Julia Estrada
Template:TOCnestleft Julia Estradais a Long Beach activist.
CPUSA
Despite the passivity of the Council, one small group is helping those in need in Long Beach. The Long Beach CPUSA/People’s Collective has stepped up when others have stepped out; a group of regulars (Steven Estrada, Julia Estrada, Hannah Howe, Ana Garcia, Breana Marquez) along with others are not just reading Marxist-Leninist theory but actually putting it into practice in the form of mutual aid for the community.
Starting back in March 2019, they’ve tabled once every three weeks or so around Gumbiner Park or near the MHA Village, which is a homeless shelter, and they provide 50–60 meals made at a home of a mutual aid club member.
The group usually makes an assortment of delicious burritos, eggs, chicken, and rice that is nourishing and goes over very well, and which is all put together in member Steven Estrada’s own apartment.
But it is a commitment that brings real dividends. Besides the numbers of the unhoused who are fed, and at times are given hygiene kits such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs, and lotion, there’s a chance to have genuine and positive conversations about socialism — as those in need are genuinely intrigued by the pamphlets also handed out (“Black Lives Matter,” “Marxism in the Age of Amazon,” and other introductory texts) that help explain why the unhoused are put into the position they are in. Socialism, it would seem, is a topic of hope and understanding, and those who are in what would seem to be hopeless situations grasp it better than most. The days of kneejerk reaction to the words “Marxism” and “socialism” seem to be nearly gone; for the unhoused living in a capitalist dystopia, these ideas make all the more sense than they did in Joe McCarthy’s America.
Unlike groups in other cities, the Long Beach CPUSA/People’s Collective faces little to no harassment by the police, but witness it consistently against those they are trying to feed and comfort. Guns being drawn by police officers enforcing whatever meaningless regulation is an all too common sight. For those around this part of Long Beach Boulevard next to the Walgreens, the heavy hand of the LBPD is always in the open and ready to strike.
Nevertheless, the project has gone so far, so good, with the collective and the local party growing. Not content to just learn theory, the group has engaged in pure praxis, and the distribution of food and hygiene kits in Long Beach has to be one of the finest examples of what the people can do when working together and not against each other. A regular clothing drive has also started (through the help of Breana Marquez), as well as other elements of political education. The club also has members working with the Tenants Union of Long Beach (such as Ana Garcia) to fight for the rights of renters — those who are lucky to still have a home, but face on a constant basis the depredations of landlords looking to increase their rates or evict families and push them into the ranks of the unhoused.
In the end, the Long Beach CPUSA/People’s Collective has over the course of a year started a small movement for change in the International City, as Long Beach is known. But just like a pebble can start an avalanche, a small movement like this can create change, even in one of the biggest cities in California. And it is doing just that.[1]