Editors Note: Jose is one of several power-FUL PNN Plantation prison correspondents who was involved in the Hunger Strike to end all solitary confinement and the in-human treatment of all of our incarcerated brothers and sisters.
The New Greaser Laws
After the U.S. War on Mexico in 1848 when Aztlan (the south west) was stolen, there came what has been described as “The Gold Rush” which erupted when gold was “discovered” in California at Sutter’s Mill. This “discovery” resulted in a mass migration of settlers from across the U.S. as well as around the world. These settler immigrants flocked to California in a quest to exploit its resources.
Suddenly post U.S. war on Mexico the peoples who had been living in California for hundreds of years and in some cases longer were now considered as competition to the settler. This resulted in racist legislation which codified national oppression. At this time the most successful mining operation came from those proto- Chicanos and Raza (Latinos) more generally who also migrated from Latin America. Raza were all lumped together by the settlers and referred to as “greasers”.
Beginning in 1850, Amerika began implementing a series of laws that were aimed at Raza in California who were thought of and labeled as “greasers”, thus these laws were known as The Greaser Laws. In this way the oppressor Nation had institutionalized oppression, that is, they made it “legal”. The initial law that began the greaser laws was the Foreign Miners Tax Law of 1850. When we learn about a historical event such as the greaser laws, we should not just reflect on the law and the physical restrictions thereafter, but also of the effect this must have had on the psyche of Raza at the time and for generations thereafter, when a people suddenly become a “foreigner” in their land as happened post 1848 and how the colonizer began legalizing oppression thereafter.
The Foreign Tax Law stated that a non U.S. citizen that wanted to mine needed to pay $20.00 a month for the license. $20.00 was a huge amount at that time and this was enacted as a form of controlling the newly colonized people. Although the foreign tax law also affected Chinese laborers who were a strong presence in California at this time, the greaser laws were primarily enacted to uphold white supremacy and to criminalize Raza. From this point on Raza culture was criminalized and this worked to criminalize all Raza under the label of “greaser”. To the public, “greasers” became synonymous with criminals hence began the idea of our barrios as criminal. The Greaser Laws targeted things like bullfighting and cockfighting, which were part of Raza culture, were suddenly turned into crimes in order to add another tool in the oppressor toolbox used in carrying out national oppression. It’s essential that we grasp why the state cahoots with white labor at this time worked hand-in-hand with the Greaser Laws. Sakai summed this up:
“What was the essence of the ideology of white labor? Petit-bourgeois annexationism. Lenin pointed out in the great debates on the national question that the heart of national oppression is annexation of the territory of the oppressed nations by the oppressor nation.” (1)
This I think cuts to the heart of the origins of the Greaser Laws and even more so speak to national oppression. Today the U.S. Prison population has skyrocketed, the quakers in their early experiments with prisons would probably be awestruck at the behemoth the dungeon has become. For our oppressor, this is only the beginning for the penological colonies. As Marx taught, matter is in motion, and prisons are no exception to this scientific rule.
What has been detected, initially in U.S. prisons, is ‘The New Greaser Laws’ which have been mostly applied in California. Just like in the early days, during the birth of the Chican@ Nation, when the Greaser Laws first arose, so too are we seeing a revival of the Greaser Laws at a time when Chican@s’ are making a leap in consciousness within U.S. prisons. What has become apparent and what not enough has been discussed about is that once again Raza culture has been criminalized within U.S. prisons in a concerted effort for the state to thus criminalize Raza and particularly Chican@s’ in the popular sense. Only today we are labeled “gang member” or “security threat group” whereas the old Greaser Laws labeled Raza as “vagrants” or “bandits”.
