The Story

On behalf of the Barrio Defense Committee, I want to thank the Chicano Mexicano Prison Project and the Raza Rights Coalition of Oxnard, California for organizing the 5th Raza Prisoners and Colonialism Conference. It is important to say that because as Raza, we must break the silence of oppression against our gente. These conferences and gatherings serve to expose the terrible conditions our gente are faced with and to clarify to the world that we as Raza are victims of colonialism controlled by a U.S. govt. whose origins came from the theft of our land and our lives.

We must also say that the organizing of the Raza Prisoners Conference is truly a victory for Raza self determination because it gives us the opportunity to analyze and to ask ourselves why is it that so many of our people are being hauled into these prisons that many of us call concentration camps, but most of all to do something about it.

The Barrio Defense Committee began as a result of the capture of my son Jose Luis Aviña. He was captured by the San Jose and San Francisco police in April 1994. His case is similar to the majority of our Raza that are held in these U.S. prisons. Jose Luis and three of his friends went to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California. Near Golden Gate Park is the Haight Ashbury District. The "Haight", known to many, is a street near the Golden Gate Park, in a white neighborhood, which was set up by the U.S. government to allow white people to buy any kind of drug without being harassed by the police. The Haight was set up in the 60s, during the Chicano Movement and the Black Liberation Movement, so that white people could be swayed not to participate or support the movimiento of colonized people who were organizing for our self determination. Today, the "Haight" still functions in the same old way, to pacify white people.

While Jose Luis and his friends were at the park they went to the "Haight". Jose Luis was approached by a white drug seller to buy marijuana who was openly selling it. But then Jose Luis discovered that what the drug seller, known to all as "Chicago", was selling was fake marijuana. Jose Luis exposed the drug seller who was cheating people. The drug dealer "Chicago" called for help because Jose Luis had taken the drug seller's back pack. Jose Luis ran and was chased by the drug seller's helpers. One of the seller's helpers chased after Jose Luis and caught up to him and began beating Jose Luis in the back. Jose Luis immediately, out of a quick reaction, swung and stabbed the drug runner with a chisel Jose Luis had picked up while running. The drug runner died. Jose Luis and his friends immediately returned to San Jose without knowing that the drug runner died.

Immediately, the news and the government began a massive search for someone that killed the son of a rich white family that had ties with the San Francisco District Attorney and the San Francisco government. First, the media covered up that the man that died was a drug runner and who was carrying a bag of cocaine. Because he was the son of white rich people, the media called him the "good samaritan" that supposedly was helping another "human being". The "human being" the "good Samaritan" was helping was a known heroin drug dealer that sold deadly drugs in the Mission District where Raza live.

When Jose Luis was caught a month later, the San Jose and San Francisco police armies captured Jose Luis and refused Jose Luis a legal representative while in custody. Twice an attorney tried to represent him. The police knew Jose Luis did not know his rights: "not to say anything and remain silent and to request an attorney to be his spokesperson". But, they got him to incriminate himself and immediately they charged him with a capital punishment of felony murder, which meant the death penalty.

Organization in his defense began when the police armies captured Jose Luis from his home. The family members are the first people to be organized. Ten thousand flyers were printed and distributed in San Jose and San Francisco the first three months of his capture. This was to get support from the community and also to expose how the state (in the form of police, district attorneys and the news) manipulates public opinion. The media had to criminalize and put Jose Luis on trial even before his trial to sway peoples' opinion. As every Raza knows, if the white man would have killed Jose Luis, the state would have said it was self defense and blame Jose Luis because the U.S. govt's blames the Mexican or African whether he is guilty or not.

Organization began with the title of "Save Our Sons" in San Jose, California. Thousands of signatures were gathered in support of Jose Luis. Letters, faxes and petitions were sent to the district attorney who was fighting to get Jose Luis executed. At one time, the D.A.'s fax machine broke down because of the massive petitions that were sent. Petitions and letters were also sent to the woman trial judge, known to be an alcoholic by previous appeals attorneys, would not allow the jury to deliberate on a self defense nor on a involuntary manslaughter.

