Centro CSO

Centro CSO

DACA protest

Los Angeles, CA - December 2022, Over 20 people rallied in the Boyle Heights neighborhood, at Mariachi Plaza on December 8. The rallying cry was for Congress to save Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). DACA which was a 2012 executive order by then-President Barack Obama, is at risk of being overturned.

Centro CSO united forces to save it and to also demand the legalization of all of the undocumented. Present at the event were Torres High School students and residents of Boyle Heights. Some of them are DACAmented. Tomasa Martínez who is a mother to three undocumented children was also in attendance.

CSO is part of the national Legalization for All Network (L4A.)

Speakers included Aaron Reveles of the Peace and Freedom Party, as well as Jenny Bekenstein and Marisol Marquez, who are co-chairs of the CSO Immigration committee. Both are also members of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).

Bekenstein said of the current situation, “It is especially unfair because harmful U.S. foreign policy and militarization is a huge part of the reason why people are forced to leave their home countries and immigrate here.”

International Women’s Day event

On March 6 2022, Centro CSO hosted its fifth annual International Women’s Day event. Hosted over Zoom for the second consecutive year, “Luchadorxs de Los Ángeles: Resisting State Sanctioned Violence during a Pandemic” highlighted the efforts of women in leading the fights against police brutality, the privatization of education as well as other struggles.

The event kicked off with a solidarity statement from Marisol Marquez, a member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Centro CSO’s core, immigration, and police brutality committees.

After Marquez’s speech, Cristal Haro, an artist born and raised in Boyle Heights as well as a member of Centro CSO’s police accountability committee, first read poetry before presenting a series of paintings.

Facilitated by CSO core members Isabel Gurrola and Juliana Castellon, the panel discussion included representatives from each of CSO’s three committees. Gurrola and Castellon asked panelists three questions: What made you want to become active in your community? How has gender roles and expectations sparked or fueled your activism as a femme or non-binary person? How has organizing during a pandemic impacted your life?

Julie Regalado and Antonietta Garcia, parents and veterans of the movement against charter schools in Boyle Heights and East LA, spoke on behalf of CSO’s education committee.

Hilda Pedroza, sister of David Ordaz Jr. who was killed by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department on March 14, 2021, and Em Hubbard represented CSO’s police accountability committee. Both activists attended the recent conference for the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression in Chicago and are trying to win community control of the sheriffs through a charter amendment.

Finally, Ofelia Carrillo and Jenny Bekenstein, who works at UPS and organizes against U.S. intervention in Central America, presented for CSO’s immigration committee. According to Carrillo, the experience of patriarchy within her immigrant family began her journey toward organizing. Bekenstein mentioned how observing the progress socialism has brought to women in Nicaragua helped lead her to CSO.

CSO immigration rally

On April 8 2021, a press conference was held with immigrant families and Centro CSO calling on President Joe Biden to move forward with a plan to grant legal status to the over 12 million undocumented living and working in the U.S.

Undocumented residents and other members of Centro CSO were joined by Tanya Lozano from the Right to Family delegation from Chicago. She is the daughter of Emma Lozano who launched the 2006 mega marches. Also speaking at the press conference was immigrant rights activist from Chicago, Elvira Arellano. Years ago, Arellano took refuge at a Chicago church to oppose her deportation and helped start the sanctuary movement in the U.S.

Carlos Montes, a local Chicano human rights activist from Boyle Heights, spoke, calling for mass marches and unity to demand legalization for all. Montes also denounced police killings of Blacks and Chicanos, especially by the LA Sheriff's department with its deadly deputy gangs.

Marisol Marquez, another Boyle Heights resident, Centro CSO activist, and recent mother, spoke about the racist condition immigrants face in ICE detention centers. She also told of immigrants in other countries being granted citizenship for being essential workers during the pandemic. “All immigrant workers in the U.S. are essential and should be given legalization now,” Marquez said.

Luis Sifuentes of Centro CSO spoke about the abuse women and children face in the long journey to cross the border only to face abuse at the hands of ICE. “These are concentration camps where women and children get sick and die and are subjected to sexual abuses,” Sifuentes said, pointing out that last year a whistleblower revealed that ICE doctors are forcefully performing hysterectomies on women. “This is genocide! We demand these children to be reunited with their families and close the camps!”

Fight Back! supporter

Fight Back! / ¡Lucha y Resiste! is a Facebook group for readers and supporters of Fight Back! / ¡Lucha y Resiste! the newspaper of Freedom Road Socialist Organization/FightBack!

As of July 5 2020 members included Centro CSO.

References

Template:Reflist