Mijente Policy Director Jacinta González joins William for this episode. Jacinta is an expert in organizing against immigration enforcement and criminalization of Latinx and immigrant communities. Their conversation explores how local, in-person community organizing is key to defending migrants threatened by increasingly violent, aggressive, and isolationist US border and immigration policy.
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This transcript was automatically generated and may contain minor errors.
[00:00:00] Sound on Tape: This podcast is presented by Convergence, a magazine for radical insights.
[00:00:07] Jacinta Gonzalez: This is again, why to me, like local organizing is so important. Why being able to open up to those experiences is so important because I think it’s when people are actually showing up to city council and recognize each other and are actually going to each other’s parties and are actually hanging out and understanding each other’s stories that some of that deeper transformation can happen.
[00:00:32] William Lawrence: This is the Hegemonicon podcast, where we are investigating the workings of power. What is power? How does it work? Who has it? What are they doing with it? How the heck do we get it? And other small questions like that. I’m your host, William Lawrence, and I’m an organizer from Lansing, Michigan. Currently I work with the Rent is Too Damn High Coalition, an alliance of tenant unions and housing justice groups across the state of Michigan.
[00:01:01] Formerly, I was a climate justice organizer for 10 years, including as a co founder of Sunrise Movement, the youth organization that put the Green New Deal on the political map. Just a quick note, we recorded the interviews for this season between May and July. Now we’re releasing them in August and September.
[00:01:19] A lot has happened in the world in between those times, such as Biden dropping out of the race. So if you hear us speaking with blissful ignorance of what was to come, that’s what’s going on. But I think that the conversations are going to hold up very well for our tasks of building an internationalist left in the months and years to come.
[00:01:44] Uh, welcome back to the hegemonic con a show from convergence magazine. I’m your host, William Lawrence recording from Lansing, Michigan. Today is October 16th. we’re nearing the end of a series we’ve been doing on internationalism, which I’ve been bringing to you for the last several months. And one topic we haven’t covered as part of this series is the border.
[00:02:07] The place where territory is carved into national and international and immigration, the, Irrepressible human practice of crossing borders. Uh, immigration has been a major campaign issue this year and not in a good way for we progressives. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are each claiming that they will be the tougher president on immigration.
[00:02:31] And any holistic vision for naturalization and amnesty, which recognizes the humanity of immigrants or the responsibility of the wealthy United States to receive and welcome vulnerable people is wrong. Nowhere to be found in our mainstream discourse. We have fallen very far from the poem written on the Statue of Liberty, which famously says, give me your tired and your poor.
[00:02:58] So today I am glad to be joined by Jacinta Gonzalez, who is the policy director at Mijente and an expert in organizing against immigration enforcement and criminalization of Latinx and immigrant communities. Jacinta, welcome to the show. And why don’t you begin by introducing yourself to our listeners?
[00:03:17] Jacinta Gonzalez: Thank you so much for, for the invitation and for having me. Well, I really appreciate it. And it’s really great to be in conversation with you. Um, as you said, my name is Hacinta, I use she, her, uh, ella pronouns. I am now based in Chicago, uh, Illinois, where I’ve been for here for a couple of, of years, and I am an, an organizer, um, a mama and have been doing a lot of work with, as you said, around.
[00:03:43] immigrant rights, but particularly around deportation, defense and fighting against the criminalization of immigrants. Um, and I run me hint. There’s no tech for ice campaign.
[00:03:53] William Lawrence: Thank you. We’re so glad to have you here. I think that you’ve been a an organizer for for over a decade, at least. And you’ve seen ups and downs in the political sentiment around immigration, immigrant communities here in the United States.
[00:04:09] And I wonder, From your perspective, how have we arrived to this place where it seems that border security and a crackdown on immigrant communities is now a bipartisan position?
[00:04:23] Jacinta Gonzalez: Boy, um, well, you know, I, when I first started organizing around a lot of these issues, I, I started off as a day labor organizer, um, organizing, uh, reconstruction workers and undocumented families.
[00:04:36] That had come to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to help in the reconstruction. So I started organizing under Bush. So I have seen my, my fair share of presidents and, and their approach to immigration and particularly deportation policies, you know, and I think there’s, there’s a lot of different factors that have, have brought us to this moment.
[00:04:56] But one that I think we’ll, we’ll discuss as the interview continues is sort of this, this constant, um, dynamic in the migrant rights sector, where it’s like, well, first we have to start with the enforcement. First, we have to start with deportations. First, we have to start with security. And then later after that, we’ll be able to provide some sort of, uh, path to citizenship relief from deportation for, for migrants.
[00:05:19] For, um, millions and millions of, of undocumented immigrants in this country. And as that conversation has gone, there’s always been sort of carve outs for folks that are deserving or undeserving. So at some point it’s been, you know, undocumented young people and students versus their parents. At other points, it’s been, you know, the good immigrant who hasn’t had contact with the criminal legal system or the bad immigrants who have criminal record or have had contact with police.
[00:05:45] And I think right now we’re at this moment where there’s once again, this kind of division or this narrative where it’s like, yes, we must do something for folks who have been here for many, many years, but folks who are recently arriving or folks who are coming to ask for asylum, that is where we must shut down the border.
[00:06:01] And so once again, you have this place where folks are talking about. First we must, um, and, and the, the, the response right now is, is securing the border, but really what securing the border means is actually more militarization, um, the use of tech and surveillance to continue to, to track people and, and, and to control, um, communities that have been living in the border for, for, for very long time and an uptick in, in construction and, and detention, like construction of the detention system.
[00:06:33] Right. And the deportation system. And so we’re in a particularly scary moment, I think, in terms of how far the rhetoric has gone around some of these things. And I think it both leads us to a hard political moment, but also some hard questions and things that we have to answer is as organizers around.
[00:06:52] Where do we go from here?
