Renewing ourselves through solidarity & commitment to human rights for all

By Pancho Argüelles

México Tenochtitlán – México City

We gathered for the opening session of the People's Global Action at what used to be the Convent of San Hipólito, in the heart of México City, the place where I grew up.

I see the places and walk the streets my parents saw and walked. I walk around as if looking for them but they are no longer here, and yet they are. It is a bittersweet sensation. It is also bittersweet to be here today with my friends and colleagues, my “compas” from NNIRR and other allies from the delegation. I am happy to be able to share with them my crazy and beautiful city, its food, history, culture; but it is sad because after working together for immigrant rights for the past several years today we wake up to a post election day reality that announces more repression and suffering for our communities living and working in the U.S.

Yes, things look really bad for us in the U.S. Things have been bad for a long time but now with a wave of politicians who ran xenophobic and in many cases openly racist campaigns, coming into office all around the country at the local, state and federal level, we need to be prepared for things to get a lot worst. It is in times like these that we need to be able to dig deeper in our analysis and strategies and connect to our sources of strength and hope.

The People's Global Action meeting in the heart of México City is a good place to listen to what our sisters and brothers from Asia, Europe, South America and Africa are doing to confront policies and systems of worker exploitation, criminalization and repression. We understand the similarities. They are not a coincidence since the roots are the same: historical colonialism and racism in the past and brutal global capitalism, corruption and “low intensity democracies” today. While we advance in building our shared analysis and common agenda we also find strength by sharing stories of successful work of resistance and organizing being done all over the world.

We renew ourselves by renewing our solidarity and commitment to a world where all people have all rights.

From México City, Pancho Argüelles is the Co-Director of Colectivo Flatlander (working with Popular Education for Social and Racial Justice in Texas and the Gulf Coast Region)

[Photographs by Arnoldo García]