Myla’s Reviews > Radicals in the Barrio: Magonistas, Socialists, Wobblies, and Communists in the Mexican American Working Class > Status Update

Pt 2 of this book was just about the PLM, really. How they grew, where their base was, who their base was, and who their non-state peers were. My only complaint is that like. This is not told chronologically, which can be a bit confusing. But honestly it’s so well-researched that idec really. This book is anti-pop-history. Fuck a narrative Chacon has shit to say

Some members of the PLM joined with Madero after this failed uprising. However, after he came to power and Magón rejected his offer of the vice presidency, the US effectively broke the PLM apart by arresting the PLM leadership. Magón said to undercover agents that the PLM aimed to continue to resist Madero, which the US gov claimed broke the neutrality clause.

Ch 14 and end of pt 2- the IWW forms as an offshoot of the reformist socialist party. They team up with PLM, becoming more focused on internationalism. The groups found some success, as they weren’t discriminatory which expanded who they could organize. PLM and some Wobblies led a failed uprising in Baja California in 1911. US with a tiny amount of help from Diaz crushed it, arresting the surviving leaders.

Fuck the AFL, racism pushed people further right leading to less support for the radical PLM. Same shit with the socialist party

Ch 12- fuck the Texas rangers. About the PLM and socialist party in Texas. Talks about the plan of San Diego, originally created but abandoned by the PLM. A second plan of San Diego was formed by Mexican ranchers who were being attacked. They proceeded to attack local police and white landowners, i.e. those who played a role in and benefitted from their displacement. The US gov responded with a wave of repression.

There was a lot of crossover between the PLM and the socialist party, with one helping get the other’s leaders out of prison often.

The PLM got more notice from the capitalist class than before, as by this point they were known to have organized several large strikes in Cananea, Veracruz, Yucatán, and elsewhere. In LA, socialists worked closely with the PLM. Most Mexicans who could vote often voted for the socialist party, with a large chunk of the socialist party’s local leadership being Mexican.

With the leadership of the PLM being exiled, they re-settled in LA. Unsurprisingly, they quickly became popular. Women played a major role in the organization’s growth, with the PLM publishing explicitly feminist papers. Women also played a huge role in communication, as the male figureheads of the PLM were often arrested by the US. Cross-border collusion still was in action.

In a moment which left me gobsmacked, Otis cut his printers’ wages by 20 percent in 1890 in order to cause a strike which he could then break. Other capitalists in the area engaged in similar behavior, moving from stopping new unions to stomping out existing ones. However, they still worked to crush new unions, with the UFM strike in 1903 being a prime example of what the cartel could do.

The US capitalists wanted to make LA an industrial and economic powerhouse, and they aimed to do this by forming a cartel and crushing unions. They essentially wanted to make it so LA was a prime location for those hoping to exploit workers with as little resistance as possible. Open white supremacists including the publisher of the LA times worked together as cartels, building up right-wing militias to crush strikes