[00:06:55] William Lawrence: What are you most concerned about? In the next year or right now and and over the next year, what are the greatest risks that you think that immigrant communities are facing? And what can you say about any likely differences in policy or emphasis between a Harris and Trump administration?
[00:07:16] I mean, we know it’s bad right now, and it’s likely to be bad either way. But what can you say about the difference, depending on who’s our next president? I mean,
[00:07:26] Jacinta Gonzalez: I think it is. Really important. What you’re asking me the first question of, like, what am I concerned about right now? I mean, there’s no way that we can be so close to the election right now and still feel like it could be.
[00:07:39] a coin toss. I mean, there’s so much work to be done in terms of figuring out what’s going to happen with this election. Um, I would be amiss to not kind of talk about how, how, how fearful, right, folks are, um, including myself, around what the results are. could could be, um, in November and what those implications could be.
[00:07:59] I’ll talk a lot about my critiques and concerns about the, the, you know, Vice President Harris’s position on immigration and how her campaign has won around the issue, but the fact that the The Trump camp is so explicitly just calling for mass deportations in this moment is terrifying and very dangerous.
[00:08:21] And I think it’s important for folks to really grapple with. It’s not just rhetoric. It’s not just a talking point. It is actually the result of building up a huge police force that is dedicated to, Surveilling, detaining and deporting, um, anyone who is undocumented in the United States and to say that there should be mass deportations is a normalization of that type of extreme violence that could be tremendously devastating to, to communities.
[00:08:49] I think folks don’t quite realize, like, I think sometimes it’s like, Oh, well, he could never do that. No, they actually could. They do have the technology. They have the capacity. They have the detention beds that if they wanted to to actually go door to door and conduct these types of mass raids, they could.
[00:09:09] And actually, if he were in power, he most likely would. And so I think that that some of the main differences is that that rhetoric around mass deportations, um, you know, I think, as you said in the intro, Both both Trump and Harris at this moment are competing with each other around who can be what they call stronger, what I would call more cruel at the border consistently, right?
[00:09:32] Um, and I think that we’ve seen this dynamic before, right? During the first Trump campaign, he was like, we’re going to build a wall and Democrats didn’t respond. We don’t need that. They responded with, we’re going to build a smarter wall. And so Cool. This again, this competition with positioning around this, this rhetoric that just collapses around narratives around criminalization, militarization, deterrence, right, that if, if it is so painful and, uh, deadly to cross to try to cross the border, that that’s going to dissuade people is so, so myopic and not really understanding the full, the full dimension of this.
[00:10:10] Of the problem. So what has worried right now is this is the results of the election. And I think some of the differences in the policy is the approach to deportation. But some of the scary, scary similarities that they have is their their positions around their approach to the border.
[00:10:30] William Lawrence: So what would it look like in a city like Chicago?
[00:10:33] You’ve studied their use of technology in particular, and the sort of surveillance infrastructure. And what would it look like in a city like Chicago were Trump to pursue this mass deportation policy?
[00:10:47] Jacinta Gonzalez: You know, since since the 80s, there’s been a beautiful movement around protection of immigrants and in their moments of greatest vulnerability. And so, you know, initially, that looked like sanctuary and churches and different places. But eventually, that looks like a lot of city policies that would, you know, You know, ensure that folks that are living in our neighborhoods or living in our communities would not have any cooperation from the city with federal agencies like ice to try to deport community members, right?
[00:11:18] And that included not issuing detainers inside of jails, not sharing information from police. But what we’ve seen is, as we’ve been winning in our cities to get protections, ice on the back end has been trying to figure out what are loopholes or what are ways that they can get information on our community members.
[00:11:35] And one of the big ways that they’ve done this has been through surveillance and tech, right? Being able to get people’s data. And so what we’re seeing now is that there’s data brokers like Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis, right? That are these companies that are buying our information and then selling it to agencies like ICE.
[00:11:53] And that’s how they’re getting our address, right? And so when we get You know, we have our utilities or we have credit or we have, you know, we set up cable in our homes. This is all creating the data trail that someone can purchase and then sell. And that’s how ICE, it creates their target list when they do these raids.
[00:12:12] So what could it look like under Trump administration? It would look like ICE agents going into neighborhoods, going into businesses and rounding out community members based off of Private sources of data that they could have. Um, and you know what we saw during the first Trump administration is that many times that also comes together with criminal prosecutions, right?
[00:12:33] So the entire immigration system is supposed to be civil, right? Even though we know that that is not how it actually looks like in practice. But what they do is they add on criminal charges. And so, for example, what we saw in Mississippi when they did the poultry plant rates is they arrested 700 workers Criminally prosecuted them for working without documents, and then put them in detention and deported them.
[00:12:57] So, we would probably very similarly see a Department of Justice working hand in hand with the Department of Homeland Security, to both be able to prosecute people, and people, and, And incarcerate people and then transfer people to the detention and deportation system. So, you know, I think this is, this is where the, the, the scary part comes in.
[00:13:18] This is why we have to continue to organize. This is why we, um, understand that we have to go door to door to get out the vote. We have to go door to door to get to know our neighbors because we have to be able to build up every level of protection we have to make sure that this doesn’t happen.
[00:13:33] William Lawrence: Thank you.
[00:13:34] Um, I want to kind of zoom out and look at the broader movement ecosystem a little bit and where immigration fits in with all of this. Um, you know, me hinting along with other immigrant rights groups has been part of the over the last decade. Plus of this, you know, loose but real. Progressive front that has been cohering alongside, you know, climate organizations, racial justice groups, labor unions and more.
[00:13:58] And we’ve all been kind of moving forward together trying to build, you know, some people say intersectionality, but deeper understanding of a of a common front, especially in the realm of politics. Um, I wonder Do you think that the leading organizations working in these other spheres on these other quote unquote issues have adequately incorporated a pro immigrant politic into their work, or do you think this is still a policy?