California prisons have been taking Raza culture and using our practice and enjoyment of such cultura to prove we are engaging in “criminal acts”, “gang activity”, or the newly worded “security threat group activity”. Today in California prisons drawings depicting Pancho Villa or Zapata, the hero’s of the Mexican Revolution are used as “gang symbols” by the state. Drawings or photos of art depicting Aztlan symbols such as the calendar, statues of depictions of warriors are used as points to validate us. The Aztec thunderbird that is used out in society to evoke the struggles of farmworkers throughout the U.S. is used against us to validate us as “gang members”. The Mexican Eagle which evokes the legend of Aztlan with the snake in it’s mouth and which is the flag of Mexico, is used to criminalize us.
Language is not even safe, the use of Spanish, which is the Chican@ language, is used to brand us as engaging in criminal activity. Tattoos showing our history and culture are used as “proof” of us being criminals, gang members.
The way we interact socially in ways that promote interdependence and community as Chican@s’ and Raza more generally whether it be sharing, eating communally and expressing ourselves as a group is criminalized in prison. This behavior has nothing to do with “gangs” it goes back to our indigenous roots of how we interact and how we raise our youth. This tradition is twisted into a negative phenomenon by our oppressor and used to further our repression, to increase our torture and justify our placement in these torture centers also known as S.H.U.!
Our way of life, which has been passed on generation after generation, is criminalized in an attempt by our oppressor to sever us from our culture, from the very essence of what it means to be Chican@s’, of being Raza. This assault on the Chicano nation California in prisons is meant to discourage us from holding on to who we are and to stifle our political development i.e, to kill our consciousness. This is all re-run and is the same vein of oppression used on Raza in the original Greaser Laws- it is an attempt to assimilate s into Ameri-kkk-a!
The New Greaser Laws that we are experiencing in California prisons have a direct link to the Old Greaser Laws of 1848. The old greaser Laws are linked to the land grab and Amerikan Imperialism, thus our oppression ultimately tethered to U.S. Imperialism. Stalin once said “Imperialism was instrumental not only in making the revolution a practiced inevitability, but also in creating favorable conditions for a direct assault on the citadels of capitalism” (2)
Oh how his words ring true today in that the New Greaser Laws are actually the fuel in the engine of the Chicano nation that has been rekindled due precisely to the assault at Aztlan.
Why the New Greaser Laws today?
When we attempt to identify this stepped up assault on the Chicano nation, we must analyze the concrete conditions in the U.S. today.
The population growth is one factor that is playing into the scheme of things. It we look back to 1980, the U.S. population consisted of 80% white, 12% Black, 6% Latino and 5% Asian. If we move forward 30 years to the year 2010 the U.S. population was 64% White, 12% Black, 16% Latino, 5% Asian. (3) As this data shows most folks had their population reduced or stayed the same for the most part while Raza population made a leap in the U.S. and this leap did not go unnoticed by the oppressor nation.
This development ushered in more of these Greaser Laws and more enforcement of these assaults that came in many forms. Even the existing laws such as the California Three Strikes Law which is aimed primarily at the oppressed nations in the U.S. (Brown, Black and Red Peoples) began to increase. Indeed, almost 40% of California’s Three Strikes cases come from Los Angeles county (4) which, it should be noted, has the largest concentration of Chican@s’ in Aztlan.
In a further attempt to curb the replenishment of Aztlan via newly arrived migrants, Amerika has created the “Secure Communities Program” which is another “Greaser Law”. The way it works is, anyone off the street who is arrested for anything, has their fingerprint sent to the FBI to check their legal status. As one writer put it…
“Under the Secure Communities Program, those fingerprints are then sent to Homeland Security to check for immigration violations. People who are flagged are then examined by ICE and could be deported.” (5)
This program heightens the assault on Raza where now every Brown person in the U.S. becomes a suspect and criminalized in the eyes of the state and public. This program has been abused horrifically, indeed a study in 2011 found that about 3,600 U.S. citizens had been wrongly arrested by ICE.
