Vol. 72/No. 20      May 19, 2008

“I came to Chicago to join with thousands of workers in the May Day march for legalization of all immigrants,” Kennedy told the students. “My running mate Róger Calero and I are the only candidates calling for immediate and unconditional legalization for all workers.

“There are no borders for the rich,” she said. “They go anywhere in the world they can make the highest profit through exploitation of the workers and farmers. When workers cross a border to work to feed our families they call us ‘illegal.’

“The truth is they want workers to cross the border to work in their factories, but to keep their mouths shut and not fight for their rights,” said Kennedy.

While she was answering questions in one class the principal came on the intercom saying that all students were expected to be in school on May 1, and that any not in attendance would receive an unexcused absence.

“We don’t listen to what he says,” said one student, “We’ll see you at the march!”

Another student asked Kennedy, “What made you become a socialist?” She said that when she was in high school the U.S. government was carrying out a war in Vietnam, and Blacks and other workers were fighting segregation in the South, which was legal then.

“I got involved in the protests against the war and for Black rights. At first I supported liberal candidates who said they were against the war, but then they’d get elected and vote for more war,” Kennedy explained. “I began to understand the roots of the war was the drive of the wealthy to protect their profits, and that we needed to build a new kind of society, a socialist society. And I met and joined the Socialist Workers Party.

“Workers and youth are always taught that we’re worthless, until you begin to learn the real history of the working class, the battles to form the unions, for the rights of women and the oppressed, and the revolutionary struggles our class has led, like the Cuban Revolution,” Kennedy said. “It is struggles like these and like the march tomorrow that can change society.”

Kennedy also spoke to a class at Chicago State University, a majority Black college on Chicago’s South Side. She was the featured speaker at a Militant Labor Forum on Saturday, May 3, along with Betsy Farley, the socialist candidate for U.S. Senate in Illinois.

Fernando Velasquez, one of the workers who is fighting his firing over a “no-match” letter at the Wheatland Tube plant also addressed the forum. “They try to put the blame on immigrants for the crisis, but we’re not the ones responsible for people getting laid off,” Velasquez said. “We didn’t start the war in Iraq.

“We marched together on May Day,” Velasquez said of the fired Wheatland Tube workers. “We’ll keep on fighting.”
 
 
Related articles:
May Day actions across the U.S. demand: Legalize all immigrants!
15,000 march in Chicago
Socialist presidential candidate addresses L.A. May Day rally
Unionists, students in Los Angeles march to legalize all immigrants
List of May Day Actions for Immigrant Rights
Socialist candidate wins support from Texas students  
 
 
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