[00:14:29] Side issue for the US left that can be incorporated when it’s convenient, but then discarded when the political tides shift elsewhere, maybe such as right now. And it’s really not a leading question because I’m, I’m not convinced that people haven’t, but I’m, I’m also, uh, don’t fully see the evidence that, um, that we have,
[00:14:51] Jacinta Gonzalez: you know, the, this, this is actually a, I was really sitting with this question ’cause I think it’s a, a particularly hard one.
[00:14:57] Because I think that sometimes there is this conversation of like, oh, it’s folks are only coming out when it’s convenient or when, you know, it’s, it’s. Uh, you know, there’s no, no other place to go, but you have to show up. And I actually think that’s a little bit of an unfair, uh, burden that sometimes we even put on ourselves, given the general state of where politics are in the United States.
[00:15:24] Um, I don’t think that there’s a lot of folks. I think that there are some folks that might be. kind of going away from it because they’re fearful of the issue. But I also think that in a lot of places, the level of attack and how, how much, how much effort it is taking to organize around, you know, crucial issues in your community, that the sort of pressure to then have to show up for everything at the same time becomes, you know, very, really overwhelming.
[00:15:51] And, and I think it kind of poses questions to us about how are we doing this organizing so that it can be that we actually have more opportunities to show up for each other as opposed to, and strategize together as opposed to this like pressure to show up in different moments in ways that sometimes can even be performative or symbolic as opposed to actually doing some of the work.
[00:16:12] Because when I actually look at what’s happening, locally, right? When you actually go into people’s cities and neighborhoods and talk to people about their coalitions or talk to people about their organizing work. You hear these beautiful stories of people really showing up for each other and knowing that the only way that they can actually win is if they fight together.
[00:16:32] And so I think sometimes when you talk about the national politics around how you’re doing it or how national orgs or national coalitions are showing up for each other’s issues, it just looks different or feels different than it does at a local level. Um, but when people are doing organizing campaigns together, when people are sort of in that practice day to day, there’s some beautiful examples of people taking on.
[00:16:53] really deep risk and showing up. But I think we can also ignore that, like the issue around immigration when you look at politically how people are coming out to this election, it’s complicated. And so I think that we also have to kind of, uh, contend with that and, and have those conversations, um, knowing what’s at stake.
[00:17:16] William Lawrence: I’m going to follow that thread you had here about the, yeah, the, the, the local work and what it looks like to have like a more, I guess, a real and organic intersectionality, which is rooted in actual conditions, actual communities, rather than the kind of symbolic gestures of, you know, National networks issuing statements or quote unquote showing up for each other, which really is just a matter of scheduling a post.
[00:17:42] Um, I heard you speak on a panel last month, and I was really inspired by something you said about the need to really be building our strategy from the local up rather than from the national down. And you were talking about how You know what? You just said by being grounded in local conditions, receiving people as they are, we can kind of break out of the issue silos that often result in, frankly, shallow organizing that only touches a fraction of somebody’s life and interests.
[00:18:16] Can I’m interested to hear you. Elaborate on this point and, um, what led you to this conclusion? You know, from being part of a national organization and moving in those spaces and then, um, what you’re seeing concretely as as the alternative, what becomes possible when you’re approaching people and building strategy from the local level?
[00:18:37] Jacinta Gonzalez: You know, I think a lot of the, the conversation around how are we approaching this moment and how do we think we’re going to get out of hard political moments like the one that we’re in. And as an organizer, I’m going to respond by organizing by bringing together more people by bringing together people power and I think.
[00:18:54] Local work provides for a lot of opportunities to be able to do that, and to be able to build a bigger base where you’re talking to people directly about what’s moving them, and they actually have opportunities to sort of come together and see that, see that change that happens when people do actually take on a fight, right?
[00:19:12] So many times we www. fema. gov Yeah, losing fights, but losing fights that we’re actually not showing up for. But once we actually are organized together and have a strategy and are able to win that moment where you can sort of see in someone’s eyes, like, Oh shit, like we can actually do this is kind of, that’s, that’s always what I talk about.
[00:19:32] Like in terms of what keeps me coming back to organizing is like, when you see that moment in people time and time again, and I think when we’re actually also thinking about. Not only, you know, in times of elections, people talk a lot about democracy and talk about a lot of times democracy is like the sole opportunity where like once every X amount of years you go in and you have a voice.
[00:19:55] But we know that actually democracy can be so much more. bigger and more radical than that. There are so many opportunities for people to, to actually work to put pressure on their government, but also work with their elected officials to create meaningful change. And many times the opportunities we have to do that is in our neighborhoods is because you know, you’re black, you know, your neighbors, you know, your council person, you know, your local terrain, you know, your local conditions.
[00:20:21] And so I think, you know, there’s, there’s so many opportunities that we’ve seen with both having members. Run for office, but also folks being able to continue to have campaigns that create the conditions for those elected to actually pass meaningful policy and create meaningful change. And so I think that’s that’s the place where we’re really kind of interested in experimenting with where you’re thinking about.
[00:20:43] What is our local strategy? What is our municipal strategy to have this world that we want to see our dignified life come into being in our day to day, in our neighborhoods, in our territories, in our home? And I think when we have that perspective, when we are building power in that way, it’s not like we’re ignoring the national.
[00:21:00] It’s not like you’re seeing that space. It’s actually that you’re able to build again, the conditions and the terrain and the momentum to be able to make those bigger wins possible. But I think one of the things that we’ve seen time and time again, for example, in the migrant rights fight is we know that for a lot of these issues, you have to pass something in Congress, but we keep waiting for this one unit, like this one bill to pass through Congress.
[00:21:25] That’s going to save all our problems. I’ve been doing this for 18 years and we’re still waiting, right? Like there, there is actually a space where like you sort of stand still. And so then what’s the creativity of like, what can we actually make happen at a local level? Right. Governors like governor Abbott, right.
