35th Annual Xicana Moratorium Day: Displace Gentrification, Not Our Hoods
Sunday, August 31st, San Antonio Park, East Oakland (Ohlone Land)
In 1970, over twenty-thousand Raza people filled the streets of LA to call for an end the War crimes in Vietnam that not only took a toll on Vietnamese lives, but also took the lives of Raza and other folks of color being disproportionately put on the front lines to die for this capitalist for profit country. Chicana Moratorium Day called an end to the violence and crimes the U.S. government was committing abroad, but also called for an end to the violence, crime, and inhumane conditions that Raza and other communities of color were experiencing in barrios and ghettos all over the U.S. at the hands of police, the education system, the prison system and other arms of this capitalist system. More than forty years later we gather to continue calling an end to the terrorist criminal acts of the U.S. Government over sees and here on our streets.
In 2014, U.S. military is no longer in Vietnam, but people of color continue to be heavily recruited into the military to take part in ongoing Western Expansion and its never ending greed for profit, power and land. Today, U.S. military forcers play a lead role in the destruction of land, economy and lives of people in Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Philippines, Guam, Egypt, Syria, and the list can sadly continue for much too long. While millions of people in the U.S. are homeless or have no access to quality affordable housing, food, health care, social services or quality education, all under the guise of lack of funding, an endless sources of wealth continues being poured on the daily into funding terrorist governments such as the Zionist killing machine of Israel, or into funding U.S. military operations to continue for profit wars around the world.
Today, Western powers play a predominant role in carrying out the displacements of Third World people’s not only from their home countries, but also the displacement and separation of families that have taken refuge here within the U.S. We could look at different places throughout the world and directly see the connection between displaced peoples and U.S. Involvement in this process. We could look at the Philippines as one of those places where the U.S. government and military has had its hand in taking over land, resources and has controlled its government in the best interest of U.S. economic profit since 1898. In 2014 the number one export from the Philippines is workers, particularly women, who often end up as low wage hotel workers, domestic workers and airport workers in the U.S. and in other nations across the globe. Filipino people flee their homeland due to the continual violence at the hands of the U.S. trained and supported military, the U.S. funded and trained counterinsurgency to the Filipino resistance movements, and U.S. funded and controlled puppet governments that work to keep Filipinos landless and living in extreme poverty.
When we move further west, we can see Palestine as another perfect example of displacement at the hands of this Government. Mainstream media constantly justifies the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people at the hands of U.S. trained and funded Israeli military, but how could you justify 80% of the casualties at the hands of Israel being civilians, most of which are children and elders? Let’s not forget the backyard of the U.S., Central America, where the U.S. has funded, trained and controlled both puppet governments and its military at many different junctures throughout the history of the United States. The U.S. has caused so much instability and violence that today the violence in Honduras is comparable to the violence in Iraq during the peak time of the War. This violence has caused thousands of children to flee their home countries and brave the dangerous trek up north just to have a chance at survival.
As Third World Survivors of Western capitalist expansion build roots in barrios and ghettos through out the U.S., this government continues to remind our people that our existence is a threat to the system that seeks to keep us as a disposable labor force. When we try to build roots and create beauty in our communities, this system will always attempt to destabilize and uproot our people or dispose of them when they are in the way of economic profit. In the last decade we have seen this destabilization and uprooting come in the for of gentrification that with it brings racist laws and militarization of our communities that work to build fear amongst our people and criminalize our communities as a way to push us out. San Francisco and Oakland are two prime examples of this gentrification.
When you visit the San Francisco Mission today – one of San Francisco’s most highly gentrified neighborhoods – its as if there was no semblance of a once predominantly Raza neighborhood with a rich culture. The Mission today attempts to continue profiting off of the beautiful Raza culture, but the city has brought in gang injunctions that criminalize brown youth that once lived there, no loitering laws that specifically target homeless people, and condos that have made rents skyrocket and make housing no longer affordable for working class families. Now white young professionals can enjoy the culture of the Mission, eat at fancy new restaurants, enjoy the fancy new clubs, and park their beamers at $5 an hour meters without having to fear that the people who once lived there will be roaming the streets. When you cross the bridge to Oakland, a very similar dynamic is taking place. We have seen gang injunctions, no loitering laws, proposed youth curfews, proposed stop and frisk laws and increased budgets for the police department who we know are intended to push out people of color from the streets and neighborhoods of Oakland. We have seen the condos and are seeing area specific plans like the West Oakland Specific Plan and the East Oakland Specific plan that attempt to “revitalize” and further develop areas to attract new residents that will bring with them more money and will attempt to displace working class communities of color from communities we have been long rooted in.
This long and ongoing history of displacement can cause anger and resistance towards this government, and for that reason, the U.S. has heavily funded their population control plan which takes the shape of prisons, detention centers, deportations, the heavy militarization of our streets, counter insurgency strategies here at home, and the heavy surveillance of its population. In September, Oakland plans to host and support the funding of the 9th Annual Urban Shield conference, a training for SWAT and Police agencies that brings together local, national and global law enforcement agencies with defense industry contractors to provide training and introduce new weapons and suppression tactics to these agencies that will later be used to further militarize our streets. Today prisons and detention centers have become for profit cages that force men, women and children to live in conditions that are so inhumane, that last year, 30,000 California prisoners engaged in sixty day hunger strike to demand basic human rights within these cages. Today the U.S. Senate mocks the humanity of our people by supporting new legislation that would reverse federal law that protects Central American children from deportation if they face the threat of violence in their home country, and calling that bill the “HUMANE Act.” This so called HUMANE Act would lead to the deportation of thousands of Central American children.
On the 35th annual Bay Area commemoration of the 1970 Chicano Moratorium Day we want to call attention to the displacement and gentrification we see in working class communities through out the country, but we also want to draw the connection of the different forms of displacement and terror that this country is causing through out the world. We still call for a Moratorium on the war against indigenous people, third world people, against our land and against what every community should hold as their treasure – the Children! We ask that you all join us this year as we celebrate la Resistencia and we stand collectively to honor the struggle that we must continue upholding now more than ever!
Join us for the 35th Annual Xicana Moratorium Day
Displace Gentrification, not Our Hoods
Sunday August 31st
5am - Sunrise
10am - 12pm: Aztec Dance hosted by Grupo Cuauhtonal
12pm - 5pm: Festival
San Antonio Park: Foothill Btw 16th and 18th Avenue in Oakland
What to Expect: Poetry, singers, bands, speakers, DJ, Dancing, Kids Activities, Free Food, Vendors, and Community