For May Day and Beyond

Template:TOCnestleft For May Day and Beyond: White People Stepping Up for Immigrant Rights! was a letter circulated in May 2006, among people mostly affiliated with the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

Open Letter to White Communities

For May Day and Beyond: White People Step up for Immigrant Rights!

In the past month, five million people, mostly immigrants of color, have mobilized for justice and are making history, flooding the streets in unprecedented numbers. Meanwhile, the most visible participation by white people is coming from the racist and right wing leaders who are defining and dominating the debate in the Federal government and in the news, radio and opinion pages. Where are the voices of anti-racist white people in this crucial moment, when the worst anti-immigrant legislation in decades is still poised to drop?

We, white people who believe in justice and ending racism, have a responsibility and a historic opportunity to stand with immigrant communities and unite behind their demands. As white people, most of us with U.S. citizenship, we call out to our white communities to take to the streets for immigrant rights. We must demonstrate that the rightwing racists, from the Minutemen to in the Congress, do not represent us!

Anyone who has experienced this month’s electrifying, grassroots explosion feels the power and excitement growing. Working-class immigrants, with their crucial roles in the economy and culture of the U.S., have real power to reshape this country, as a vibrant part of broad multiracial movements for justice and equality. As anti-racist white people, we have a role to play in this struggle.

Immigrants are the direct targets of these policies, and we know enforcement will aim at immigrants of color. But we are all endangered by the accelerating drive of this country towards greater abuse of working people, more criminalization of poor/working-class people, and of all communities of color, particularly African-Americans. Our futures are tied together and now is the time to stand with immigrants fighting for their rights.

The ruling class in the United States has historically led anti-immigrant campaigns to divide working people, getting people to blame one another for stealing their jobs while corporations build their financial empires from all of our labor. Building from a foundation of enslaved African labor and mass land theft from indigenous nations, corporations used anti-immigrant campaigns against the Irish, Italian, Jews. Chinese, Japanese, Eastern Europeans and other immigrants, to deny them legal protections, attack unions and maintain cheap labor to under-cut better waged jobs. These campaigns intensified with the Chinese Exclusion Act in the 1880’s and as more and more European immigrants were assimilated into white society, immigrants of color from Asia and then Latin America were targeted to be a permanent low wage, legally unprotected, work force to drive wages down and corporate profits up.

White people have led and rallied behind anti-immigrant campaigns in the millions throughout the history of this country and today a new history for immigrant justice is being written and we have a responsibility to be part of it. We’re fighting two racist agendas: big businesses need to retain a vulnerable pool of exploitable labor, and the blatant organized racists want to preserve white political dominance and agitate for mass deportations. This divided right wing unites to dehumanize immigrants of color, working to strip them of any rights or protections. The small handful of mostly white billionaires backing and benefiting from these strategies depends on our complicity. Instead, let’s build upon the legacy of anti-racist white people who have refused to participate in divide and conquer strategies, where the ruling class historically uses race to pit us against each other.

White people need to take responsibility for countering the attacks generated by white racists, from the border to the White House.

If you’re a white person who stands for justice, we encourage you to step it up. How can you more actively support immigrants fighting for their rights, and encourage your families and friends to get more involved? What local organizing by immigrants can you support with your time, money, and resources? On April 23rd in the Bay Area, and throughout the country on May 1st (International Workers’ Day) immigrant communities around the country will again take the streets. Let’s be there in greater numbers: on the streets beside our friends and neighbors, raising our voices in the national debate, making a commitment to organizing more white people to stand up against attacks on immigrants.

This letter comes to you from two Bay Area-based white anti-racist organizations, Catalyst Project and the Heads Up Collective. Heads Up is a member organization of the Deporten a La Migra Coalition, which is primarily composed of organizations based in working-class immigrant communities. We ask you to act in solidarity with the principles generated by the Deporten a La Migra Coalition, Immigrants Fighting For Our Rights. They are:

• The land is for those who work it!
• No more displacement
• The border is hypocritical
• Unity makes us strong
• Demand dignity and equality for all immigrants
• In every neighborhood, organize!

If you agree with these principles, we invite you to sign this letter and make your signature a commitment to putting them into action in your work and life.