[00:21:43] Are actually taking federal immigration enforcement and deportation policy into their own hands. They’re creating their own border policy. They’re creating their own deportation systems. Why can’t our mayors create our own legalization systems? Why can’t they actually offer work opportunities and health opportunities and education opportunities to everyone regardless of their immigration status?
[00:22:03] There’s a whole sort of opportunity that we have there in terms of how we’re building or how we’re thinking about those things. And so I think part of the, the, we, we can’t do one without the other, right? You always have to be able to, to have local work, to be able to think about national interventions and vice versa.
[00:22:20] But I think sometimes so many times people are so focused on what the federal government can do or what the president can do without actually really thinking about what can your school board do, what can your city council do, what can your neighborhood association do to actually bring, bring it, bring to real life some of the examples and dreams and aspirations that we have to also be able to create models that we can push for.
[00:22:43] William Lawrence: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I think it’s really interesting. The idea of. Pushing the local campaigning to its, uh, to its absolute limit, or maybe past its breaking point, and then by doing so, even that can that can create a national crisis like Governor Abbott did on the other side. I mean, he created a whole constitutional crisis in conflict with Biden by breaking the law.
[00:23:05] I mean, uh, violating the Constitution, as far as I understand, but, uh, but, but they did it and they’ve gotten away with it. But what are some, um, do you have any examples of, um, Local campaigns that are really, um, pushing up to that limit, um, in the side of protection, legalization, and dignity for immigrant communities.
[00:23:27] I mean, I think
[00:23:30] Jacinta Gonzalez: I just gave you some of the examples of conversations that we’ve been having locally with both elected officials and within our community. What can cities do in terms of offer services for or offer programs for for thinking through how to improve the lives of folks that are undocumented.
[00:23:46] I think when we actually also start to look at, for example, abortion is another issue, right, that folks are. Constantly talking about federal law, state law. All of those things are incredibly important, incredibly critical, but whether or not a person’s going to have access to an abortion is an incredibly local question.
[00:24:04] Are you going to actually have access to a clinic or are you going to actually have access to funds to. Move to wherever that you’re, you know, to get yourself to the place where you can. Those are local questions, right? And there’s actually been really interesting ways that people in both red and blue states are answering those questions around how do we make sure that people have access to funds.
[00:24:24] So whether it’s private, private, um, abortion funds or thinking about how to use social media. Local resources to be able to make that happen, I think, have been examples. I think when we’re thinking about climate resiliency and we’re thinking about response to, you know, whether it’s a hurricane or a tornado or extreme heat or drought, what are local resources and how folks are thinking about that, right?
[00:24:47] Where you’re actually including people no matter their immigration status, where you’re thinking about how to include LGBTQ communities, when you’re thinking about the implications with the disability lens. Um, disability justice lens, like all of those things really actually, again, matter at a local level, um, in terms of how it’s coming up, you know, I think another thing that is worth exploring, especially as folks have been having this conversation around the election, around the economy.
[00:25:14] There’s so many things actually locally that that city councils can do to ensure that our local economy is working for working people, right and working for for for folks that are struggling day to day, um, housing similarly, right? Like, again, we know that there’s a federal crisis, but how you actually start to experiment about what kind of housing opportunities can be available to community, there’s a lot of local experiments that can be really exciting.
[00:25:40] And so I think when you look across the board, there’s there’s places where there is. Um, exciting things happening. And then I also think there’s exciting, uh, experiments starting to, to come up.
[00:25:50] William Lawrence: Interesting. It also kind of like breaks down some of the ideological, I don’t know, rigidities that people hold around.
[00:25:59] What are the appropriate ways of finding a solution to a certain problem? Because like, most people really don’t care whether they’re disaster relief. Support comes from FEMA or comes from a private organization, whether it comes from the federal government or the local government, most people don’t really care whether they’re, uh, you know, whether their, uh, abortion is going to be through this or that kind of agency.
[00:26:26] Most people. You know, are just trying. They have needs. The needs need to be met. And when we talk about strategy and theories of change on the left, there ends up being a conversation that’s about like, Oh, well, we only believe in providing these things through the state because we believe in rebuilding the state.
[00:26:41] So therefore, we don’t believe in providing mutual aid, or we don’t believe in doing other forms of community support. But I don’t think We can really, I don’t think if you’re grounded in community and grounding in, in the actual needs that people face, I don’t think you can really hold to those boundaries with, uh, with a lot of certainty because the responsibility that we have to the people that we’re organizing among who are our family members and our neighbors is to.
[00:27:07] is to meet people’s interests. And if we’re fighting to meet people’s interests like we owe it to people to, uh, explore every avenue and none of the, you know, it’s always conjunctural. It’s it’s never a permanent. Oh, it’s this this today. We’re doing mutual aid, but tomorrow we might be building that into a campaign, uh, to win those same services from the state.
[00:27:29] Um, Or it may go the other way. So it kind of gets us out of these debates. You kind of have to be at a very high level of abstraction to hold rigidly to these boundaries. And the more you’re grounded in the local, the more that it all just starts to be a matter of what are people’s interests? How do we pursue those interests?
[00:27:47] And how do we build power along the way?
[00:27:49] Jacinta Gonzalez: No, that’s exactly right. And, you know, for us, we draw a lot of inspiration from, um, movements and, and organized communities in the global South. And so we’ve been in a lot of conversations, particularly with folks like the Movimiento de Pobladores en Lucha in Chile, and they talk about needing to organize.
[00:28:08] against the state from within the state and without the state, right? And that means that, you know, sometimes we’re going to be in the streets doing direct action, making policy demands of our government, you know, without the state from, from, from outside. And sometimes that’s going to mean our people are going to run for office or we’re going to do electoral work.
[00:28:29] And that’s going to be work within the state. And sometimes, honestly, the, the, the alternatives that our communities need, the models of care, the models of, of direct service aren’t going to be created yet. And so a lot of that is where folks can be coming up with either mutual aid projects or projects without beyond the state, right.
