The immigrant struggle, the economy and May Day 2009

Teresa Gutierrez WW photo: G. Dunkel

Wouldn’t it be great if we were able, along with our allies in the movement, to take May Day even further next year? Is not the potential there for building a huge May Day, broader, more class conscious and more multinational than ever before?

Is not the deepening economic crisis laying the basis for a May Day rich with the struggle of all workers, not just immigrants?

We believe so.

The lessons of recent May Days are important for our party and are something we must examine.

We are right now entering a very interesting period. The election of the first African-American president was historic and is a triumph for the Black masses and all the oppressed.

It is a triumph fraught with contradictions. We have no illusions that the capitalist system has changed with this election or that class relations of exploitation and oppression have been done away with.

Oppressed people are walking now just a little bit taller, but they are still walking unjustly into jails. They are still walking into schools that are not much better than jails.

Nonetheless, as communists and revolutionaries we take joy with the oppressed and other progressives as they gather in jubilation from Harlem to Colombia to Japan to Kenya with the election of Obama.

As Che said, a true revolutionary is guided by genuine feelings of love. And our love of the oppressed masses—like our solidarity with the working class—extends even when it involves the presidency of the strongest imperialist country ever.

Racism is that profound, victories are that few, that this extreme contradiction does not stop us from celebrating with the masses.

The forces of reaction have been pushed back, even if for just a moment. And the election of Obama is a slap in the face of Lou Dobbs, even if only momentarily. For that I am very happy.

A few months ago, it was not known which way the Latin@ masses would go. Would Latin@s fall prey to the divide-and-conquer tactic and be so disappointed with the defeat of Hillary Clinton, who many had supported, that they’d turn to McCain in disgust? Or would they become apathetic and not turn out in great numbers at all?

Fortunately, Latin@s, driven by economic and immigration concerns, were not immune to the excitement that the Obama movement had inspired, voted in huge numbers for Obama, and were even decisive in his victory.

However, whatever euphoria may have come out of the election of the first Black president was clouded last week as we learned of yet another savage murder of a Latino immigrant, this time in Suffolk County, Long Island.

Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorian, was stabbed to death by a racist vigilante mob. These thugs said they purposely and callously went out to hunt a Mexican. They are as ignorant as Sarah Palin; to them everybody south of the U.S. border is Mexican.

I am proud to say that our party, despite all the organizing efforts for this conference, went out to Long Island last night to join the community to condemn this killing. It was a great way to open this conference: in the struggle and in the streets.

Conditions for migrants today, here and around the world, are exactly as Lenin predicted in the early 1900s. He wrote how a special feature of imperialism was the decline of emigration from the imperialist countries while migration increased from oppressed nations to the richer nations.

Indeed, around the globe, workers in record numbers are forced out of their homelands to seek work as a result of capitalist economic policies. A witch hunt of racism, brutality, demagogy and terrorism is waged in an attempt to drive immigrants further and further underground.

That is why it was so exciting in 2006 when immigrants in record numbers took to the streets to say: Here we are and here we will stay! We demand legalization!

But now that Obama has been elected, how will the situation for immigrants play out?

There is much we do not know as we enter this period.

How long will the honeymoon with President Obama last? Could the struggles against Prop. 8 be a sign of things to come? Or will social democracy and the Democratic Party be strengthened, sucking all the progressive energy into their ranks? Will the Obama administration wage more war in Afghanistan or Pakistan?

Will it meet with President Hugo Chávez or President Raul Castro? Or will it tighten the blockade? We know the Cubans are ready, come what may. And we must be too.

We may not have all the answers now, but some things we do know.

Thursday in my doctor’s office, a young Black worker told me his sister had won a raffle to attend the inauguration of Obama. Her school and community were raising the money for her ticket. His sister lives in Barbados.

If in Barbados they are raising money to send people to the inauguration, you know it’s going to be huge.

How we should relate to this inaugural is one of the questions put before this conference this weekend.

We also know this: May 1 marks the first 100 days of President Obama’s administration. Some of the well-meaning, well-intentioned immigrant rights groups are talking about a pro-immigrant event on May 1. This is good.

But many of them are the ones who tried to block May Day 2006. The workers did not allow them to do that.

These forces may want to take the teeth out of May Day 2009. We cannot allow that. We want to work with everyone who supports immigrant rights. But it will do no service to immigrants if the politics are watered down.

Immigrants need a class-conscious May Day. They need U.S. workers to come out on May Day, workers who are losing their homes, white and Black and Asian workers who are losing their jobs. They need the LGBT, the anti-war and the women’s movements to come out on May Day. They need the youth who have been recently energized.

They need a May Day that demands a bailout of the people, not the banks. They need a May Day that demands an end to the crises workers are facing here AND around the world. It cannot be limited to a moratorium on the Gestapo-like raids that have swept this country, as horrible as they are. Of course we need to stop the raids, but what will guarantee an end to the raids is solidarity among all workers fighting on their behalf.

And immigrants need the unions to get behind May Day, not by pushing aside the May Day coalitions but in solidarity with them, mobilizing the union members and providing badly need funds to do the work.

It has been hard to organize that kind of movement in the last two years. Not because good intentions were lacking. But good intentions can only take you so far.

Many of the limitations have been understandable. How can you join a demonstration that looks like it’s mainly for immigrants if you still cannot return home to the Gulf Coast or if you are still living in a temporary trailer in Louisiana?

How can you not emphasize immigrant rights when immigrants are so targeted?

Many in the immigrant rights movement, including ourselves, attempted to broaden and connect the struggles. It was hard. But the conditions have changed and today there is a potential for connecting and uniting the struggles as never before.

How wonderful it was to see so many white people, especially youth, take much more of a progressive position. They understood the victory of the first Black president.

U.S. imperialism does indeed have a new look. We applaud along with the masses the fact that the first family is Black. But what a contradiction for us! Our passion is deep with hatred against imperialism. But so is our passion deep with love and solidarity for the workers and the oppressed.

This is why it is a great time to be a Marxist and most important a Leninist. Because Marxist/Leninists can explain these contradictions and show that defending self-determination for the oppressed is in the interests of white workers as well.

We can build a better, stronger and more revolutionary May Day because our class has grown, matured and become more globalized.

Let us go forward to build the class struggle. A door has been opened after decades of reaction. Communists should rush forward and open it even wider.

Long Live May Day! Long live the struggle of the working class and the oppressed! Build a Workers World!