Like many among the thousands who stopped by the booth to read, discuss, and purchase books, Rodríguez was keenly interested in learning about an important part of U.S. politics that he had not yet been exposed to: the reality of labor resistance and solidarity among working people in the United States in response to the offensive of the bosses and their government.

A photo display showing the strike picket line and food distribution efforts of workers at the Co-Op mine in Huntington, Utah, who are fighting to win recognition of their union, the United Mine Workers of America, caught the attention of many. “I never knew there were struggles like this in the United States,” said high school student Alejandro Estrada. “It’s exciting. It gives us hope.”

Pathfinder’s range of books about the U.S. class struggle, along with those carrying the writings and speeches of leaders of the Cuban Revolution, figured strongly among the 541 titles sold during the nine days of the fair. Fifty people bought copies of The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning by Jack Barnes. Cuba and the Coming American Revolution and Capitalism’s World Disorder, also by Barnes, were popular as well.

Held annually in Mexico’s second largest city, the Guadalajara Book Fair is the largest such event in the Spanish-speaking world. This year close to 1,500 publishers and distributors from 38 countries filled the city’s giant Expo hall. Over 440,000 people visited the fair, including thousands of elementary and high school students.

Three days were set aside during the fair for those involved in the book trade to carry out business. Volunteers at the Pathfinder booth took advantage of this time to inform bookstore representatives, book distributors, and librarians about the 350 titles in the publisher’s catalog and its web site, www.pathfinderpress.com.

The Pathfinder volunteers, who came from a number of cities in the United States and Canada, were kept busy by a constant stream of inquiries about the books and pamphlets on display.

One of these volunteers, Nicole Sarmiento, a student from Miami and a Young Socialist, said that many of the youth she spoke with were “drawn to books with the speeches of revolutionaries like Che Guevara, Malcolm X, Fidel Castro, and Leon Trotsky,” as well as books giving scientific explanations about class society, such as those by Evelyn Reed on the origins of women’s oppression. Most had never seen books on socialism before, she noted.

“They would stay for hours to talk, read, and learn. Many would ask if we could hold the books while they went to borrow money, or pool money with friends. And they did come back.”

The books purchased were on a wide variety of topics. A student who had recently visited Israel bought five books on the Middle East. After reading the pamphlet, Palestine and the Arabs’ Fight for Liberation, he returned for further discussion.

Many stopped to read the poster advertising “The Opening Guns of World War III, Washington’s Assault on Iraq,” the lead article in the third issue of the Spanish-language Marxist magazine Nueva Internacional. Sandra Torres, a teacher at a local technical college and one of the 18 people who purchased a copy, said, “I’ve felt for a long time that imperialism is still playing a role in the world, but I need to learn more about how it works.” Torres also bought the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial, and returned twice during the fair to discuss, read, and buy books.  
 
Resistance to government attacks
The fair opened one day after a large march in Mexico City, where more than 100,000 workers and farmers protested a plan pushed by Mexican president Vicente Fox to further open the energy industry to capitalist investors and to place a highly regressive tax on food, medicine, and books.

The nationwide protest, which included rallies in Guadalajara, Monterrey, and other cities, was fueled by Mexico’s continuing economic crisis, rising unemployment, and poverty rate of 45 percent nationwide.

Articles in the Mexican press during the fair illustrated the continuing efforts by the capitalist government here to shift further the burden of the economic crisis on working people. An example was the debate over the minimum wage, which the government set at 44 pesos per day, today the equivalent of $3.85. Since l993 the purchasing power of those receiving this wage has dropped by half. Union officials are demanding the wage be raised 10 percent in 2004 to make up for some of this loss. Mexican employers, arguing falsely that a higher wage raise will increase inflation, are for keeping it at between 3 and 4 percent.

“You can’t live on this,” a taxi driver commented in a conversation with some of the Pathfinder booth volunteers. “Not unless you have three or four people in a household working, or two or three families crowded into an apartment to pay the rent.”

One of the programs at the fair that sparked controversy was a “Conference on Border Studies,” which took up the increased immigration to the United States that has resulted from the conditions of imperialist domination and capitalist exploitation. Marco Pablo Moloeznick, a University of Guadalajara professor, argued for increasing the police presence on Mexico’s borders and the cooperation between the U.S. and Mexican governments to tighten their borders in the name of fighting “terrorism.”

A number of those in attendance expressed disagreement with this view after the program. Many said they were angered by the brutality of the U.S. immigration cops on the Mexico-U.S. border and opposed the increased use of the Mexican armed forces on the southern border to attack, seize, and deport workers entering Mexico from other countries in Central America.  
 
Interest in Cuban Revolution
Books published in Cuba were the subject of two panel discussions. Cuban author and journalist Rosa Miriam Elizalde was on hand to talk about Los Disidentes, which she co-authored with Luis Báez, author of Secretos de los Generales and other Cuban titles. The book includes interviews with Cuban intelligence agents who penetrated the counterrevolutionary groups, which have been christened by U.S. officials as the “dissidents.” The interviews, along with photos, letters, and other documents, give a detailed picture of the role of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana in helping to organize the counterrevolutionary organizations in Cuba.

Arleen Rodríguez, editor of the Cuban magazine Tricontinental, and columnist Lázaro Barredo, a writer for the Cuban trade union newspaper Trabajadores, discussed their jointly authored book, El Camaján, which focuses on the record of Elizardo Sánchez, one of the opponents of the Cuban Revolution who live on the island and receive backing from Washington.

Many new titles, including novels, poetry, and books on Cuban history, were on display at a sizable stand occupied by Cuban publishing houses. The books, as well as the CDs and videos depicting Cuban culture and history, attracted large, youthful crowds.

Some 500 people, mostly high school students organized to come by their teachers, attended a presentation at the fair by Paco Ignacio Taibo, a Spanish-born novelist who lives in Mexico, on his 1997 book, Ernesto Guevara, Also Known as Che. In his brief talk, Taibo avoided mention of Guevara’s record as a leader of the Cuban Revolution, including its internationalist missions in Africa and Bolivia. He focused instead on a purported description of Che’s personality, describing the revolutionary as “the greatest romantic of the 20th century.”

Pathfinder volunteers invited a number of individuals to set the record straight by visiting the booth to read Guevara’s own writings on the revolution and the liberation struggles in Africa and Latin American that he was part of.

Fairgoers purchased more books on the Cuban Revolution at the booth than on any other topic. More than 70 bought Che Guevara Talks to Young People, the biggest seller. Almost as popular was Marianas in Combat, the story of Brig. Gen. Teté Puebla, the highest ranking woman in Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces. The photos of Puebla and other women who joined the Rebel Army in the 1950s to fight the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista often clinched the sale.  
 
 
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