[00:28:50] That actually started to, to, to, to highlight. That’s the direction in which we need to go in and I think it was, it was really, um, helpful for us to kind of think about this framework in our organizing because it, it precisely, as you’re saying, well, made it so that we don’t have to be fighting about like, what we need is more politicians know what we need is more campaign.
[00:29:11] We need more of everything, like the truth is you can’t look at this political moment and think that we’re in excess of any particular strategy. What we need is more. We need more organizing. We need more communities or that are that are part of these fights. We need more strategies that people can follow, um, and more places for people to plug in.
[00:29:29] I think there’s also like so many folks that might agree with us, but like, I don’t know what to do about this. Besides. Like your post or, you know, sign an online petition. We actually have to give people roles and ways that they can actually be, become active in what we’re proposing as a different, different way of going.
[00:29:48] And I think that the place where this gets confusing is then, where I do think that we have to have some unity is in where we go in. Right? What’s what’s the direction that we’re going in? And I think that that’s also where we think about, you know, incorporating abolitionist principles into how we organize, where just the fact that we’re using different strategies doesn’t mean that we’re actually going to also enter into tactics that might be counterproductive for what we’re doing, right?
[00:30:15] Or be tried to reform the system at the edges as opposed to push for the transformational change that we need. But that’s different than actually engaging in all of the tactics or power building tools that we have. To be able to get there, right? And so I think that’s why for us, it’s been both important to say multiplicity of strategy really matters and also clarity on where we’re going and knowing, you know, What it would be looks like, what that means for a community is also important.
[00:30:41] And it is part of the, the, the constant conversation, um, because we have to have that clarity to continue to organize.
[00:30:49] William Lawrence: But it does get really difficult to sort of trade offs that do get posed. I mean, in Chicago, Brandon Johnson, uh, you know, the mayoral project has, is a very interesting example because, I mean, this is somebody who comes out of the union movement and who is like in community with people who are, who are Radical abolitionist, social justice organizers.
[00:31:10] I mean, black freedom movement veterans and and and people who are just deep, deep in this work to this day, and he’s in community with them, and some of them work for him, and you know, there have been there have been very difficult questions posed to him as mayor as a result of being the mayor. I mean, he administers the police.
[00:31:28] He administers the detention centers. He administers, you know, a lot of this stuff. And so there’s been a dialogue in Chicago, which I think is, um, um, Ed. Probably a lot of it is still yet to surface because people are in the midst of the project and trying to make the most that can be made out of it. And so I know that there’s some stuff simmering below the surface, but I just want to kind of, I, I kind of want to, want to, want to push on this vision on this point, you said that.
[00:31:53] Even if we’re aligned on the vision, the process of coming to administer the state, especially as an executive official, uh, poses these really, really hard and difficult contradictions. And I wonder what sense you make of that.
[00:32:08] Jacinta Gonzalez: I mean, I think it’s, it’s this, it we’ve, we’ve seen it with also conversations, not only with folks that are the executive in terms of like being the mayor, but folks that are part of city council.
[00:32:19] I think sometimes, you know, we We fight like fucking hell to get one of our folks elected, right? Like it’s not an easy, it’s not like, Oh, you do a little campaign. Like it actually takes so much to just get there, right? Like we gotta be really real. Like we don’t have the money. We don’t have the training.
[00:32:34] We don’t have come from the same. It’s not like we’re coming out of the democratic machine in the same way, right? So already that’s such an uphill battle, that then once you get in, you’re trying to learn the ropes, you’re trying to understand how government works, you’re inheriting a bunch, you’re inheriting a very big mess, um, and you’re trying to politically figure out how to navigate it.
[00:32:54] And so I think that that’s, that’s, administering the state, being able to run from that is, is incredibly difficult, which is why we have to address this issue of like, strategically, how are we doing it? What is this like, whether or not folks want to call it a municipalist vision or want to talk about inside outside strategy or want to talk about co governance, how they talk about it.
[00:33:14] How do you actually create change at a local level? Truth is it’s not enough to have a great movement and it’s not enough to have great elected officials. There has, there is something about the, the, the, um, the, the chemistry there that I think is actually also really hard as you’re also fighting off attack.
[00:33:31] I mean, I think this is something that I’m constantly thinking about here in the city of Chicago, where it’s like, there’ll be internal conversations or stuff that’s coming out through movement. But when you look outside, it’s also you, you really do understand also the threats in terms of, of other political interests coming to try to discredit any sort of effort that we make.
[00:33:51] And so I, I, I just also want us to always remember to extend ourselves as much, uh, grace as we can, as we answer these questions, because it is, it’s, it’s a habit.
[00:34:01] William Lawrence: Yeah. And you know, I, I don’t, I don’t mean to pick on the scab, but these are, these, these are, these are the, these are the questions that we face and do we have.
[00:34:12] A good analysis of, um, you started out by saying, you know, uh, we can be pragmatic. We can be multivalent in our strategies. We can move be moving through multiple arenas, both within without and against the state. Um, but we don’t want to be counterproductive towards our vision. We don’t want to go backwards.
[00:34:33] Do you think we have, um, An analysis, which really is an analysis, I think, of political economy, uh, uh, the, the structure of the state, the structure of the economy that allows us to assess what is forward and what is backwards. Um, And if not, um, what would be some of the,
[00:35:01] Sound on Tape: I mean, I would
[00:35:02] Jacinta Gonzalez: be, I would be silly to say, like, no, we got it figured out. Right. So we got it. We got an event that there is, um,
[00:35:09] William Lawrence: that one was a leading question. I
[00:35:11] Jacinta Gonzalez: was like, don’t get me to say on record that we got it figured out. Let me tell you that that was not happening. Um, no, but I, I do think that there’s just a, uh, um, I think there’s two, two challenges that we have as a movement right now.
[00:35:30] I think one is bringing new folks into movement and what is their formation as they’re bringing, being brought in, right? In terms of like experiences organizing, what are, where are they getting trained? What kind of conversations are happening in that sort of sense that I think we have to, yeah, that, that, that is something that.
