CHICAGO, March 29—We have to keep struggling for a better communist world, where the workers, not the capitalists, are in charge, and it’s more urgent than ever to fight for workers’ power… During these years I’ve had the chance to learn that it doesn’t matter how difficult the struggle may be, or how small the accomplishment, we have to keep on struggling together for a world free of racism, injustices, and dictators.

With this statement and others, a worker helped summarize political lessons drawn from the mighty antisexist struggle to defend the “La Casita” fieldhouse in Chicago from demolition. To celebrate both International Working Women’s Day and the fifteenth anniversary of the original sit-in, our Progressive Labor Party (PLP) immigrant workers’ club organized a panel presentation and discussion today in the Pilsen neighborhood where the struggle happened.

In September 2010, immigrant parents of students from Whittier Elementary school – mainly mothers – protested plans from the racist, sexist Chicago Public Schools (CPS) bosses to demolish a small fieldhouse (La Casita, or “little house”) that served as a community space and library. The protest rapidly escalated to an occupation by the parents and other workers for 43 days and drew international attention, praise and support from countless workers.

The fight over La Casita remains a bold reminder of the power of a united working class and the necessity of a communist revolution. The same Black, Latin, migrant and women workers that capitalism attacks today will tomorrow form the backbone of a mass international PLP that buries the bosses and their wretched profit system for all time.

Immigrant women workers fight sexism, defend La Casita

Our all women-worker panel was able to reunite four mothers from the original 2010 struggle, including a long-time PLP member. Because of the racist nature of capitalism, Whittier Elementary School with its majority Latin students did not have a library inside of it (and still doesn’t) and La Casita next door served as a makeshift library among other essential community uses. However, CPS bosses and the alderman at the time wanted the space where La Casita stood for their own profit-driven purposes and therefore declared it “structurally unsound” and up for demolition. 

The sit-in was the first time protesting for many workers. But they felt motivated to push back against the bosses because they saw no other way to secure not only the library that their children deserved but this worker-centered space they were attached to. Without any formal hierarchy, workers demonstrated cooperation and solidarity, glimpses of an egalitarian communist society in action.

The panelists shared how immigrant women workers were at the front lines of political leadership at La Casita, from making sure the space was protected 24 hours a day, while organizing classes, feeding people, speaking to the press, and assisting with childcare responsibilities. They were able to accomplish this not only in the face of the sexist attacks of the Chicago bosses trying to undermine them, but also at times from the sexist attitudes of spouses and family members who tried to discourage them from getting involved in the struggle. 

Equally important, the panelists as well as those in the audience today shared important lessons of the treachery and danger presented by the liberal capitalist bosses when it comes to fighting for working-class liberation. PLP holds that liberal bosses are the main danger to the working class not only for their ability to disarm our class through feeble reforms but chiefly for their goals to dominate world markets and resources through imperialist war. 

Sure enough, it was the Democratic politicians who have run Chicago for generations who succeeded in undermining the fightback until they were able to demolish La Casita nearly three years later. Although it was a heartbreaking lesson to accept, it reinforced to many workers the necessity to rely on one another, and never the lying racist bosses.

Capitalism fails us daily fight for communism

Fighting back tears, another veteran PLP member shared her thoughts after the presentation:

I was so honored to be part of that struggle with them because it helped me understand the power of the working class. They (the bosses) had to come in the middle of the night and tear down La Casita, like thieves, because they knew the power of these women… I just want to thank you all and understand that we need to destroy this system, because it’s not gonna work, it can’t work, and they will do everything they can to make it not (work).

Through relentless daily attacks, we workers grasp the truth that this capitalist system can never be reformed to serve our needs. It’s up to us from the PLP to win millions more workers, students and soldiers to take the fight to the next level of joining the Party and building communist revolution. The fighters from La Casita and billions more deserve nothing less.