The following is a presentation from the May 15 “Capitalism Is Organized Crime” conference in Boston, hosted by the PSL
Hello sisters and brothers, hermanas y hermanos! My name is Jennifer Zaldana, and I’ve been a member of the PSL for about two years now—and in that time I have been involved in a wide variety of struggles, from organizing against cutbacks on the T to demanding an end to U.S. wars.
 Jennifer Zaldana, PSL Boston |
But personally, I’ve seen people struggle since before I can remember. I am the first in my family to be born in the United States. My family emigrated here from El Salvador in the early 1980s. Some of you may know that during that time, my country was in the midst of a brutal civil war, brought on by the extreme separation in living standards between a small percentage of wealthy elite and a much larger majority of working-class, poverty-stricken people. And let me tell you, my family was not amongst the small percentage of wealthy elite.
My father at the time was in his fourth year in the university, studying to be an engineer; but he was also a communist, fighting so that his family could have opportunities—opportunities that were not accessible to his family and other Salvadorans at the time. Due to the U.S.-backed war that was occurring, the universities were shut down and my father had to stop his studies. He never did get to graduate or become an engineer.
Instead, he struggled daily to survive. Every day the military and paramilitaries, trained and funded in the United States, were occupying the streets. These armed men did not care who you were or where you came from, they just knew that they had orders to kill. And kill they did.
There were many times that my father barely made it home alive. At one point, my mom and sister thought he had been killed, because it took him days to get home, days to get through the military checkpoints in their community. My mom once told me those days were some of the hardest she ever had to go through. But luckily, my father survived the brutal attacks on him. Their neighborhood of Santa Ana was a constant war zone, not unlike other countries right now, such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.
After seeing so many family members and friends murdered in cold blood, my parents and other family members made a difficult decision that many people still have to make to this day: They decided to leave everything they knew, leave everything behind to survive. They knew they had to come to the United States by any means necessary because if they didn’t, they, too, could end up on the growing list of casualties.
So my father came first. He traveled through Central America and Mexico by bus and managed to get into the United States in one piece.
He crossed the border masking himself as a Mexican American worker. Other family members, however, were not able to mask themselves in the same way and therefore traveled below the bus, right alongside the luggage. My father’s two nieces were in their early to late teen years. They spent days underneath the bus only to get caught in Mexico, where the Mexican government promptly arrested them.
They spent days in jail and then were sent back to El Salvador. But the war in El Salvador was so deadly that my family feared for their lives, so they sent them right back on that same bus to try again. They did eventually make it into the United States. My mom and sister came next. They luckily were granted temporary visas, and they came to the United States by plane.
But here in the United States they all soon realized that the “American Dream” that so many people had spoken about did not apply to them.
My mom and dad never got to go to college here in the United States, not only because they were undocumented, or because they barely spoke the language, but because they could not afford it, an issue many of us face today. So all they had were their high school diplomas. And since they spoke very little English, they had few options; so they became factory workers and worked minimum-wage jobs like many people do just to try and make ends meet. And as if that was not difficult enough, they were constantly treated as second-class citizens because their skin was a different shade than many in the United States, because they did not speak English well and had thick accents.
And no, they did not have papers, but no, they did not steal anyone’s jobs, and yes, believe it or not, they did pay taxes.
In 1986, after a period of mass struggle, they and millions were granted amnesty. But it only applied to those who arrived before Jan. 1, 1982, so unfortunately, this did not apply to all undocumented workers, but it does show that amnesty is possible. The PSL consistently raises the demand of amnesty to this day, a struggle [in which]we all fight shoulder to shoulder with our immigrant brothers and sisters.
I stand here, before all of you, to explain how I got started on the road towards revolutionary change and why I choose to fight the fight. I fight for my family because they fought for me. They came to this country with no money in their pockets and left everything behind, not only to survive, but so that their children could have a better life, so that my future children could have a better life; and I will not stop until I finish what they started.
I fight for people like my parents, who are forced to come to the United States for various reasons, one being due to unjust oppressive wars in their countries. I fight for all undocumented workers in the United States so that they can be treated with the dignity and respect they deserve, and so they can ultimately be granted amnesty. I fight for equal access to a quality education. I fight for all oppressed people, not only in the United States but across the globe. I fight not only against the wars abroad, but against the wars that occur on our streets in our neighborhoods every day! I fight against police brutality and racial profiling!
I joined the Party for Socialism and Liberation because all of these things that I fight for, they fight for. Because somewhere along the line, all of us in the party made the decision that we would not stand on the sidelines while so many injustices occur across the globe.
We all made the decision that we could not take a blind eye to the reality of this oppressive government that we live under every day. And as a party, we all recognize that the only way to fight these injustices is to fight against capitalism and fight for socialism. But this is not something that can be acquired without the power of the people because it is the power of the people that can make a difference.
Being in the party has changed my life drastically. Even though I have been fighting against injustice all of my life, the PSL helped me to really engage in revolutionary struggle. Membership in the PSL starts with a six-month candidacy program where you take a series of 12 political education classes.
These classes, taught by other members in the party, are a critical component of our fight because they equips all members with the tools, the knowledge and the history that will help us become better revolutionaries. And the reality is, if we don’t understand our history, we will never be able to change our future.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation is a multi-national working-class party fighting for the rights of all of us in this room, fighting against racism, and sexism, and all types of bigotry, fighting for a better world, because a better world is possible. So I invite you all to take a stand, fight back and join us in the struggle. The people will prevail! Join the PSL!
