That's Racist!
"The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
- Theodore Roosevelt
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100 years and that Teddy Roosevelt mentality still remains, perhaps bigger than ever. So has the people's struggle against it, also perhaps bigger than ever.
In an effort to divert attention from the fallout of a failed invasion and a fragile economy, a controversy surrounding immigration was calculated to strike fear into communities of color while arousing the racism and nativism of others. The last thing big business (the invisible hand behind the US government) wants is to close the borders or make it more difficult for workers to cross the border and provide cheap labor. They want and need the labor of those willing to work jobs that less and less "Americans" are willing to do. When NAFTA was passed in 1994, both Democrats and Republicans knew very well that the consequence of free trade between US and Mexico would lead to (1) increased exploitation and displacement of workers and peasants in Mexico, and (2) the desperate migration of these workers and peasants to America, in search of the wealth historically stolen from them (not to mention the land).
photo by Fel Pajimula - click here for more
25,000 strong, officially. I've seen sold out crowds stream out of Qwest Field (68,000) and this crowd was definitely as big, if not bigger, than that. The news stations are reporting 15,000 at most. Whateva man. Always trying to minimize the depth of our discontent. A huddled, hyphy mass of mostly immigrants and original folks in this pale extra-medium metropolis - how often do you see that? In my lifetime, never, until yesterday. Regular folk - students, families, professionals, manual laborers reciting the mantra that once symbolized the bridge between Filipino and Xicano farm strikers in Delano: "si, se puede" - "yes, we can." I haven't felt a collective voice this powerful since marching to Westlake on November 30, 1999.
15 minutes on a mobile truck-bed stage in front of tens of thousands of brown fists > every show we've ever done, combined.
- Theodore Roosevelt
---
100 years and that Teddy Roosevelt mentality still remains, perhaps bigger than ever. So has the people's struggle against it, also perhaps bigger than ever.
In an effort to divert attention from the fallout of a failed invasion and a fragile economy, a controversy surrounding immigration was calculated to strike fear into communities of color while arousing the racism and nativism of others. The last thing big business (the invisible hand behind the US government) wants is to close the borders or make it more difficult for workers to cross the border and provide cheap labor. They want and need the labor of those willing to work jobs that less and less "Americans" are willing to do. When NAFTA was passed in 1994, both Democrats and Republicans knew very well that the consequence of free trade between US and Mexico would lead to (1) increased exploitation and displacement of workers and peasants in Mexico, and (2) the desperate migration of these workers and peasants to America, in search of the wealth historically stolen from them (not to mention the land).
photo by Fel Pajimula - click here for more
25,000 strong, officially. I've seen sold out crowds stream out of Qwest Field (68,000) and this crowd was definitely as big, if not bigger, than that. The news stations are reporting 15,000 at most. Whateva man. Always trying to minimize the depth of our discontent. A huddled, hyphy mass of mostly immigrants and original folks in this pale extra-medium metropolis - how often do you see that? In my lifetime, never, until yesterday. Regular folk - students, families, professionals, manual laborers reciting the mantra that once symbolized the bridge between Filipino and Xicano farm strikers in Delano: "si, se puede" - "yes, we can." I haven't felt a collective voice this powerful since marching to Westlake on November 30, 1999.
15 minutes on a mobile truck-bed stage in front of tens of thousands of brown fists > every show we've ever done, combined.