Los Brown Berets Milwaukee

The Milwaukee group opposes police funding and spoke out on national issues, opposing a border wall and supporting normalizing U.S. relations with communist-ruled Cuba. ^{3 4 5}

Background

Los Brown Berets Milwaukee is a local chapter of a national Brown Berets organization. The Milwaukee branch advocates and provides services for the Milwaukee Latino community, including park cleanups, community organizing, and protests. ¹

Left-wing activist Carlos Montes was a co-founder of the national Brown Berets, a Chicano nationalist group modeled after the left-wing militant Black Panther Party. Montes protested Hispanic involvement in the Vietnam War and alleged racism in the Los Angeles school system. ²

Policy Advocacy

Valentino Quieles, an organizer with Los Brown Berets Milwaukee, called for President Joe Biden to take executive action to stop family separations of illegal immigrants. He said this is not a matter that only affects the southern border because the United States has immigration detention centers throughout the country, including in the Midwest. ¹

Los Brown Berets Milwaukee supports the United States normalizing relations with the communist regime in Cuba. The organization joined the Milwaukee Coalition to Normalize Relations with Cuba, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation–Milwaukee to sponsor a 40-car caravan with 60 people driving through Milwaukee’s Walker Square neighborhood in April 2021. ³

In January 2021, Los Brown Berets Milwaukee joined a coalition that included the People’s Revolution, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Party for Socialism and Liberation, and the Martin Luther King Coalition in a car caravan to protest the city council accepting a U.S. Justice Department grant of $9.7 million to dedicate 30 police officers to an anti-crime program. The coalition said the new resources would be used to unfairly target Black and Latino communities. The coalition of groups instead called for shifting resources to CPAC, or the Civilian Police Accountability Council. ⁶

Nationally, every Brown Beret chapter in the United States scheduled a march in January 2021 to hold President-elect Joe Biden to his promises to reverse the immigration policies of the Trump administration. The Milwaukee chapter called for activist groups, community organizations, and labor unions to join their march on January 20, Biden’s inauguration day, starting at the statue of Cesar Chavez outside of El Rey and walking to National Avenue and ending at Mitchell Park. The marchers made a list of demands for the incoming Biden administration that included freeing detained children from federal immigration detention centers to reunite them with their parents, offering a comprehensive COVID relief plan to those inside the detention centers, eliminating plans for a border wall, providing compensation for women who were forced to have hysterectomies and prosecuting those who performed the procedures, and publishing a report of activities inside the detention camps. ⁵

Charitable Service

In March 2021, the Los Brown Berets Milwaukee teamed with the Milwaukee Turners, Milwaukee Democratic Socialist Association, Cooperation Milwaukee, and La Causa to hold a ‘Mutual Aid Food Distribution’ event. The groups gave out 500 free food boxes, one per family, and distributed 100 separate $20 El Rey gift cards, one per family. ⁷ The same groups held a similar event two months later. ⁸

In February 2021, Los Brown Berets Milwaukee teamed with other community groups as part of the Wisconsin for Texas donation event to get food and water to areas of Texas harmed by the water and power outages. The groups asked residents to bring non-perishable items such as canned goods, bottled water, and new or slightly used clothing. Milwaukee Alderman José G. Pérez led the event, and partnered with Los Brown Berets Milwaukee, Agradeciendo a Dios, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, El Conquistador Latino Newspaper, Twin Transport LLC, Latino Pride WSME 91.7FM, Common Transport LLC, El Rey Supermarkets and Wisconsin Executive Protection LLC. ⁹