What’s different from the Old Greaser Laws and the New Greaser Laws is today, many from within the oppressed nations have been bought off by the oppressor and end up unwittingly maintaining such low intensity war aimed at Aztlan. We know the “Secure Communities Program” is a product of the Obama administration, at the same time if we look at the numbers for those who voted to put Obama into office we find 93% of New Afrikans voted for Obama, 69% of Latinos, and 74% of Asians voted in his favor. (6) Ironically it is the Brown, Black and Yellow folks now feeling the brunt of the “Secure Communities Program”. The oppressed nations should take heed to these lessons because they we are to move forward. In our struggle for national liberation we cannot get lost in appearance, we should not be swayed by form but we should focus on content. When it comes to the oppressed nations there is class contradictions within each respective nation on these shores and Amerika's bourgeois politics attempts to lure the oppressed to get struck in its ballot box scam and conceal class contradictions at all costs. Mao spoke of class in his day when he said: "The ruthless economic exploitation and political oppression of the peasants by the landlord class forces them into numerous uprisings against its rule...it was the class struggles of the peasants the peasant uprisings and peasant wars that constituted the real motive force of historical development in chinese feudal society." (7)
Todays class contradictions affect all of the oppressed nations in the US and most prisoners derive from these oppressed nations and we will be the real motive force in ultimately resolving these class contradictions. Just as our efforts today to better our conditions and stop the the SHU torture are arriving via a United Front, so too will we reach national liberation in the future cia this same approved of the united front.
One of the things the left in the US is leaving out of the equation and must be dealt with is the states targeting of Chicanos at an enormous rate for SHU torture. More Raza are placed in shu solitary confinement that any other peoples in california prisons (8). Of these Raza the vast majority are chicanos. The shu has been identified even by Amerikan "liberal" groups like human rights watch or even amnesty international as 'cruel and unusual' torture. It is well known that solitary confinement creates psychosis after long durations and even for as little as ten days can cause psychological trauma. What this means is in California Chicanos are being tortured and rendered mentally ill more than any other group of prisoners even though chicanos are not the majority population of California prisons. The closest phenomenon to this in the US prison system is the fact that new Afrikans are the largest population on death row, the only difference is new Afrikans are also the largest population of the prison system whereas chicanos are a minority in California's state prison system. They are facing a legal lynching and we are facing a psychological legal lynching.
Those in the prison movement need to look more into this phenomenon and identify the changing contradictions for todays concrete conditions. We need to see more analysis of this phenomenon in movement publications to find ways to combat this situation and glean what can be gleaned to push the movement forward.
This phenomenon of the control unit and specifically California's "shu" can thus be seen as another aspect of the New Greaser laws that are aimed at neutralizing the Chicano nation. The shu is a formidable opponent, it is a big gun in the oppressions arsenal, solitary confinement is its biggest stick. Today, nearly 100,000 people are locked in solitary confinement. This is something that prisoners across the US prison system experience at some time and the impact it is having on the people's mental capacities is only imagined at this time. Terry Kupers, a psychologist, states in a deposition "Everyone who is in a supermax has some kind of psychological damage as a result." (9) The evidence is there that solitary is neutralizing a person without a visible weapon but the state is doing this intentionally in my opinion. No longer are they using a whole town to lynch the oppressed nations in the town square, no longer are thousands rounded up and placed in ovens or gas chambers, instead we are rounded up and locked up for the rest of our lives in solitary confinement! It is a bloodless torture we suffer for being born with Brown, Black or Red skins. White supremacy has only become more sophisticated.
The warden of pelican bay Greg Lewis has said, "In my experience ,the men that are housed within this security housing unit have suffered no ill effects from their segregation." (9) This is akin to Amerikkka telling the first nations that they suffered no "ill effects" from the trail of tears.
The new greaser laws are creating new contradictions and new struggles within prisons that have not been seen in decades. This mobilization of the lumpen works to combat the new greaser laws in the form of a united front against prison repression. But in our efforts we must raise this aspect of todays repression when we can and get prisoners and our outside allies to grasp this form of development. Our strategy on the ground should raise the consciousness of the U.S. left by being able to translate the changing face of today's prison oppression.
