Caravan Against Injustice in Mexico Arrives in San Diego

After a long tour of the United States, the Caravan Against Repression in Mexico came to San Diego in order to continue call out the injustice that has hit Mexican society and to raise awareness of these injustices outside Mexico. 
The activist group began their tour on October 19 in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, and has visited more than 10 cities across the country, including New York, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. 
The group has been spreading awareness of the lack of action, as well as complicity, by the competent authorities in cases like the disappearance of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa, the wave of femicides in Ciudad Juarez, and the lack a living wage for Driscoll’s Berries workers in San Quintin, Baja California, among other cases. 
The caravan held its first activities in San Diego on Wednesday November 16 at UC San Diego, where a forum was held during the morning. Then, the group held another forum at Brengle Terrace Park in Vista later that day. 
On Thursday, November 17, the activists held a conference on the campus of San Diego City College. After the conference, the group and their supporters held a march from City College, ending at Chicano Park. 
The mobilization brought together about 150 people who chanted messages of justice and outrage to the authorities during the course of the two-mile march. 
Once inside Chicano Park, members of the caravan took the kiosk at the center of the park to address the crowd. 
“We have to unite because the situation is becoming more difficult for those who work the most  and have the least,” said Odadelmis Leyva, member of the National Coordinator of Education Workers teacher’s union. “In Mexico, social justice has been criminalized. Teachers defending  public education are facing a major offensive from the state. But if we remain organized and united, we always achieve our goals. 
Alicia Bustamante, member of the Indigenous Peoples Front in Defense of Mother Earth, shed light on the injustices in her community located in Mexico State, miles from the Mexican capital. 
“I want to let you all know about the displacement and and exile happening in the indigenous community of Xochicuautla for the Naucalpan-Toluca Highway project. This freeway is being built by the government and Grupo Higa, the contractors who gifted the infamous “Casa Blanca” to Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto,” Bustamante exposed. 
“We denounce these actions and we want all the people of the United States, and all indigenous peoples, to know that in Mexico we are stripped of our land,” said Bustamante. 
Joaquina Garcia Velasquez, mother of Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School student Martin Getzemaní Sánchez García, addressed the public about the injustice plaguing her family and the Mexican state of Guerrero. 
“In our country, young people who want to be  students are treated as criminals, tortured, and kidnaped. My son was just a student at the normal school. On September 26, I only heard that there was a confrontation with students,” said Garcia Velasquez to the gathered crowd. “It has been 25 months since then and living with this anxiety is very hard as a mother. Our sons are children of farmworkers and only wanted to get ahead in life.” 
The caravan’s activities for the following day included a demonstration and conference at the Consulate General of Mexico in San Diego. At night, a dinner was held in San Ysidro, followed by a gathering at the Bread and Salt gallery in Barrio Logan. 
“We left our homes and our families to come to denounce injustice in Mexico and to ask for help in spreading this message,” said Joaquina Garcia Velasquez. “It’s not fair that those trying to get ahead in life are simply vanished.”