Letters of August 13

PL Summer Project Hits Obama’s Racist Deportations

I am so grateful to the Party for the opportunity to  have been part of the Summer Project in Los Angeles this year. It was very inspiring. I really got to see Party discipline in action. I enjoyed the study groups and gained more insight into how to engage my friends in conversations about topics such as sexism and immigration.

The study group on immigration was particularly helpful to me, especially in light of the increase in deportations under Deporter-in-Chief Obama. I shared with a friend/co-worker the point that when there is a high unemployment rate, the rulers increase the number of deportations. However, when there is a “healthy” unemployment rate (“healthy” for the bosses, that is), they’re more than happy to employ undocumented workers to whom they pay menial wages for laborious tasks and long hours.
One comrade in the study group thought the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was analogous to the deportations of workers from Central America. After recruiting Chinese workers to build the Transcontinental Railroad, U.S bosses sought to deport Chinese workers and to ban Chinese immigrants once the work was completed. The bosses use and refuse workers at their convenience according to which policy will reap maximum profits.
Making these connections with history will help our friends better understand present events. The Project inspired me to become more disciplined and a better student of history so that I may become a better communist. I plan to learn more about the past so that I can act in the present for a better future.
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The Summer Project was a success, absolutely. Comrades came together as one big multiracial family, young and old, united and fighting for communism. The march in Murrieta and the visit to the garment center inspired us to continue our work to organize in our workplaces and communities to build the PLP. The young people inspired us to put out our best efforts and veteran comrades assisted in that leadership. We will be looking forward to more Summer Projects.
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The highlight of the Summer Project was our march and rally in Murrieta. The town has been the center of anti-immigrant racism for the past few weeks. As we marched into the town, the tense atmosphere of racism and fear created by the aanti-immigrant fascists waned. And my own fear of being attacked by the racists also faded as I looked around at our multi-racial Party. The Progressive Labor Party is at the forefront in the struggle for unity and equality, and I am proud to be a part of it.
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Before the Summer Project, I was feeling pretty unmotivated politically. I forced myself to go to LA because I had confidence that it would be a stimulating experience. I could not have been more right. Seeing all these familiar faces and engaging in political conversations reminded me about why I fight for communism. I hope to continue this enthusiasm and do more work for the Party back home.
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I learned a lot, had a lot of questions answered, and I still have more to be answered. So, I definitely hope to do this again.
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For the many years I lived here in California, I have seen many groups living in different streets. In my old hometown in South Gate, there were some black, few white people and many Latinos. But as the time went by, my family and I decided to move to Los Angeles to start a new life. Moving to LA wasn’t bad at all but after seeing that there where less Latinos and a lot more white people I was like, “What”?
It turns out I found many Latin and black workers live on the “ghetto side” and I didn’t understand why we couldn’t unite and have the same system instead of having many Latins and blacks living in a corrupt city.
One day, as I walked in downtown LA, I saw a protest group rallying around to fight against racism. Since I want to fight racism and help one another, I decided to join the group [PLP]. After marching the whole day, I found it remarkable that it’s not just one race but all races were in this protest. Many of these people are just great and work as a team.