As federal and local authorities in New York City increase pressure on the migrant community in this city, men -but mostly women- from the Maya, Garifuna, Nahua, Tu’un Savi, and Naa Savi communities monitor the streets of the South Bronx through a neighborhood information system that includes instant communication groups, surveillance cameras, emergency phones, territorial maps, and nighttime operations to prevent criminal activity by the government and any suspicious activity in the neighborhood.
The New York Community Care Commission (known as the three Cs) is a group that emerged in response to the increase in kidnapping threats by immigration authorities and the growing police presence on the streets. Its model is inspired by the self-defense strategies of its indigenous communities of origin, both in Mexico and in Honduras and Guatemala.
“By creating materials in indigenous languages, we can communicate safely with our people,” said Ms. N, who is part of CCC-NY and participated in an outreach brigade last Saturday, August 22. During this activity, representatives of this initiative distributed a “Yellow Alert” in Spanish, Mam, and Garifuna, explaining to the community the measures that should be taken to avoid interaction with the authorities.
“The police are removing all street vendors, closing parks, and monitoring our lives as if we were bad people, while at the same time allowing the presence of criminal authorities such as immigration officials, who enter the neighborhood with their faces covered and without identifying themselves to take our neighbors away. We are living in a world turned upside down, which is why we are organizing as a community,” concluded Commander Crispín, leader of the CCC-NY in this area of the Big Apple.
This organization was founded in the Bronx, but is increasing its presence in Queens and Brooklyn, based on the community’s interest in helping to defend and protect human rights. Ms. Y, part of the Triple C, as the organization is known, says, “We have street vendors and food delivery workers who monitor and report suspicious activity on a voluntary basis because they are concerned and because they do not trust the authorities.”
Despite official statistics showing that crime rates have fallen in New York, the administration of Democratic Mayor Eric Adams continues to use the narrative of crime and heavy-handedness to boost his reelection campaign and try to contain discontent over the rising cost of living, deportations, and demonstrations against the genocide in Gaza. This scenario has in many ways favored the mayoral campaign of socialist democrat Zhoran Mandami, who has spoken out in defense of the Palestinian people, offered to increase the presence of health workers and outreach workers instead of police, freeze rents, and make public bus transportation free.
For this reason, members of CCC-NY say that the community feels harassed, censored, and punished by the current authorities. “We can’t even express our rejection of a war outside of the US or our support for a candidate. And to make matters worse, now they’re telling us that they’ll send in the National Guard under the false pretext of extreme violence,” said M, another member of this organization.
G, a Mayan woman who is part of this organization, reassures that “in our villages and places of origin, we know that the mestizo and colonial authorities will never take care of us, and we also have a long history of peace, security, and justice guards in our villages who have been voluntarily, democratically, and in an organized way taking care of our communities for more than 600 years. That is why we prefer this way of protecting ourselves.”
