Power, Justice, and Survival: Latino Politics Today

The articles collected in this edition of the NACLA Report cover the emergence of contemporary Latino social movements and shed light on the structural basis for Latino politics on the ground. They capture the sub-national and transnational dimensions of Latino social movements on questions around immigration policy, U.S. intervention in El Salvador, and in some cases for the very right to be indigenous, Afro-Latino, a woman, or all of the above. As several of the authors note, such struggles do not take place in a vacuum but in a structural context of the global economic crisis, and in the shadow of an ongoing national debate around immigration and citizenship under the Obama administration that could either facilitate or limit the potential for progressive interracial coalitions.

November/December
2010
Volume: 
43
Number: 
6

Taking Note

Michelle Chase
Roger Burbach

Intro

NACLA
The articles collected in this edition of the NACLA Report cover the emergence of contemporary Latino social movements and shed light on the structural basis for Latino politics on the ground. They capture the sub-national and transnational dimensions of Latino social movements on questions around immigration policy, U.S. intervention in El Salvador, and in some cases for the very right to be indigenous, Afro-Latino, a woman, or all of the above. As several of the authors note, such struggles do not take place in a vacuum but in a structural context of the global economic crisis, and in the shadow of an ongoing national debate around immigration and citizenship under the Obama administration that could either facilitate or limit the potential for progressive interracial coalitions. Despite the Republican upsurge during the midterm elections, the articles in this issue of the NACLA Report remind us that from Los Angeles to New York, from Chicago to the Deep South, and from Oaxaca to El Salvador, Latino communities will remain entrenched in power struggles for social justice and for their very survival.

Updates

Paul Gootenberg
Behind the sensationalized headlines, national security panic, and grim statistics on escalating violence along the border lies a hidden history of U.S. entanglements across the Western Hemisphere. And the story goes deeper than the lament of many U.S. liberals and libertarians about the failures of the so-called War on Drugs declared on Latin American traffickers in the late 1960s and ramped up by President Reagan amid the crack-cocaine scare of the 1980s.
Deepa Panchang
If it is true that the cholera outbreak in Haiti is a result of UN malfeasance, it will become only the latest in a string of serious grievances with MINUSTAH—the UN occupation force known by its French acronym, established in 2004 after Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in a U.S.-supported coup.

Report

Alfonso Gonzales
In exchange for their loyal votes, Latinos are expected to join what we can call the Obama–Democratic Party Consensus on immigration reform. This consensus requires that the president and his party build a more efficient immigration-control apparatus, while Latinos are expected to settle for symbolic appointments in government.
Claudia Sandoval
The challenges to building a successful coalition between Latinos and African Americans in Chicago shows us that the national discourse on citizenship, criminality, and immigration not only leads to anti-immigrant sentiments, but can impede mutual understanding and multiracial alliances.
Chris Zepeda-Millán
On April 10, 2006, between 80,000 and 100,000 mostly Mexican immigrants participated in an unprecedented mass mobilization in the small southwest Florida city of Fort Myers. The mobilization shows that immigrant communities have the power and resources to mobilize on a mass scale, even in unexpected locations and without the help of foundations or "professional organizers."
Héctor Perla Jr.
A new generation of Salvadorans has taken up the struggle for social justice—both in El Salvador and in the United States. This new generation has a concrete legacy to draw upon: a transnational network and a particular model of organizing, one that emphasizes building human bonds with non-Salvadorans.
Marisol Raquel Gutiérrez
Organizations like the Indigenous Front of Binational Organizations (FIOB), a Los Angeles–based human rights group, act as binational political actors representing dynamic and influential spaces through which indigenous migrants are making their voices heard.
Raymond Rocco
Measuring the success of Latino politics should be based on the degree of Latinos' incorporation into all levels of U.S. society—not just electoral victories. Neoliberalism poses the strongest barrier to incorporation.

Reviews

Raquel Rubio Goldsmith and Robin Reineke
Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid by Joseph Nevins and Mizue Aizeki, City Lights Publishers, 2008, 225 pp., $16.95 (paperback)
Limiting Resources: Market-Led Reform and the Transformation of Public Goods by LaDawn Haglund; Mexico’s Economic Dilemma: The Developmental Failure of Neoliberalism by James M. Cypher and Raul Delgado Wise; and Latin American Neostructuralism: The Contradictions of Post-Neoliberal Development by Fernando Ignacio Leiva
Todd Miller
Beyond Elections: Redefining Democracy in the Americas (DVD, 2008), a documentary film directed, filmed, and produced by Silvia Leindecker and Michael Fox, PM Press/Estreito Meios Productions,104 mins.

MALA

Michael Corcoran
On September 30, CNN’s correspondent in Ecuador, Rodolfo Muñoz, resigned after 14 years on the job. That day Muñoz had covered a police revolt that paralyzed Ecuador, in what President Rafael Correa called a coup attempt. Muñoz’s decision to quit raises questions about how the U.S. media covered the crisis.