Power/Poder: Working Class Organizing, Confronting Race and Ethnic Hatred

Abstract

The city of Holyoke Massachusetts was one of the first planned industrial cities in the United States. Centered around the building of a dam and three level canal system, a world class hydro-powered city took form on the backs of large immigrant groups including Irish and French Canadians. The socio-economic conditions in which these dominant groups lived and eventually overcame were the impetus for a 1995 political organizing campaign launched to compete for municipal control of the hydro-electric facility, a once in fifty-year opportunity. By creating a bi-lingual video documentary, depicting the rise of the dominant groups through the late 19th century and comparing their struggles with the latest emigrants Puerto Ricans, allowed the historical realities of the working class and working poor to find a common avenue from which to work together for their improved living conditions. This chapter documents the strategy and implementation of a multi-faceted, bi-lingual media communication campaign for the successful securement of a locally owned hydro-electric power facility and its corresponding canals. It also looks at the current economic indicators to see how twenty-five years later the city fared. The author addresses today’s technology and discusses how he would undertake a similar campaign today.

Looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who they are so that they can more wisely build the future.

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.