By Raul Ayrala
A grassroots organization in San José is taking its first steps toward organizing what they call “community guards” in response to the Trump administration’s violent anti-immigrant actions.
Latinos Unidos por una Nueva América (LUNA), founded in 2013 by activist Salvador “Chava” Bustamante, among others, aims to organize the Latino community in the South Bay to develop strategies to better respond to raids by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), the federal immigration enforcement agency.
The Community Guardians will be “basically the community itself. We want to educate people to build a support network that allows us to protect ourselves,” Yurina Guzmán, one of LUNA’s community organizers, told Peninsula 360 Press.
Guzmán pointed out that the federal government is “kidnapping people even when they show up in court.” In response, LUNA is developing this program, which has three pillars: “education, self-defense, and family planning.”
When they talk about self-defense, they mean “education and community organizing. It won’t be through violence,” Yurina Guzmán clarified.
And that’s an important point, because they’re not referring to self-defense groups like those in some areas of Mexico, where residents armed themselves to defend against organized crime.
“No, because someone could even say, ‘If I say I’m in a self-defense group, they could even arrest me,'” Guzmán said, clarifying that they use the term to give Latinos the opportunity to seek protection and shelter as residents with legal rights.
And regarding family plans, the goal is to provide families with the tools to have everything ready in the event of one or both parents being taken away, “where the children go, or with whom, and where they stay.”
Gabriel Manrique, another LUNA community organizer, expressed that the goal is to “develop community leaders, because the community is the first line of defense: they are the ones who report when they see a suspicious vehicle or person” in their neighborhoods.
LUNA’s idea is to train migrant communities so they know “how to communicate with each other, whether through (banging) pans, sounds, or loudspeakers to warn that ICE is there.”
They also want to incorporate allies.
“The Chicano movement, the lowriders… it’s a very large community, and they could help with patrols,” for example, expressed Gabriel Manrique.
He added that another type of service they could provide is accompanying people at risk of being detained to their immigration court appointments, medical appointments, and even daily shopping.
“They have historically been defenders of Latino civil rights, and we can connect them with those who need their support today,” he explained.
Manrique also said that Latinos have other allied movements such as SURJ (Show Up for Racial Justice), an organization made up of “thousands of white people working for racial and economic justice,” as they define themselves. SURJ has chapters or affiliates in the Bay Area, and its purpose is to assist people of color in their struggles for equality.
This LUNA Community Guard initiative is under development, and one of the priorities is to find locations where interested parties can meet.
LUNA has an office in La Placita Tropicana, but according to Guzmán and Manrique, it’s impractical and even dangerous to hold meetings with many people there, for the obvious reason that La Tropicana is well-known as a Latino hangout.
This story is part of “Aquí Estamos/Here We Stand,” a collaborative reporting project of American Community Media and ethnic/community news outlets statewide tracking how current White House policies are impacting Californians, especially in rural regions, and how residents are responding.