In struggle, Catalyst Project and the Heads Up Collective

Endorsed by:

• Carlos Munoz, Jr., professor, UC Berkeley, author, "Youth, Identity, Power: the Chicano Movement"
• Betita Martinez, Institute for Multiracial Justice
• Maria Poblet, St Peters Housing Committee
• Eric Mar
• Eunice Cho
• Jose Palafox, professor, Stanford University
• Kali Akuno, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
• Sheila Chung, Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition
• Renee Saucedo, Day Labor Program/La Raza Centro Legal
• Phil Hutchings, Institute for Multiracial Justice

Catalyst Project and Heads Up Collective were inspired by the work of white anti-racists with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice in New York City, and Italian Americans for Immigrant Rights in the Bay Area, who put out similiar open letters to move white people to stand for immigrant rights. By signing here, we are also joining with the thousands of white people participating in those and other efforts.

Please sign on if you stand with the principles above. To add your signature to those below, go to this link:

• Adam Gilbert, Taiwan
• Adam Welch, Industrial Workers of the World
• Ailecia Ruscin, teacher/student, Lawrence KS
• Alex Briscoe, Illinois Green Party/Green Alliance USA
• Alexis Shotwell, UAW 2865, Long Road Collective
• Amie Fishman, Catalyst Project
• Amy Sonnie, Youth Media Council
• Ananda Hopkins, San Antonio TX
• Andrea Lee, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, San Francisco CA
• Andrew Willis, Washington DC
• Annie Kane, Alameda CA
• Amy Dudley, Rural Organizing Project, Portland OR
• Andy Cornell, GSOC/UAW Local 2110, Brooklyn NY
• April Rosenblum, author, The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere: Making Resistance to Antisemitism Part of All Our Movements
• Ariel Lucky Axeen, Childcare Collective
• B. Loewe, Latino Union of Chicago, Chicago, IL
• Barbara Johnson, Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, VA
• Beth Applegate
• Betty G. Robinson, Baltimore Education Network and Baltimore Algebra Project
• Bill Quigley, Professor of Law, Loyola University New Orleans
• Brandon Mau, Fort Collins, CO
• Brooke Atherton
• Brooke DuBose
• Camilo Viveiros, community organizer, Fall River, Massachusetts
• Cathy Rion, Heads Up Collective
• Charlotte Albrecht, Louisville KY
• Chris Crass, Catalyst Project
• Chris Dixon, UAW 2865 Members for Quality Education and Democracy
• Chris Ferlazzo, Portland Jobs with Justice, Oregon
• Chuck Munson, infoshop.org, Kansas City
• Claire Hobden, Immigrant Justice Solidarity Project
• Clare Bayard, Catalyst Project/Heads Up Collective
• Claude Marks, Freedom Archives
• Clayton Dewey, Unitarian Universalist Young Adult Network, Laramie WY
• Cori Schmanke Parrish, North Star Fund
• Chance Martin, editor Street Sheet Magazine
• Dee Ouellette, mother
• Diana Block, California Coalition for Women Prisoners
• Dan Berger, Resistance in Brooklyn, co-editor "Letters from Young Activists"
• Dara Silverman, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice
• David Christian
• David Schanoes
• David Solnit, Courage to Resist
• Deborah Morales, Labor Employment Services, Syracuse, NY
• Dixie Block, Oakland
• Drew Dellinger, Poets for Global Justice
• Elizabeth Samuels, Bring the Ruckus
• Ellen Chenoweth, D.C. resident
• Elly Kugler, City at Peace D.C
• Emma Gerould, SEIU 790
• Emiliy Seabridge
• Eric Romann, Generation Five
• Fern Feto Spring
• Geoff McNamara, Portland OR
• Giuliana Milanese
• Gordon Kaupp
• Harmony Goldberg
• Heather Meader-McCausland
• Heidi Reijm, Ruby Affinity Group, Brooklyn, NY
• Hillary Ronen, Day Labor Program/ La Raza Centro Legal
• Holmes Hummel, San Francisco
• Hope Sanford, Houston TX
• Ian McCleod, San Francisco Indymedia
• Ian White-Maher
• Ingrid Chapman, Catalyst Project
• Isabell Moore, ESOL teacher & coordinator Anti-Racist Organizing Network of North Carolina