During the first months of his custody Jose Luis' family, community supporters and friends came to visit him in the San Francisco County jail. This was to keep his morale up because the jail guards were insisting that Jose Luis admit he was a "gang member" and was continuously harassed. Jose Luis kept on insisting that he was Mexican. His public defender was another one that was setting Jose Luis to also admit to the D.A.'s charges. The District Attorney's main witness was the heroin drug dealer, Chicago, who the D.A. had transported from an Illinois prison, paid for his room and board while in San Francisco. And at night Chicago would sell heroin in the Mission District. This was the state's main witness who they were defending: A 350 pound heroin drug dealer who the state declared was frightened by Jose Luis (a 19-year old, 150 lbs, skateboarder).

The organization Save Our Sons organized families whose loved ones were also victims of the massive imprisonment and victims of the massive drug infestation in the barrios that the U.S. government imported. Save Our Sons organized the community and supporters to be at the trial, organizing caravans from San Jose to San Francisco. The organization then changed its name to the Barrio Defense Committee because it needed to expand the direction it was giving to la Raza in defending ourselves from the U.S. strategy of imprisoning la Raza with the use of the courts, the police, the public defenders, the media and every institution of the U.S. govt.

Demonstrations were held in front of the San Francisco court, flyers were passed out in San Francisco; the people were continuously fighting with the court bailiffs and sheriffs because they did not want the community there. The people graffitied the bathrooms and courtroom with slogans related to the struggle of la Raza. The jury had only two verdicts to deliberate because the woman judge would not allow self defense or involuntary manslaughter. The verdict only had to be first degree murder or second degree murder. Jose Luis was sentenced to second degree murder. When Jose Luis was sentenced there was no notice to the family, no notice on the courtrooms, and it was done secretly. When people did find out, there were two metal detectors before entering the court, and there was a glass window between the people and the judge, jury, prosecutor and public defender. They sentenced Jose Luis to 16 years to life in prison. The state understood that the power of the people will eventually free Jose Luis and the rest of our Raza. There were armed guards and police all around the building and in the inside the building.

The Campaign to Free Jose Luis, Now! was then formed as a component of the Barrio Defense Committee. Through this Campaign, other Raza in lockdown have been supported organizing families to have the courage to defend their loved ones and continuously exposing the strategy of the U.S. to lock up our entire community. The Campaign to Free Jose Luis, Now! has gone into the prisons throughout Aztlan encouraging all of our Raza captured in these U.S. prisons to organize ourselves taking the message that the struggle of our Raza is the struggle for self determination to reclaim the loss of our ancestral land occupied Mexico Aztlan because we can never be free from oppression, poverty, prisons, humiliation until we are able to control our own lives and our own land for the self interest and well being of our beautiful Raza.

The Barrio Defense Committee went into the prisons throughout Aztlan and have followed Jose Luis wherever the state has sent him and organized and exposed each of the prisons' brutality against our Raza. On November 20, 1995, while Jose Luis was in New Folsom Prison, after several demonstrations organized by the BDC in front of the prison, 68 courageous Raza warriors organized a brilliant hunger strike that spread throughout the California prisons. They stood ground against the most vicious servants of the U.S. government for almost two months. La Raza warriors were confronted by the most powerful gringo power machinery: the media who was daily criminalizing the hunger strikers calling them "gang members" to win public opinion, the guards and the prison administration who were attacking the hunger strikers and the familias, and Governor Gray Davis who ordered 16 of them immediately transported to prisons all over the state and then ordered 7 of them into the S.H.U. (the security housing units) to die. This was a significant period of struggle for la Raza inside the U.S. prisons. The world knows about the New Folsom fighters and that on-going struggle continues.

The U.S. government put Jose Luis in the Corcoran Prison SHU and the Barrio Defense Committee has organized demonstrations in front of the Corcoran Prison and has continuously passed out flyers in the town itself. Today, la Raza in Corcoran is organizing inside the prison exposing the brutality and the attacks against our beautiful Raza.

Venceremos! Tierra y Libertad! Free Jose Luis, Convict the Police! Raza Lockdown are Political Prisoners of War in Aztlan!