Sean O'Rawe, the chairperson of Irish Northern Aid in Washington state, addressed the meeting. He pointed to the 20th anniversary of the hunger strike by Irish freedom fighters and the example they set. "The commitment of a few people can make a big difference," he said. "As long as one person is oppressed none of us are free. Keep up the good work."

Micah McCarty, a member of the Macah Nation who has been involved in the fight to defend the right of the Macah to whale, presented a prayer song in honor of those who "have a common concern for the human race and the planet earth." A descendant of one of the chiefs who was forced to sign the treaty ceding Macah lands in 1855, he stated: "Nowadays the settlers and Native Americans have a common bond in that they are both exploited by the capitalist corporations." Pathfinder's titles, he said, "help bring us up to date on struggles against imperialism today."

Dale Bartley, a member of the Transport Workers Union at Alaska Airlines, addressed the need for "a bookstore like this that can present the truth about history to youth today and be an alternative to the history conveyed by the mass media." Laurel Davis, an organizer for Service Employees District 1199 who has been involved in a successful union organizing drive at Northwest Hospital, also offered her congratulations and told about the struggle by hospital workers to get their first contract.

Becca Williamson from the Young Socialists detailed some of the YS's recent activities, including walking picket lines with state workers and teachers, cosponsoring a speaker from the Cuban Interests Section, participating in and speaking at an anti–tuition hikes rally, holding a class series on the Communist Manifesto, and getting out the word on the Cuba-U.S. Youth Exchange.

Rogelio Montes and Ana Guzman, unionists from Yakima, also sent messages. Montes, a member of the Western Council of Industrial Unions, explained that they couldn't attend the celebration because of a special union meeting. It had been called to discuss a National Labor Relations Board decision mandating Valley Manufactured Housing management to begin negotiations with their workers. Montes had been the main organizer of a year-long strike at Valley that ended a few months ago. Guzman, fired for union organizing, recently won her job back and back pay at Washington Fruit. The company is appealing the ruling. Both unionists sent greetings to the celebration explaining they look forward to speaking at a Militant Labor Forum soon and look forward to the presence of Socialist Workers Party members at the August 5 farmworkers rally in Yakima.

Ernest Mailhot, the chairperson of the Socialist Workers Party in Seattle and a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, said as more working people and youth get involved in the growing labor resistance from the strikers at Weyerhauser to the those at Hollander Home Fashions to the farmworkers in Yakima, "they will be looking for an alternative to the capitalist system which is the cause of the problems we face today," he said.

Participants contributed $584 to help cover remodeling expenses and purchased $183 worth of Pathfinder books along with four subscriptions to the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial.

Among those attending the celebration was a Mexican worker who had called the bookstore after he read a review of the Pathfinder book Playa Girón/Bay of Pigs: Washington's First Military Defeat in the Americas in the Spanish-language newspaper El Mundo. Three young people helped sell $115 in raffle tickets to raise funds to offset Young Socialists' travel expenses to the May 20 New York meeting, "In Defense of Leninism, Expanding Opportunities for Communists Today."

Ernest Mailhot is a meat packer and member of UFCW Local 81. Dean Peoples is a member of International Association of Machinists Local 751 at Boeing.  
 
 
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