Mexico Solidarity Project
Issues prior to 5/27/26 archived at MSP Archives
Yesterday and Today: Black and Brown United
Bill Gallegos, for the editorial team
Today’s introduction is by the MSP’s Bill Gallegos, long-time Chicano activist and organizer in Los Angeles. You can find his latest writing on the fight against ICE in the downloadable pamphlet, Adelante.
Ron Wilkins is one of my heroes. Not only because he’s fought for racial justice and self-determination his whole life but because he is also a brilliant writer with an infinitely deep heart. He personifies — every single day — Che’s words that revolutionaries are motivated, first of all, by feelings of great love for the people.
Nothing illustrates this more than Ron’s remarkable children’s book promoting Black and Brown unity, where at an early age, children learn the history and spirit of resistance and liberation that connects our two peoples.
The United States has never let up on its oppression of Black or Brown people. First, Black people were kidnapped, enslaved and denied their humanity. After the Civil War, the rules of Jim Crow allowed lynchings to be celebrated, not punished. And after the Civil Rights victories of the 1960s, the US criminalized its Black population, justifying a brutal regime of police stops, arrests and incarceration. People of Mexican descent also have a long history of land theft, denial of citizenship, deportation and exploitation. Today, both Black and Brown folk are stereotyped as rapists and murderers, and both face terror as white supremacy is preached from the White House itself.
But we the people persist and resist. In his writing and speaking, Ron documents the liberatory collaboration between Black and Brown, sounding a beautiful clarion call to deepen and expand this relationship. Rather than fighting separately, his history lessons show that we can and have protected each other. That unity will hasten the day when people of African, Mexican, and Indigenous descent can finally achieve the freedom, democracy and justice we so richly deserve.
Mil gracias, Brother Ron.
Mexico and African-Americans – No Borders
For this issue, we are very pleased to reprint our interview of Ron Wilkins from the February 4, 2021 Bulletin.
You’ve been on a mission to publicize the history of the relationship between African Americans and Mexicans. What makes this relationship so important?
Ron Wilkins: Everywhere I’ve lived growing up, in South LA, has been among Mexican people. We share space today. We need to know each other and how our histories have brought us together.
How far back does the connection between Africa and México go?
Back way before México came to be. Egyptian soldiers and mariners traveled to the region and encountered the Olmec people around 800 AD, about when you started to see pyramids built in México.
Many of the fighters for México’s independence from Spain, in the years from 1810 to 1821, had been slaves. They joined the Revolution because its leaders promised that the struggle for independence would also end slavery. The revolutionary army that fought under a black flag became known as the “Ejército Moreno” — the Dark Army — because so many of its fighters had African roots. Revolutionary General Vicente Guerrero had an Afro-Mexican father. Guerrero banned slavery when he became president of México in 1829.
From looking at photos of historic Mexican figures, you see that many had African features and dark complexions, signifying African descent. Among these historic figures are the revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata and muralist Diego Rivera.
Do you see a connection between Mexicans and people of African descent in the US?
Before the annexation of Texas, Mexicanos/Tejanos helped perhaps 5,000 or 6,000 Africans escape from slavery by going south, deeper into Mexico. The owners of these escaped slaves traveled to México to demand their return, but the Mexican government refused. In 1836, after the fall of the Alamo, Mexican forces traveled from plantation to plantation in Texas, setting slaves free and giving them title to the land they had been working!
In 1857 the U.S. Supreme Court declared during the trial of the enslaved Dred Scott and his wife that “Black people had no rights that whites were bound to respect.” That same year, the Mexican Congress declared that any enslaved person who set foot on Mexican soil would be from that moment free. I often speak to African American audiences and tell them that Mexicans did far more for us than we did for them. That shocks people!
Do African American and Mexican history intersect in other ways?
In the 1930s and 1940s, Black artists such as Elizabeth Catlett went to Mexico to collaborate with Mexican muralists. And if it weren’t for the Mexican baseball leagues, Jackie Robinson might not have broken the color line in the US Major Leagues. Negro League players commonly traveled to play in the Mexican League, where they rated as worthy opponents.
In 1938, a Mexican team started hiring Black players, beginning with famed Negro League pitcher Satchel Paige. The Brooklyn Dodgers noticed how well these Negro Leaguers played on the Mexican teams and signed Jackie Robinson. But the widely promoted film “42” about Jackie Robinson doesn’t mention Mexicans at all. The movie treats them like “the elephant in the room,” with nothing about their contribution!
In the US, people of African and Mexican descent have suffered discrimination and subordination. Have they ever joined forces?
Many times. We’ve had solidarity between our communities on labor issues, on desegregation and for ethnic studies — so our children can see themselves represented — to name just a few battlegrounds.
But we’ve also had misunderstanding, more so today than in the 1960s and 1970s, and that division hurts both groups. People need to know the history. That knowledge can help us unite to win our rightful places in society.
Migrant Lives — Devastated by Indifference
The name Lorenzo Salgado Araujo is unknown to most people. For those following the news, he was a Mexican living in Houston, Texas, who died in an encounter with ICE on July 7th. For his family and friends, he was part of their lives, someone who every day did his best to get ahead, who didn’t deserve to die. For the migrant community, his death reminds them of their own vulnerability, a fear that has accompanied them daily since embarking on their journey to the US.
But Lorenzo Salgado Araujo is only one more on a deadly list. Under Trump’s current immigration policy, ICE has killed 17 Mexicans, 14 of them in detention centers and three during operations. The Mexican government has initiated legal action to clarify the causes of all their deaths and to ensure that those responsible are punished.
