MIM NOTES No. 190  July 15, 1999

Latino Nationalism: Celebrated One Day, Repressed the Next

MIM attended the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade Sunday, June 13 in 
New York City to hand out pamphlets opposing the U$ imperialist 
occupation of Puerto Rico and to sell Notas Rojas. The parade is a 
nationalist celebration that draws a crowd of millions of 
Latina/os from all over the New York City area every year. This 
year the crowd was estimated at as many as 3 million. Literally 
hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rican flags were displayed and 
waved vigorously for the entire four or five hours that it took 
the parade to pass by, and the crowd noise was frequently 
punctuated by shouts of "Boricua!" and "Viva Puerto Rico!".

Unfortunately, the party atmosphere and commercialism of the 
parade contributed to keeping it at a relatively low political 
level. Alcohol, marijuana and harassment of wimmin were all to be 
found in abundance, and the loudest cheers were for Puff Daddy 
rather than for Pro-Libertad or the Almighty Latin King and Queen 
Nation.

At one point the Pro-Libertad (an organization demanding the 
release of Puerto Rican political prisoners and prisoners of war) 
float passed by along with a sizable Pro-Libertad contingent and 
an announcer shouting independentista slogans in Spanish on a 
loudspeaker. The crowd was at nearly its most quiet at this point, 
until the next float, a float sponsored by Pepsi which contained 
several scantily clad dancing wimmin, arrived and the crowd 
erupted in ecstasy. 

Thus, while the widespread cultural nationalism that exists in the 
Puerto Rican nation is exemplified by this annual event, 
revolutionary nationalism has serious hurdles to overcome. In 
particular MIM's experience at this parade highlighted two
things: the problem of revolutionizing the lumpenproletariat and 
getting it to turn from escapist drug-use and short-sighted 
criminal activity to revolutionary activity, and the problem of 
the ambivalence of Puerto Ricans towards U$ imperialism which they 
tend to both hate for subjugating, occupying and oppressing their 
country and simultaneously feel dependent upon.(2)

The Almighty Latin King Queen Nation (ALKQN) is an organization 
which is addressing the first of these problems in particular. 
Ironically, the pigs struck their most recent blow against the 
ALKQN the day after the Puerto Rican Day Parade, in which a 
sizable ALKQN contingent marched.

On June 14, King Tone, the leader of the New York ALKQN, was 
sentenced to 12 years for conspiracy to traffic in heroin and 
cocaine. According to the New York Times he admitted to selling 
700 grams of heroin and a couple pounds of cocaine.(1)

King Tone was arrested on May 15, 1998 in an NYPD and FBI sweep of 
Latino communities in New York City. The pigs broke into people's 
homes in the middle of the night in a coordinated raid which 
resulted in the arrest of over 100 ALKQN members. The pigs 
initially claimed to have seized dozens of guns and several pounds 
of heroin and cocaine in this raid(3), but that was later reduced 
to no guns or hard drugs and 2 pounds of marijuana.(4) The stated 
purpose of the raid was to cripple the ALKQN leadership.

Tone ended up being charged with conspiracy based on the testimony 
of an informant and an undercover cop. Allegedly, he acted as a 
lookout on a drug deal and later when the buyer complained, 
assured him the stuff he bought was good. The informant is 
supposed to have set up the deal with the cop as the buyer.(3) 
Tone pled guilty to the conspiracy charge in January.(5) His 
sentence of 12 years is the minimum sentence for the crime.(1)

MIM knows the cops went to a lot of trouble to set up Tone for 
this conviction. As the leader of a move to politicize the ALKQN 
Tone is considered very dangerous by the government. A politically 
conscious and organized movement of Latinos threatens the basis of 
national oppression on which the u.s. government is founded.(2) 

Our knowledge of the imperialist system leads MIM to the 
conclusion that only a revolutionary battle waged by a United 
Front led by a Maoist party will be able to eliminate national 
oppression once and for all. Organizations like the ALKQN are an 
important part of this United Front against imperialism and, like 
MIM, they are constantly targeted by the government. 

We use the people's press, MIM Notes, as a key tool in our battle 
against these government counterintelligence operations against 
activists. By exposing these actions we educate and organize 
people across the country. At the same time we work inside the 
prisons with our comrades who have been locked up for their 
political organizing. We encourage all of our readers to get 
involved in this fight, contact MIM for more info on what you can 
do.

Notes:

1. New York Times, June 15, 1999 

2. See MIM Theory #7, Proletarian Feminist Revolutionary 
Nationalism, for more on this subject.

3. New York Post, May 15, 1998 

4. Big Noise Films website, www.bignoisefilms.com 

5. New York Times, Jan. 16, 1999