The Militant (logo)  
   Vol. 70/No. 15           April 17, 2006  
 
 
Immigrant rights march marks L.A. event
on ‘Our History Still Being Written’
(feature article)
 
BY WENDY LYONS  
LOS ANGELES—A spirited meeting took place here April 1 to discuss and promote the new Pathfinder book Our History Is Still Being Written: The Story of Three Chinese-Cuban Generals in the Cuban Revolution (see ad on home page).

Many in the audience of 110 had taken part in the March 25 mass mobilization here to oppose an immigration bill that would criminalize undocumented workers. Among them were a number of students who had joined one of the high school walkouts that took place after the march and defied the subsequent “lockdowns” of the schools. Several people had been part of other immigrant rights actions that morning in Los Angeles and Costa Mesa.

Also among those attending were John Wong and other members of the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California; Mike Isley, a copper miner who went through a recent strike against Asarco in Kearny, Arizona; Norma and Norberto Martínez, whose son was killed by the police and who have organized others to fight police brutality; Ming Tu, business manager of the Amerasia Journal published at the University of California at Los Angeles; and film director Nick Castle. Participants came from San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Cruz, Phoenix, and Seattle. The meeting was the second of four regional events (see ad on home page).

James Harris, from the Los Angeles Socialist Workers Party, opened the meeting with a description of the recent march of nearly 1 million. “As I watched people go by, packed building to building, for three and a half hours, I kept thinking about the line from the Communist Manifesto that says: The bourgeoisie produces its own gravediggers,” he said. “Capitalism brought all these people to this country and then expects them to be silent, obedient, and accept any indignity. But millions are standing up and saying No.”

The meeting featured Mary-Alice Waters, editor of the new book and member of the National Committee of the Socialist Workers Party; Jacob Perasso, a national organizer of the Young Socialists; and Patti Iiyama, an oil worker and volunteer in the Pathfinder printing project.

“Whether organizing a walkout or struggling to strengthen a union, fighters today will be able to see themselves in the pages of Our History Is Still Being Written and learn valuable lessons from this book,” said Perasso, who had joined a student speak-out here against anti-immigrant laws the day before.

Iiyama, whose parents were among the 120,000 Japanese incarcerated in U.S. internment camps during World War II, said, “To many today, it sounds outrageous to make it a felony to be an immigrant, but the criminalization of immigrants is not new.” Beginning in the mid-19th century, she said, Chinese immigrants in the West worked in the mines, built the railroads, and cultivated the fields but were not allowed to become citizens, own property, bring women here, or marry whites. They faced segregation and lynch mob violence. Later the Japanese and other Asian immigrants faced similar treatment.

She quoted Moisés Sío Wong, one of the three Chinese-Cuban generals interviewed in the book, saying, “What’s the difference in the experience of Chinese in Cuba and other countries of the diaspora? The difference is that here a socialist revolution took place. The revolution eliminated discrimination based on the color of a person’s skin. Above all, it eliminated the property relations that create not only economic but also social inequality between rich and poor.”

Waters urged those present to use Our History Is Still Being Written “as a powerful introduction to the Cuban Revolution—and to the men and women who made the revolution and who continue to make it today.”

She pointed to the three generals’ firsthand account of how 375,000 Cuban volunteers went to Angola in the 1970s and ’80s, ready to give their lives to defeat the invasion of that country by the army of the hated apartheid regime in South Africa. “They did not get a diamond or a drop of oil in return,” she said. “They returned with nothing but the bones of those who gave their lives. They fought to hasten the day when the kind of social solidarity of working people that we saw in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and on the streets of Los Angeles last week during the march, will dominate the world instead of the dog-eat-dog relations of capitalism.”

During the discussion period after the presentations, Pablo, a worker originally from Chile who had purchased Our History Is Still Being Written at the March 25 demonstration, said the book was an important contribution to the history of the working class. “I have been through years of watching immigrants be humiliated and no one standing up,” he said. “Now we see people waking up, marching, and seeing the truth. And the truth can set you free.”

Another participant asked if many in Cuba are attracted to the “market economy” course of the Chinese and Vietnamese governments.

There is less discussion in Cuba today of looking to Chinese policies as a possible economic model than even a few years ago, Waters said. She noted that knitting trade ties with China has been important to Cuba’s economic recovery after the shortages of the 1990s when Cuba abruptly lost most of its trade with the former Soviet Union. But in Cuba today, unlike China, there is no massive investment of foreign capital, no imperialist penetration of the banking system, capitalist investors can’t directly contract labor, and no one pays for health care.

“There is an awareness that what Cuba is doing is unique,” Waters noted. “Our History Is Still Being Written can help make the example of socialist Cuba known around the world.”

Most of those at the meeting stayed for dinner and more discussion over food and refreshments. High school students who had joined walkouts met workers who have been involved in labor struggles. Many learned more about the history of Chinese immigration to California from members of the Chinese Historical Society, who have been fighting for a decent burial of the remains of Chinese workers unearthed in a local railway project (see article in this issue).

At the meeting 17 copies of Our History Is Still Being Written were sold along with other Pathfinder titles. Audience members contributed more than $4,300 to aid the effort to distribute the new book as widely as possible, including helping make copies of the book available in Cuba. The next day, a number of young people who attended the meeting met to find out more about the Young Socialists and its activities, which include building the May 20 march in Washington to demand, “Hands off Venezuela and Cuba!”
 
 
Related articles:
L.A. residents: Respect unearthed Chinese graves  
 
 
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