Revolutionaries commonly read, study and declare the Marxist method of the material world being in constant motion. Most people grasp this in theory, in practice however is a different story. Many have failed to implement this method when it comes to the assaults aimed at Aztlan. This parochialism leads to disconnect where nobody identifies the changing conditions and thus the proper response is not coordinated.
Today's lumpen experiences a multifaceted assault which has changed in some ways since the 1970s which was the pinnacle of the prison movement's last development, we as revolutionaries and activists whether in prison or out in society must change our response to the changing developments on the ground. should we apply a 1970 approach to today's contradictions, we will stray off the path of advancing the new prison movement and making real strides for people. but prisoners must take more responsibility for progress made and advances in the prison movement, it is after all us who are buried in this trench of despair. Our external allies may hand us a shovel and feed us oxygen but ultimately it must be us who dig ourselves out. In some ways, those of us in SHU have become slaves of the state since we exist in a caste like existence. One writer has put it this way..."The racialized idiom of slavery in the American social order depended on the legal fiction of 'civil death'; the state of a person who though possessing natural life has lost all civil rights." (10)
We are definitely alive and breathing yet we exist on life support obtaining sustenance to keep us breathing but without experiencing what it means to be human and stripped of civil rights like our counterparts in Guantanamo Bay.
We are seeing that todays prisoners are not mute partisans of violence but people who no longer will suffer in silence, our voices will be heard and voices shall be amplified by those who remain loyal to something called humanity out in society. the power we see manifesting in the strikes are symbols of solidarity of the lumpen class. the strikes coupled with the call to end hostilities reflect developments in U.S. prisons. These developments for prisoners are a leap from a quantitative stage to a qualitative stage or as Engels described simply from 'quantity to quality.' Where the imprisoned social forces have demonstrated a certain amount of consciousness to identify our common oppressor and the class contradictions that exist even in prisons, this knowledge was then used to make a decision to act as a class to advance out class interests. This action was a development not seen in the U.S. prison system since the uprising in Attica in the 1970s! This of course is great but our analysis and future struggles must go deeper and farther if we are to regain our humanity as people and our civil rights as prisoners.
Ultimately, like most contradictions in Amerikkka that result in the interests of the oppressed nations, the fight against the new greaser laws, supermax torture, the Anti-SHU struggle or prison conditions, more generally will only come from how we explore United Front efforts, that is manifested in a lumpen class-wide movement. Prisoners in some aspects exist as the canary in the coal mine where we serve as the social thermometer to where the state is going in its repression projects that will be used on the broader society at some point, so we play an important role in identifying which way the wind blows behind prison walls but this can only be done if prisoners are conscious and able to put critical thinking to the task. To satisfy our responsibility prisoners need to study the contradictions in today's society which revolve around Nation, Class and Gender. Only in this way will we find solutions and understand the interconnection of us and the outside society, only then can we attempt to add to what is bubbling in today's theoretical realm in the internal semi-colonies here in the U.S. and internationally.
The stranglehold of U.S. prisons will continue with employing the New Greaser Laws and other modes of repression until all our energies can be properly harnessed to breaking this link that is one of many in the long chain of oppression unleashed by U.S. Imperialism.
By Jose H. Villarreal
Notes
(1) J. Sakai, "Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat," Morning Star Press, 1989. pg 32.
(2) J.V. Stalin, "The Foundations of Leninism."
(3) Analysis of census data by Barnett Lee, John Iceland, Gregory Sharp at Penn State's Dept. of Sociology and Population Research Institute.
(4) Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone Magazine. April 11, 2013, "The Stupidest Law Ever."
(5) Alan Gomez, USA today, Nov 6, 2012 "Immigration Policy Review Delayed."
(6) NEP Exit Poll 2012
(7) Mao Zedong, "The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party." (December 1939), Selected Works, Vol II, p. 308
(8) April 26, 2013. The Michael Slate Show, KPFK Radio, Los Angeles.
(9) Jeff Tietz, Rolling Stone Magazine. Dec 6, 2012. "Slow-Motion Torture."
(10) Colin Dayan, "The Law is White Dog," Princeton University Press, 2011. p 44.