[00:35:49] As we’re thinking about building bigger movement and having more like a more leaderful space, we have to be thinking intentionally about what are those pipelines and how are we getting people plugged in. You know, we, we formed the, the, the Instituto de Formacion Politica, the institution of political formation, which is how we do a lot of our popular education grassroots.
[00:36:12] trainings, right? That go from everywhere of like one on one organizing to how to do an electoral campaign, to how to do comms and art within all of this. Like those have been leading things. Um, so I think we have to do just a shit ton more of that. And then part of it is just this constant. coming together and, and, you know, part of why I, I appreciate also the, the fellowship and other things that we’ve been able to be part of was what are spaces where we’re actually talking about, like, what is this moment?
[00:36:40] What are we learning? What are things that are, that are working? What are things that aren’t, um, because it is just constantly adapting to, to changing conditions and the world is, is constantly, there’s constantly new threats. You know, I talked about the, the new, the new tech for ice campaign for, for me, But it came out of a place of just like, shit, the way that immigration enforcement is happening is changing, right?
[00:37:05] Agents are not asking, acting in the same way. We’re seeing more and more of this business, you know, go to the hands of tech and data companies. How do we adapt to these new conditions? A lot of it is actually even understanding what’s happening, um, as it’s developing, right? Um, and so I think there is just this constant practice of, Yeah.
[00:37:24] Of not feeling like we already got this, we know this, but actually having the practice of constant evaluation and, um, being able to, to have spaces where we can have conversations. Um, you know, when we, when we form Mijente, we, we describe it as like a political home and, and take that concept really seriously.
[00:37:43] Um, a few, you know, weeks after the election, we’re going to be having a convening called Lanzate, uh, in, in Atlanta, Georgia, the first weekend of December, precisely because. The election just happened. We need to unpack. We need to discuss my way forward. We need to understand what each other is doing and thinking and feeling.
[00:38:01] And so, you know, having a political home is a space to be able to do that is has been important to me. I think really both like important personally, and then also really important strategically in terms of being able to be a space that can foster that type of dialogue.
[00:38:17] Sound on Tape: Hello, I’m Marcy Ryan, and I’m the print editor for Convergence.
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[00:39:16] William Lawrence: I’m gonna follow up on something you said earlier, you were mentioning, you know, just, um, the things people need, they need a job, they need housing, they need an abortion, they need, uh, they need a lot of things. And um, immigrant communities need those things too. Um, so when you’re organizing building base at a local level, you know, even though you’re An organization organizing immigrant communities.
[00:39:40] You do a lot of work around ICE and, and your, your campaigns around protecting communities from the deportation machine. The issues you organize on, um, may not be that all the time. It can’t be that all the time. If you’re actually looking to build a true political home, because if, if. You show up and they say, well, we can’t, we can’t do housing because that’s not quote unquote, an immigration issue.
[00:40:02] Then that’s not really a political home. Home has to have some wholeness to it. I think a lot of other groups, quote unquote, issue based groups could, or people who have been trained in issue based organizing, um, really need to register that lesson. Uh, and we need to be learning how to build like, uh, maybe even fewer local organizations, but more holistically that can, uh, be more fluid to be addressing these various issues, but in a way which is just like deeply grounded in people’s actually interests, their actual visions for their home and what they need.
[00:40:38] I just wonder if you have any, um, any notes on, um, You know, kind of interventions in the field of organizing or how we conceptualize issues. And some of this is a product of funding. People get funded to work on a certain issue and it’s not the other issue. Um, yeah. What are, what are your prescriptions for the organizing field when it, when it comes to single issue versus multi issue kind of whole community, whole person organizing?
[00:41:02] I mean,
[00:41:05] Jacinta Gonzalez: I think when, when we formed Mijente. We did it out of an acknowledgement of one, you know, a lot of us could come out of anti deportation work, had to come out of the immigrant rights movement and understood exactly what you’re saying, that we couldn’t have us continue to sort of be a single issue in that way.
[00:41:22] And that there was a need to have a broader political home that would work on issues affecting Latinx communities. And that it wasn’t enough to be pro Latinx, that we also had to be explicitly Pro Black and pro woman, uh, pro LGBTQ, uh, pro worker, pro undocumented, pro pachamama. For all of the reasons that you listed out, whenever I am confronted with this question, I always go back to like how I started to learn how to organize.
[00:41:51] Um, I was telling you about some of the work I did in New Orleans and I actually always felt, I started organizing the Congress of Day Laborers and so it was explicitly like undocumented workers, right? It was like wage theft issues and all of that. And the, the path that the organizing led us down was very quickly like, you can’t talk about labor shit without talking about the police.
[00:42:12] You can’t talk about the police without talking about immigration. You can’t talk about immigration without talking about what’s happening in general with the infrastructure in the state. And you just, it kind of would take you down this like road of, of understanding the whole system. And through that, process, you would also kind of meet other communities along the way that we’re also organizing around similar issues, right?
[00:42:32] So it was like, what did it mean to be a Black worker in New Orleans when you were being pushed out of your own city, right? What were those, what were those problems? What did that happen? What are other folks who have been targeted by the police and have issues with the jail? What are other communities doing around access to education help?
[00:42:50] And it was actually when people met each other that This is again, why I’m like, so, so, so firmly believe in like doing the people organizing and having that be the experience. Cause that’s where you could start to see like those moments where people would be like, Oh, this is how it’s connected. And once you have a human face.
[00:43:09] It’s like all of the shit that we tell ourselves that we’ve been like kind of consuming online and in conversations, you can leave it aside a little bit because you have to reckon with the human being that’s in front of you. And so like, I always talk about, you know, we, we would do a lot of work, for example, with, with a group called Breakout, and it was a lot of young black trans women.