But in reality, even if detention centers were fined, ICE were sanctioned or the agents who shot and killed them were imprisoned, we’d still be far from achieving true justice. Justice can’t be limited to punishing an agent or an institution; behind every death lies a longer chain of responsibility. How is it possible that a hardworking and honest migrant, who abides by US laws, pays his taxes and sends money to his family in Mexico every month, ends up dead at the hands of a government agency?
Who is truly to blame? The ICE agent who fired the shot? The government that permitted such people to join an agency so crucial to US national security — an agency that targets immigrant residents so ruthlessly and so outside the law? Or the Mexican governments that, for years, never made the real structural changes that would prevent Lorenzo and millions of others from having to migrate?
Responsibility for the death of Lorenzo and other migrants doesn’t fall on one person. It falls, in different ways, on each of us. Mexico and the United States have no economic sector that hasn’t benefited from migrants. In the US, their labor sustains entire industries; in Mexico, the billions of dollars Mexicans send home each year mean the poorest families can live with the dignity that the government failed for so long to provide.
The blood of migrants killed by ICE in US prisons, on US streets, while crossing the border via the Rio Grande or the desert, or in Mexico itself at the hands of criminal groups — that blood is on everyone’s hands.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s name shouldn’t be just another footnote — though it will likely be forgotten when another name appears, as happened with Silverio Villegas and Jaime Alanís. His death should force us to confront what is often hidden: that migration isn’t only measured in remittances, labor provided or deportations. It’s also measured in lives lost, families destroyed — and an indifference that has become the norm.
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Recent news reports and commentaries, from progressive and mainstream media, on life and struggles on both sides of the US-Mexico border.
Compiled by Samuel Martínez.
1. Brenda Estefan, USMCA and the Politics of Permanent Leverage Americas Quarterly. A Reforma columnist writes in Americas Quarterly that the point of the trade review is not to reach an agreement, it’s to keep the leverage open. The US posture, in her summary: “with Mexico if possible, without Mexico if necessary.”
2. John Lindsay-Poland, Mexico Favors Israel for Weapons Imports NACLA. Mexico bought nearly 18,000 rifles, light machine guns and pistols from Israel in 2025, 37% of all firearm imports, edging out the United States at 35%. Despite Sheinbaum’s stated solidarity with Palestine, Lindsay-Poland sounds the alarm on a deepening arms relationship.
3. Christine Murray and Alan Smith, How Mexico became a surprise cornerstone of America’s AI boom Financial Times. Servers for AI data centres are now Mexico’s largest export to the United States, ahead of cars, and Mexico supplies 40% of what the US imports.
4. Simi Jolaoso, How Mexican drug cartels have outsourced meth labs to Nigeria BBC.Africom supplies the numbers, the trend line and the analysis, and the piece lands where thosesources need it: on Africom’s commander telling Congress that African terror groups are increasingly financed by cartels.
5. R. Evan Ellis, Mexico’s cartel fight requires partnership, not intervention UPI. A CSIS analyst argues against US military action in Mexico and assigns Washington co-responsibility for drug demand and the weapons flow. “Mexico is not a state run by drug cartels.”
6. Braulio Carbajal, Tribunal arbitral desestima casi todas las reclamaciones de Vulcan contra México La Jornada. De todo lo que reclamó la minera estadunidense por Calica, el tribunal del Ciadi reconoció una sola medida como violatoria: la clausura de un predio en enero de 2018. Según la Secretaría de Economía, eso representa menos del 1% de lo que la empresa exigía.
7. Manuel Jimenez, Habitantes de Naco, Sonora denuncian ante FGR derrame de hidrosulfuro de sodio tras descarrilamiento de Ferromex y exigen investigar daños y remediación: “No sabemos si el agua está contaminada” El Imparcial. Del tren de Grupo México se derramaron unos 70,300 litros de los 72,000 que llevaba la pipa, no los 59 mil que se reportaron al inicio. Un ganadero cerró su pozo por iniciativa propia: “queremos tener la certeza de que no representa un riesgo para el ganado”.
8. Darren García, Avances del 70% al 85% en trabajos de rescate en Pasta de Conchos: Bolaños Contralínea. Veinte años después del derrumbe, van 36 de los 63 mineros recuperados, 31 identificados y 28 entregados a sus familias.
9. Anahí Del Ángel, Antiguo Poder Judicial había liberado al líder de Los Rs, detenido por homicidio de Carlos ManzoContralínea. Detuvieron a Ramón Ángel Álvarez Ayala, “R1”, presunto autor intelectual del asesinato del alcalde de Uruapan Carlos Manzo. Ya lo habían detenido en 2012 y el antiguo Poder Judicial lo dejó libre en 2022, absuelto en cinco procesos penales federales; van 31 detenidos y vinculados a proceso en el caso.
10. Erick Martínez, PIB de México ‘sorprende’ con alza de 2.1% anual en segundo trimestre... pero repunte podría ser temporal El Financiero. 1.5% trimestral, el mayor ritmo desde el cuarto trimestre de 2020, y 2.1% anual, el mejor desde finales de 2023. Las actividades primarias crecieron 7.3%.
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*¡SOBERANÍA! (Sovereignty): For entertaining exposés of events in Mexico in English, catch our podcast with José Luis Granados Ceja and Kurt Hackbarth.
*Sin Muros with English subtitles: José Luis and Kurt host a weekly TV show on Canal Once that analyzes Mexico-US relations with English subtitles.
Drop a line to meizhului@gmail.com
Bulletin Team: Courtney Childs, Heather Dashner, Pedro Gellert, Vicky Hamlin, Aggie Hinman, Bruce Hobson, Meizhu Lui, Samuel Martínez, Sebastián Ostria, Jay Watts.