PROFILE: ANA LIZA CABALLES – Born in the Philippines, Ana Liza fights for a new world in the U.S.A.
“Tell my story? But why?” asked Ana Liza Caballes, curious. The reason we asked her is because, for the first time, she is here in Brazil. Ana Liza is part of a delegation of 13 people from the United States participating in the IV International Meeting of Communities Affected by Dams and the Climate Crisis, fighting alongside the working class, with her feet also firmly on the ground in Queens, New York.
Ana Liza was born in the Philippines and at the age of seven was forced to move with her family to the United States, motivated – as she would discover years later – by fleeing the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. “It was only later, when I entered university and got a scholarship, that I began to understand that the reason we left the Philippines was this oppression and systemic forces, like imperialism, that prevented my people, my family, from living with dignity and with the possibility of a dignified life in our own country.”
On September 11, 2001, Ana was living in New York – where she still lives today – and was in her second year of college. For her, everything that happened on that day and in the days that followed were milestones in a major awakening that changed the course of her life. “It was a great awakening for me. I wondered what it meant to study and try to have a better life when most people in the world are suffering and feeling the impact of US imperialism,” she recalls.
At 20 years old, she began organizing Filipino immigrants working as domestic workers in the large metropolis of New York who lacked basic rights. Today, more than two decades later, Ana remains committed to organizing the working class to fight for their rights through the DRUM Movement (Desis Rising Up and Moving), which works especially with Desis, immigrants from the Indian subcontinent, particularly Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
DRUM is based in New York and is part of Grassroots Global Justice, which has just launched a new program called the People’s Care Agenda with the goal of promoting the fight for people’s basic needs, such as health and housing. Both organizations, in addition to mobilizing workers and immigrants, argue that there are currently sufficient resources to meet the needs of all the inhabitants of the Earth. However, besides being poorly distributed, they are also being seized by capital and used for the profit of a few, benefiting war, imperialism, and militarization. Ana adds that the organizations also work towards “reparations for the damages that American imperialism has caused to our people and to the peoples of the world.”
Between Mamdani e Trump, Building a Collective Struggle
Ana lives in Queens, a New York City borough with over 2.3 million inhabitants and a strong immigrant population. “In my neighborhood, you can hear over 200 different languages, and few people know this part of the city. This community is the working class, the poor, the laborers, who sustain all the wealth,” she recounts.
With social movements, unions, and other organizations, she celebrates Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York City; she recalls how hard activists worked on the campaign and shares a realistic expectation:
“He’s looking like in practice, that he’s staying as close to movements and organizations as possible. And we built an alliance…to be able to also hold him accountable, because we know that the position of mayor of New York City, right, where there’s all of these other billionaires and corporations and financial institutions… he’s going to have to be negotiating and fighting with all of them. And we have made a promise to him and to ourselves that we will continue to hold him accountable and hold him to task on the things that he promised that he would fight for.”
From a broader perspective, she describes what it’s like to live in the United States that re-elected Donald Trump and the challenges she sees in the daily confrontation with the politics of death and destruction that the president promotes. She argues that we see how: “The authoritarianism and the complete changing of U.S. institutions and breaking down of U.S. institutions and society to get rid of, you know, the rights of people, women, LGBTQ+ people, trans folks, young people, Black people, immigrants… The policies that he is passing are in complete disregard for the health, well-being and welfare of people, not only in the US but in the world.,” Ana analyzes. On the other hand, she also sees in this scenario the opportunity for mobilization and strengthening of grassroots organizations that are working together to fight for basic rights, such as DRUM.
We are connected and we are equal
“There’s a term in Tagalog, my native language, which is Pakikipagkapwa. What it means is that we are connected and we are the same,” Liza replies when asked about the new world she fights for.
She believes that American movements have a fundamental role in showing the world that “the US is also affected by dams, data centers, and the climate crisis,” and that many people in the country are interested in joining “people around the world who are impacted by imperialism, to fight for a completely different future.”
For Ana Liza this new, different world, where we dream and fight togethers, is Pakikipagkapwa: “Who you are is who I am. And that what’s good for you also is good for me. And that we have to keep connected and fighting alongside each other. And that isn’t just about people, but it’s all living things, right?” Pakikipagkapwa is a constant process of each of us fighting for one another, understanding one another, and striving so that we can live and have a good life.
Living in the United States, Ana Liza shares with all peoples a common vision for the new world we want: a place where the well-being of all peoples is the highest priority.