[00:43:28] Um, that we’re fighting against policing. So we have like, you know, 40 to 60 year old undocumented Honduran immigrants talking to, you know, young New Orleanian trans women about like all of the issues. And they came to this moment of like, Oh, you don’t have an ID. I don’t have an ID. Isn’t it sucky to not have an ID?
[00:43:47] And there’s a whole conversation that sort of flowed from that. So I, this is again, why to me, like local organizing is so important. so important, why being able to open up to those experiences so important, because I think it’s when people are actually showing up to city council and recognize each other and are actually going to each other’s parties and are actually hanging out and understanding each other’s stories, that some of that deeper transformation can happen, and that you can kind of leave campaigns that.
[00:44:14] That’s have that analysis because they actually embody people’s lived experience of that analysis. So I think that that, that to me is, is, is where it happens where I think like, like we were talking about before, it’s, it’s harder to replicate that sometimes at a national level. Um, but it is doable. And I, I, I do think that there have been moments where that’s happened that has been, you know, Exciting.
[00:44:35] Um, and I think we just have to continue to do more of it.
[00:44:38] William Lawrence: Yeah, back to vision for one more question. You know, you’re this is a you’re outlining an approach to organizing, which is really grounded and pragmatic and is first and foremost responsive to people’s ordinary concerns and where they’re at. What is the role of aspirational vision?
[00:44:53] In your work, I mean, especially the visions we hold on the left, like for instance, the vision of a world without borders, where does this kind of vision fit? And does this have any use or relevance to your members? Where does it fit in the, in the flow of the, of the work as you’re describing
[00:45:14] Jacinta Gonzalez: it? I think so much of, of when you’re approaching community, when you’re working on organizing so much, many times what we tap into is people’s pain or frustration of, of, of how the system has failed them, um, or, or issues of injustice in their own personal life, um, that then can lead to an analysis of like, what’s wrong or what, how, why that happened.
[00:45:38] Um, but I think that what many times are, you know, the left movements have failed to do is actually offer, like, what is that vision of, of where we’re trying to go? Um, and I think that that’s one of the, the places where, again, the, The reason why the emphasis on local campaigns can be really important is in the sense of you know where you’re going and you know how you’re trying to build it, um, versus feeling like it’s a broader policy conversations where you don’t actually see yourself reflected in terms of what it is that you’re trying to push.
[00:46:10] It’s important to hold the vision of where we’re going to, but also the principles of how we’re trying to get there, um, that I think can be equally important in terms of creating the rhythm and, and, and bringing people in and having something that they can practice and, and, and replicate. Um, but I also think that vision is also constantly, Shifting and people have to have a way of participating in that shift, right?
[00:46:33] Um, and, and how they see themselves reflected in, in that. And I think that’s, again, one of the, the challenges that we have as we’re, as we’re trying to, to approach this.
[00:46:42] William Lawrence: It just keeps coming up on the show, you know, like, um, these core concepts, like means and ends. You know, reform and revolution are, I think, so central.
[00:46:58] They’re cliche, but they’re cliche because they are actually so central. And I really think that we are missing opportunities for greater unity on the left because people have, Slightly different orientations towards means and ends reform and revolution, which really are as much about affect as anything.
[00:47:18] Or sometimes it’s about what you foreground and what you what you what you follow with. You know, I think there are people who are reform campaigners. I know. Maybe yourself included, who, who, uh, you know, I, I think are, you know, at heart, you know, some of the most principled revolutionaries out there in the United States.
[00:47:39] And then there are people who are, are very strident revolutionaries who, who may be missing opportunities to, uh, to build more power, um, because they’re not quite, they’re not quite hearing it in the way that You or I talk. I’m just musing now, uh, themes that I’ve been dancing around on the show. But I really think that if we could, I think we are lacking for a framework that can, that can make sense of how to be revolutionary in the sense of truly, truly, wanting a world without borders and wanting to redistribute all the land and all the money and knowing that historically speaking that would be just if it were to occur because it is the result of violence and evil deeds that the inequality exists today while existing in the conditions and meeting people where they’re at and trying to do something that is gonna save somebody’s life now or is to build power now.
[00:48:38] That’s one of the big ideas. I think we’re just missing each other on those questions and I but I think that we could we could do better. It’s going to take some some thought.
[00:48:52] Jacinta Gonzalez: No, I I agree with you. And I think it’s I don’t know if this is exactly what you’re referring to, but one of the things that comes up for me consistently is, is how are we bringing more people into movement versus creating a higher bar for people to come in, right?
[00:49:07] And I think sometimes when we have analysis of how all of these things are connected and how the system is exploiting all of us and all these things, if, if people don’t come in and sort of know all of this. The right key vocab words and understand the last three re shapes, re frames that we’ve given the issue or like whatever it is.
[00:49:25] It’s like, Oh, you’re not, you’re not up to speed enough to be in. And we’re doing ourselves a huge disservice, you know, um, in terms of like how many people can come into the conversation. I, I think about it all the time with this conversation around open borders, where if you just go to someone and say like open borders, there’s going to be this moment of like, yeah, what are you talking about?
[00:49:47] But then when you actually understand that like, there’s millions of people that have dual citizenship and have dual passports and can actually go back and forth, right, the same way that companies and corporations have been doing, like, there are actual ways to make some of this happen within our lifetime.
[00:50:04] It’s not so far out. But there’s just a different approach or a different conversation to be had with people and, and I do think that it’s, that’s where you have to think of, think as an organizer, are you bringing more people into this conversation and to your side, or are you, you know, proving a theoretical point, um, in a way that might not actually be getting you closer to victory, um, but is actually just sort of, you know, continue to the same polarization.
[00:50:28] Yeah.
[00:50:30] William Lawrence: Um, I want to ask a question about about climate change because I, you know, came originally from the climate movement and for years we’ve been aware that, you know, climate change is certain to drive migration already is, especially from climate sensitive regions of the global south to relatively wealthy, resilient countries of the global north.
