Reclaiming the Narrative: A Powerful Display of Binational Solidarity on May 5th

This past weekend, we reclaimed the narrative on May 5th.

People took to the streets in Mexico City, Guerrero, Tlaxcala, Querétaro, California, New York, and Florida to call for an end to violence in the Mexico-United States region ahead of the 2024 elections in both countries. More than a thousand people participated in this powerful display of binational solidarity.

You can watch a video of these events here.

The protesters, composed of groups searching for missing persons, community leaders, relatives of the disappeared, as well as Afro-descendant, migrant, and Indigenous groups, all part of the People’s Movement for Peace and Justice, denounced the proliferation of weapons, racism, and militarized policies.

In Mexico City, a contingent of nearly 300 people, led by the Fathers and Mothers of Ayotzinapa; Maria Herrera, a mother of four missing children; Kathleen Murray, an Afro-Colombian representative of the Black Co-Redes for Peace and Justice; and migrants living in the city marched from the Monument to the Revolution to the United States Embassy in Mexico.

In Chilpancingo, Guerrero, a hundred people took to the streets despite the threats and intimidation to affirm, “From Washington DC to Tapachula, we are losing the future.”

In Tetlanohcan, Tlaxcala, approximately 150 people gathered, with Indigenous and Afro-descendant leaders. Grisel Bello, a member of the PMPJ Indigenous and Native-American Platform, declared, “The public policies of the last two decades have not stopped the horror.”

In Cuajinicuilapa, leaders of the Black Co-Networks for Peace and Justice, in front of nearly a hundred people, denounced policies of death and militarization in both Mexico and the United States. “Our movement emerged to stop the torrent of violence against our bodies and to denounce the policies of death and militarization, as well as the governments that exercise it and the sectors of society in Mexico and the United States that promote hatred and weapons.”

In Union Square, New York, despite the rain, 50 migrants from the Transnational People’s Network called for a common front of citizens, actions, struggles, and movements to demand that political and economic power be exercised for Peace and Justice. Fani Luna, from the Transnational People’s Network, said, “In the face of historical marginalization and new forms and modalities of war, we victims have always stood up. We are the ones who are here today calling on the citizens of Mexico and the United States to unite and build from our struggles and build new movements; to demand that whoever intends to exercise political and economic power, do so for Peace and Justice. Today, a new movement has been born, where people from both nations demand peace in our regions.”

Other actions were held in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California, where Indigenous People, migrants and workers organized workshops and meetings around the impacts of violence in their communities.

In taking action across national borders and in building connections between the crises we all face, the People’s Movement for Peace and Justice continues to show that we cannot resolve the crisis of violence without working binationally and hand in hand with organizations and families of the disappeared, survivors of violence, of horrific immigration policies.

On May 5th, we showed that there is nothing more powerful than international solidarity.