Report on the FTAA Border Protest
San Diego,
CA, April 21, 2001
from the
Wages for Housework Campaign/LA
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Click on images to see full size photo with captions.
This protest, coinciding with the protest against the Free Trade Areas of the Americas (FTAA) meeting in Quebec (where the US government is proposing to extend the “free trade zone” to all countries in North and South America), was organized by activists from the US and Tijuana, Mexico, and took place over three days on both sides of the Mexico/US border. From Los Angeles, Don White from the anti-intervention movement in Central America, Siu Hin who was active in D2K and Doug Barnett from the Quaker Meeting House were involved in helping to pull it together. I believe it was the first effort to do something of this sort at and jointly on both sides of the Mexico/California border.
Much of the organizing was done during the time we were attending international meetings in London to evaluate this year’s Global Women’s Strike. At our LA Strike follow-up meeting the Saturday before the action, we discussed if and how we wanted to participate and the need for an autonomous women’s presence in the anti-FTAA protest. People there felt it would be good to take part. Margaret Prescod, International Black Women for Wages for Housework; Ruth Todasco, Every Mother is a Working Mother Network; Jeri Deitrick, LA Strike Working Group; and Sidney Ross-Risden, LA Wages for Housework Committee said we wanted to make the trip. Ruth put out an email giving travel information and inviting others to meet under our orange Global Women’s Strike banner at the event to help make sure that the autonomous voice of women was heard.
We decided to travel on the bus organized to go down from LA for the rally/ celebration and a border event on Saturday, returning Saturday night. In riding on the bus, we had opportunities to meet with others and find out more specifics of what was planned. We took Strike fliers and other info. Ruth made an announcement about the Strike, speaking about the impact of FTAA and militarization on women and children, and bringing out strike demands for payment for caring work and pay equity in the global market; people took fliers and a number signed up to build for next year’s Strike.
The rally was at a park in sight of the Mexican border, separated from us by a bare wasteland and two metal fences, between which armed border guards patrolled in SUVs. Somewhere between 1000-2000 people took part, mostly young but a presence of older women and men, about 2/3 male, a fair number of Latinas/os, only a few Black people. The presence of the left was strong. We met up with others from the LA Strike Working Group, the LA Garment Workers Center, and friends of the Wages for Housework Campaign from San Diego. Pointing out the absence of anyone speaking about women, Gracia Molina Pick, a well-known activist in San Diego for many years, used her persistent influence to lobby event organizers for Margaret to speak as part of the program. Margaret gave one of the (few) rousing speeches of the day, bringing out the sexism and racism not only of the FTAA and other global market policies but also within the movement. She was enthusiastically received.
Ruth, Sidney and Margaret took turns circulating through the crowd with strike fliers, collecting the emails of people who want to organize for next year’s Strike – students from Claremont, Santa Cruz and Oregon, Gray Panthers, more. Despite having this year’s date, the Strike fliers were very useful, people really read the demands. We also among us did several media interviews including for local TV and the independent media network.
All those participating in the rally who wanted to were supposed to move on at 3pm to Border Park for an event that would take place simultaneously on both sides of the border. This was canceled, some said due to a muddy road (it rained) and others said due to fear that some wanted to scale the border fences – reportedly the organizers from Mexico had pressed for a commitment to no Civil Disobedience. A number of people were frustrated, didn’t want to just hang out at the park we were at, and some including an arts in action group down from San Francisco, the ‘black block’ and the Revolutionary Communist Party proposed a march to the border. This was eventually agreed to by event organizers, and we made an impressive march carrying banners and signs to the border checkpoint at the San Diego Freeway about 20 minutes away. Some people with documents crossed over into Mexico, others held a vigil at the border. Huge numbers of police, mainly California Highway Patrol, came out of hiding to line up with shields and teargas on the other side of the fence, also trotted beside the march and formed a protective barrier in front of stores, particularly the Nike outlet.
We felt at the end of the day that we had been successful in creating an autonomous women’s presence which would have been absent had we not been there. A number of young women came up to Margaret saying how glad they were that she had spoken, and Margaret made contacts for a women of color meeting. Several men also said how much they liked her speech. We collected names and emails of about 30 people who want to build for Strike 2002.