[00:50:49] It’s It’s the wealth that makes us resilient. Just to be clear. It’s you know, we’re learning that people impacts are happening everywhere. But it’s a question of how how you can protect yourself and how you can rebuild. You know, if we lived in a humane society, this would be all the excuse that we needed not only to mitigate climate change, but to throw open the gates and welcome all of the migrants, the refugees, the asylum seekers from climate disaster and conflict all around the world.
[00:51:16] Of course, what we’re seeing is the exact opposite, which is a fortress mentality. And, you know, people have pointed out, I think rightly that, um, you’re not hearing so much of the out and out climate denialism anymore from the right. It’s a little bit, uh, that’s a little quieter, but really it’s restrictive border policy is the right wing response to climate change.
[00:51:35] This is right wing climate realism. So, um, I’m curious to hear, um, here in 2024, um, what are the conversations within the immigration, uh, the immigrant rights movement about, um, Climate change. And how is the reality of climate change impacting your work?
[00:51:54] Jacinta Gonzalez: Oh, yeah. I feel like you already answered the question, but I mean, I, I do think that
[00:52:02] as climate disaster is affecting more and more people, folks are, are being forced to migrate both in terms of crossing borders, but also migrate internally within their countries. And I think that that’s important to note because it’s not just happening where folks are like wanting to leave, but it’s also creating internally within a lot of countries as well.
[00:52:22] Different shifts in dynamics that are then impacting, um, migration patterns and, and, and how that happens. I think one of the things that we’re seeing in the immigrant rights movement is this reinforcement of the idea of the border, but also the expansion of where the border is. So when you think about us border policies, it is no longer.
[00:52:44] Okay. To just think about what is this like invisible line between Mexico and the South of the United States. It’s actually, how is the border now? the US border intervening in policies in Panama, right? Cause that’s where ICE agents are. That’s where the HS agents are. That’s where they’re doing a lot of their surveillance programs.
[00:53:04] So the, the everywhere border is more and more prevalent. And like you’re saying, I think this rhetoric of, well, there’s going to be shifts in global migration patterns is just being used to reinforce that approach versus actually thinking about what are the root causes or what are things that we can do around climate.
[00:53:22] So I think this is just something that we have to contend with and really think critically about how we approach it. Um, because in some spaces, folks have just been saying, well, it’s climate disaster. That’s why people are coming. We should accept them. But that’s not actually breaking through in the way that folks are, are thinking, and it’s, and there’s a reinforcement of, of the idea of needing to contend the, contend with the everywhere border that I think is really, really difficult.
[00:53:46] But I, I also do think that when we’re thinking about issues around climate, ignoring the factor around migration is resulting to be incredibly, um, limiting in terms of also when you’re thinking about. What the planet’s going to look like, right? And what that’s going to mean for what are gonna be gonna be people’s needs and where we’re gonna be fights around resources.
[00:54:13] Um, and so I think, again, if we are not thinking about things in within those, those lenses, there’s just some issues that are gonna be ignored that are going to, to come back to, to really. Not haunt us, but, you know, I, I do think that if we’re not able to actually talk about what this is gonna look like, it’s gonna have bigger implications.
[00:54:31] And, you know, there, there are layers to all of this, right? You can’t talk about, for example, what’s happening with hurricanes and evacuations without also talking about reconstruction and labor rights for folks that are, are, are in those conditions. And frequently immigrants, you can’t talk about, you know, um.
[00:54:49] Water issues. And when we’re, for example, thinking about climate now, you know, fossil fuels, all of these industries that have created so much harm continue to be, um, incredibly harmful. But now we also have the tech industry with all like their use of electricity and water. That’s also compelling how we’re thinking about this.
[00:55:07] And once again, it’s a global issue. It’s not like they’re just setting up data centers in the U. S. They’re happening across the world. And again, we’ll have, you know, other, there’ll be other ramifications. And so I think, again, as we’re thinking about global analysis around issues around climate, around issues of right migration and, and, and border enforcement, we, we have to, you know, do the work to be able to connect the dots.
[00:55:31] William Lawrence: Hasinta, this has been so great. I just love the way that you’re so grounded and pragmatic about, about organizing clearly an organizer, uh, at heart without giving any disrespect to the macro questions either, and you’re able to go from the, from the local to the global, uh, it makes it really fun to talk to you.
[00:55:49] So I appreciate that. I wonder if you have any other, um, concluding words of wisdom, um, with which to leave our listeners.
[00:55:58] Jacinta Gonzalez: No, I don’t know if there’s any words of wisdom, but just so thankful for for this space and this conversation. I think that it’s so important. Um, yeah, for for organizers to continue to be talking with each other about these things again.
[00:56:12] I feel like sometimes the conversations are limited to moments of like we have this campaign or we’re trying to do an event, but actual practices around reflection and, um, thinking about this moment are are really important. And, you know, I think we’re all Doing what we can in the last couple of weeks before the election.
[00:56:30] And I think there’s gonna be a lot of, of rounds of conversation around all of these issues coming up, uh, right after. So yeah, just really thankful to you, um, will, and the whole team for, for, for yeah. Creating this type of, of space and, and um, material where people can, can have these dialects.
[00:56:47] William Lawrence: Yeah. Thank you.
[00:56:47] We’ll, we’ll, we’ll stay in dialogue.
[00:56:50] Jacinta Gonzalez: For sure, for sure. Thank you so much.
[00:56:57] William Lawrence: This podcast is written and hosted by me, William Lawrence. Our producer is Josh Elstro, and it is published by Convergence, a magazine for radical insights. You can help support this show and others like it by becoming a subscriber of Convergence at convergencemag. com slash donate. Standard subscriptions start at 10 and really, really help support the sustainabilities of shows like this one.
[00:57:20] One time donations of any amount are welcome there as well. You can find a direct link to donate or subscribe in the show notes. This has been The Hegemonicon. Thanks for listening and let’s talk again soon.