Building Community Through Mutual Aid: Analysis & Report Back on May Day Event in Port Hueneme

Report back from Todo Poder Al Pueblo Collective on May Day.

The Todo Poder Al Pueblo Collective does not ask… We demand! We seize! We transform! On May 1st International Workers Day we continued our struggle to end all that oppresses us. Proving the boastful and parasitic capitalists wrong.. Our Really Really Free Market aimed as an example of the people’s ability to organize and labor together in the name of community power rather than the dollar! Free food, workshops, clothes, books, etc. Just as our comrades did in #1886 fighting for the 8 hour work day we are DYING to LIVE! The Time is NOW! —

“Fuck, what are we going to do for May Day exactly?”, we said during an internal meeting for TPAP (Todo Poder Al Pueblo), a local collective based out of Oxnard, California. We all scratched our heads together and thought, “Ah fuck, what are we doing for May Day?” Fast forward two months later, after tons of brainstorming, planning and a bit of comedic self-doubt, The Really Really Free Market & Workshops event was on and ready to kick off.  

TPAP has organized and participated in demonstrations and marches in the past concerning police brutality, agricultural worker exploitation, housing and immigrant rights, alongside yearly May Day actions. However, after last year’s march was hijacked by CAUSE, (a non profit organization encouraging canditorial votes rather than building solidarity with the community), we decided it was best to start fresh and focus on an event centered around building community. Thus, The Really Really Free Market & Workshops event for May 1st was born.

Inspired by other Really Really Free Market events, we decided to put the practice of mutual aid and gift economy into practice. At the entrance lot on top of the lawns were clothes set on tarps for anyone to take home as they pleased. The clothes were donated beforehand by local folks from the community, as well as contributions from the collective. Throughout the event, people continued dropping off clothes. Further into the front entry path, just past the large banner reading “Really Really Free Market & Workshops,” tables were set up with fresh produce from Carrots to Kale, Fava beans, quinoa, and more.

All goods were from local gardens and on display and for the taking. Adjacent to the produce table was a free tostada bar with toppings and sides compiled by members of the collective, providing prepared food for the gathering crowd that flocked to see what the really really free market was all about. Opposite to the tostada bar was the entrance to the indoor space where the scheduled workshops were to be done. That space being, Alma Rose, a relatively new cooperative holding space for community regeneration activities. They’re all for local autonomous actions and were more than happy to free up the place for us, and even participate in the workshops being presented.

Inside the space were walls covered in multi-colored prints given to us by the Zapatistas in Chiapas to share with the public and/or use for fundraising needs. They painted the room with a vibrant spirit that can only be understood when seeing them in person. Inside the space, tables were set up with plenty of radical literature on display for anyone to read / take as they pleased. In particular, there was one person who really enjoyed everything that was going on, that they offered to pass literature out to folks strolling along in the park across the street. That was truly heartwarming.

A History of May Day, was the first workshop of the day. Presented by the Ventura County Socialist Party, it broke down the development of capitalism and the labor conditions leading up to the Haymarket Riot of 1886. Street Medic Training followed, where a member of Frontline Medics (a collective of “medically trained women of color committed to providing our communities of resistance with aid & support”) gave tips and information on handling situations of crisis in settings ranging from “natural” disasters, to protests. The Housing Rights workshop (specifically attended by community members feeling the effects of the housing crisis in Oxnard, and wanting answers) was lead by a member of our collective, who has worked the past year and a half on tenants rights and union organizing with the Seabreeze Tenants Union of Oxnard. The Cyber Security workshop brought on a group exercise (lead by Obsidian Knife), where participants took turns reading from print outs that gave practical tips on better security culture. Self-Defense class(the most hands on workshop of the day) put attendants to work with basic and again PRACTICAL ways to defend yourself from varying dangerous situations. Lastly the Sex Education & Body Boundaries workshop, where two members of our collective lead a presentation on defining sex, consent, and de-stigmatizing STI’s. They ended their presentation with a raffle. The prizes? A variation of dildos and vibrators.

Almost every workshop went over time, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, as everyone who attended seemed genuinely interested in each subject matter, prompting the possibility of pursuing these free workshops for the public in the future. When the last workshop ended we all couldn’t believe how well our event had gone, maybe it was some personal anxiety. When clean up came around there were still boxes of produce and piles of clothes left. We shared the remaining produce amongst the lovely folks who came out and stuck around late enough, the Alma Rose folks who are so sweet and willing to offer us their space, and the folks next door who were jamming away after a lovely May 1st. The extra clothes were donated to Alma Rose which houses a pretty cool mini thrift store.

Overall this event on International Workers Day could not have been possible without the help of our fellow comrades at Alma Rose, the VC Socialist Party who helped facilitate the History of May Day workshop, the anonymous member of Frontline Medics who facilitated the street medic workshop, Community Roots Garden and Abundant Table for their extremely generous donation of produce and of course a big thanks to the community who came out to the event and even donated some goodies themselves (:

After May-Day: TPAP Follow-up Public  General Meeting

After our Really, Really Free Market event, we felt that it would be a great idea to follow it up with one of our monthly public general meetings as a way to further continue our interaction with the community.

Our monthly general meetings are a more relaxed version of our internal meetings. They are open to the public and structured similarly to a big family barbecue or potluck dinner. In the public meetings, typically centered around 1 or more themes, we go over our current theme and discuss our other campaigns to the people there and listen to feedback. As we’re all apart of the same community, it’s important to hear out everyone’s opinion and practice active listening. After all is said and done, we dig in and eat like one big family.

May’s General Meeting theme of discussion was the “Opposing Patriarchy Posse,” a relatively recent creation aimed towards eliminating gender roles, and, among other things, slapping the machismo out of people. It also featured a extension of the sex education workshop, where a planned free trip to the LGBTQ Center in Los Angeles for free testing was talked about and finalized.

Unfortunately, both events were met with online Alt-Right trolls. From disturbing hate comments, to even receiving death threats, all were done in hopes to scare us from organizing such events in public. We obviously didn’t let that happen and still went through with our events with overwhelming support from the public. We were even met with a local leftist group who specifically responds to that kind of behavior and they came to the general meeting for support and fun.