising, was largely based out of working with students who already had experience with walkouts in the months before. The plan was simple. Kids walkout of school, which would hit the schools in the pocket, (schools get paid to have kids come), and then people would rally on Crows Landing road, (which was largely a working class Chicano area of town). The schools and the police reacted by putting out statements asking parents to not have their children walk out of school on May 1st, and instead asked them to go to an event happening at the community college. It was clear that the social order was willing and quite fine with people demonstrating, but if they disrupted “business as usual”, then they were in trouble.
Interestingly enough, the newspapers picked up on this story, and reported that the rallies called on Crows Landing would include marches, (which were not planned on by the organizers). When 10,000 people showed up to march in Modesto however, even the massive amount of police there were not enough to stop people from taking to the streets. Close to 10 members of the D.A.A.A. Collective were in the march, and made up a contingent. Lots of anarchist/radical literature in English and in Spanish was distributed, as well as bilingual posters for people to hold, (we ran out of those fast)! Marching behind a banner reading, “Working Class Solidarity - No Human is Illegal”, (in English and in Spanish), we chanted with the crowd and also drummed on bucket drums. Police did little to contain the march, although there was obviously a large police presence in the area. When our contingent marched passed the police outpost area, (pig SUV’s, horses, cars, etc), we chanted, “Tell me what a police state looks like - this is what a police state looks like!”, the pigs of course were not happy.
Realizing that those at the front of the march wanted to stop the now unpermitted march back at the original rally point, we made our way up to the front. After taking with people, and also encouraging the group in front to continue, the large mass then decided to head towards city hall. The long march into downtown began, although police made numerous attempts to stop marchers and create barricades, the large mass continued on. Eventually the march went into the downtown area, and a rally happened outside of city hall. Police guarded the entrance to city hall, but made no attempt to break up the demonstration. Speeches by people were made, and eventually the march then headed back to Crows Landing road. Mutual aid was practiced frequently throughout the march, with people stopping and handing out large amounts of water to those in the crowd. Generally a very festive feeling was all around, that the large mass of people were holding the streets, taking care of each other - and there wasn’t a thing that anyone in power could do about it.
While the walkouts showed the power of working class self-organization, the protests also made an impression on xenophobic anti-immigration activists. In June 2006, a new chapter of “Save Our State”, (SOS), formed in Modesto, and declared that it would be holding a protest in Modesto against illegal immigration. Quickly D.A.A.A. Collective and Aztlan Rising started working together to organize a counter protest. After initial meetings, and long nights flyer designing work, several outreach texts were made in Spanish and in English and we got to work getting them out to the community.
Soon Save Our State got wind of this new development, and we also got wind that white nationalist members of the online Stormfront community would be attending the rally in support of Save Our State. Save Our State members/supporters also made a barrage of racist and stupid comments on their online forums, some of them equating all Chicanos and Mexicanos with being gang members, and also stating that all parents who had allowed their children to skip out of school on May 1st were genetically stupid, among other things.
The arguments from Save Our State were the standard fare. “They are taking our jobs”, “they are a burden on the tax payer”, and that “their culture is polluting ours”, etc. Immigrants have always been a huge part of the American economy, because the American economy has always been based largely on the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor; whether it has been Irish, Chinese, African American, or Mexican immigrants. Immigrants contribute millions of dollars into the tax system, and often can’t get back the benefits they pay into. Despite the millions that they pay into, according to a study by Chapman University:
“…undocumented immigrants are barred from almost all government benefits, including food stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Medicaid, federal housing programs, Supplemental Security Income, Unemployment Insurance, Social Security, Medicare, and the earned income tax credit (EITC). Generally, the only benefits federally required for undocumented immigrants are emergency medical care…”
Save Our State supporters are also largely blind to the fact that illegal immigration has dramatically increased since the passing of NAFTA. This largely has been caused by NAFTA prohibiting agriculture subsidies towards the Mexican agricultural market. While US farmers continue to get large subsidies, many Mexican businesses go under, and workers are forced to illegally go across the border to search for agricultural work. Capital and jobs flow from one labor market to another, putting out of work thousands, while workers are stuck in those labor markets, trapped behind borders. The logic towards illegally crossing then becomes clear. Some SOSers do admit that corporations, and ‘free trade’, are somewhat to blame, yet they see the main problem created by it as illegal immigration. Instead of concentrating their energy at opposing the system that forces people to come here to support their families, (something that Save Our State leader Joe Turner in an interview said he would do in their place), Save Our State focuses on opposing those most impacted by the realities of capitalist globalization. What is interesting is that they constantly talk of the state as putting a “band aid” on the problem of illegal immigration, yet fail to address the reasons which are causing forced immigration in the first place. Their solution of a hugely militarized border, (which would largely only result in more deaths of border crossers), holds the same logic that harsher drug laws will somehow ‘win’ the ‘war on drugs’. More force and institutional violence won’t end social and economic realities, they will only make them worse.
Yet it is the xenophobia, and nativism which seems to be the major reason for many SOSers for getting involved with anti-immigration activism. The belief that outside cultures are destroying and polluting “ours”, (which begs the question that if it’s ‘our’ culture, how can people tell us what it has to be)? This is the reason that groups like Save Our State are such a breeding ground for white nationalist groups, and it came as no surprise to us that one person identified themselves to us in person as a neo-Nazi, and another as a poster on Stormfront.
The protest against Save Our State went well, with both sides having around 30 or so people. D.A.A.A. Collective made a large banner reading, “Solidarity Knows No Borders - www.modanarcho.tk”, and made lots of signs and posters. We also made large amounts of flyers detailing the connections between neo-Nazi groups and Save Our State. At first, both groups stayed on opposite sides of the street during the protest, but after about 30 minutes, we crossed over, and took over the Save Our State corner. This resulted in several shouting matches, and heated discussions, as excited onlookers took our flyers, and the SOSers just held their flags.
In the end, Save Our State received rather poor media coverage, thanks to the laughable quotes of James Glenn from Fremont. He was quoted in the Modesto Bee several times saying, "You're illegal. Your mama's illegal; your daddy is illegal. Go home!" At this point, the chapter now seems defunct, and they appear to be infighting online. They had one smaller rally afterwards, (according to friends, only about 5-7 were there), but did not publicize it on the internet, probably because they feared a counter protest.
Our eyes remained open towards the ongoing struggles over the immigration issue. Recently we lead a workshop on immigration and resistance from an anarchist perspective, and have also been showing a new DVD produced by Aztlan Rising featuring footage from May Day and the SOS protest. We are still willing to take to the streets in solidarity with other workers - or fight the fascists who would defend the systems of capital, state, and white supremacy.