• Jacob B, New School For Social Research
• Jackie Downing
• James Tracy, SF Community Land Trust
• Jarrod Schwartz, National Conference on Community and Justice
• Jeff Giaquinto, Heads Up Collective, teacher, Galileo High School
• Jen Angel, Clamor, Toledo OH
• Jen Collins, mother
• Jene’ Despain
• Jennica Jey Born, IBEW local #3
• Jennifer Jewell, Women In Transition, Louisville, KY
• Jennifer Miller, Oakland, CA
• Jennifer Morley, Athens, GA
• Jeremy Louazo
• Jerry Path, Sign Display LU 510, San Francisco Labor Council
• Jessica Lehman, Emeryville CA
• Jill Shenker,San Francisco Day Labor Program Women’s Collective/La Raza Centro Legal
• Jim Ace
• Jim McAsey, Director- Jobs with Justice, Farmingdale NY
• John Crockford
• John Wood, ABD, Oklahoma State University, Assistant Professor, Rose State College
• Joseph Phelan , Miami FL
• Jordan Flaherty, Left Turn Magazine
• Josh Connor, Bay Area Childcare Collective
• Josh Raisler Cohn, Washington DC
• Josh Sonnenfeld, UC Santa Cruz Students Against War
• Josh Warren-White, Catalyst Project and Causa Justa/Just Cause Oakland
• Joshu Asperry, AFSCME
• Judy Helfland, community educator and activist
• Kate Berrigan, Critical Resistance
• Kerry Levenberg, teacher
• Kev L
• Kevin D’Amato, Southern California Anarchist Federation, LA Chapter
• Kristen Petroshius, Groundwork, Madison WI
• Laura Close, SEIU Local 503, Child Care Campaign, Portland OR
• Kusum Crimmel, Y-Step: Youth Step Towards Addressing Racism
• Laura Price, Solidarity, Maine
• Lauren O’Brien, Seattle WA
• Dr. Larry Shoup, UAW 1981, Oakland Green Party
• Leah Jeannesdaughter Klerr
• Leone Reinbold, Omak WI
• Leslie Radford Los Angeles CA
• Libbey Goldberg, Jews for a Free Palestine, Oakland CA
• Loren Finkelstein, San Francisco CA
• Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, Oberlin, OH
• Maggie Von Vogt
• Marc Krupanski, Immigrant Justice Solidarity Project
• Mari Spira, Justice Now and UC Santa Cruz
• Mark Rudd, Albuquerque NM
• Mary Miller, San Francisco CA
• Matt Meyer, War Resisters League
• Matthew Borus, Tekiah: A Jewish Call to Action Boston, MA
• Matthew Smucker, Lancaster Coalition for Peace & Justice, Lancaster PA
• Maureen Haver, Houston Global Awareness, Texas
• Max Uhlenbeck, Left Turn Magazine
• Meg Starr, Resistance in Brooklyn
• Melody Mayer, Oakland
• Mica Root, Philadelphia PA
• Michael King, Vancouver WA
• Michelle Foy, Freedom Road Socialist Organization
• Michelle Gerster, Oakland CA
• Molly McClure, Philadelphia PA
• Mordecai Cohen Ettinger, TGI Justice Project
• Nadia Winstead, San Francisco CA
• Nancy Jodaitis, San Francisco CA
• Nancy Lister, Wilbraham MA
• Natasha Marsh, League of Young Voters
• Nicole Solomon, Brooklyn NY
• Nike Carstaphen, Washington DC
• Noah Gaiser, Free Mind Media
• Patrick Reinsborough, smartMeme Strategy and Training Project
• Paul Kivel, educator and writer
• Paul Platt, San Francisco
• Rahula Janowski, mother, Heads Up Collective, Justice In Palestine Coalition
• Rebecca Johnson
• Riva Pearson
• Robin Reichhardt, México DF
• Robinson Block, Houston TX
• Roger Zimmerman, Los Angeles CA
• Ruby Affinity Group, Brooklyn, NY
• Ryan Emenaker, Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County
• Sailor J. Lewis Wallace, Ann Arbor, Michigan
• Samuel Goldberger, West Hartford CN
• Sara Smith, UAW 2865 Members for Quality Education and Democracy
• Sasha Costanza-Chock, Los Angeles Indymedia
• Sasha Vodnik, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
• Scott Campbell
• Scott Tucker, Los Angeles CA
• Sean Sullivan, Ruby Affinity Group, Brooklyn
• Seth Newton, AFSCME Local 3299
• Sharon Martinas, Challenging White Supremacy Workshop
• Steve Theberge, War Resisters League
• Teresa Martyny
• Thomas Fiori, Boston MA
• Tom Wetzel
• Tommi Avicolli Mecca
• Trish Kerle
• Vanessa Sacks, Childcare Collective
• Walda Katz-Fishman, Project South

References

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