“We Are All Illegal”: A Radical Manifesto for Brown Anarchy and Territorial Insurgency
Executive Summary
A newly circulated text titled We Are All Illegal: An Intro to Brown Anarchy presents a comprehensive ideological and tactical framework for a growing anarchist movement rooted in Latin American diasporic identity. Authored anonymously and distributed via anarchistnews.org, the document blends cultural history, revolutionary strategy, and direct action calls to foment what it describes as “ungovernable brown insurgencies.” The text situates Latinx communities as already anarchic in practice and urges them to reject reformism, legality, and representation in favor of decentralized, militant autonomy.
Key Judgments
Key Judgment 1
The manifesto serves as an ideological consolidation and mobilization call for a new wave of Latin American anarchist insurgency within the United States.
Evidence: The text identifies Latinos as a revolutionary base capable of organizing “total revolution within our lifetimes” and positions their economic indispensability—especially in labor and logistics—as a key leverage point for anti-state resistance.
Key Judgment 2
“We Are All Illegal” explicitly promotes extralegal resistance and sabotage as the only viable path to liberation, framing legality itself as a colonial tool of oppression.
Evidence: The author dismisses all traditional political channels, declaring that “legality has never been and will never be a viable method of liberation” and explicitly endorses tactics like black bloc anonymity, riots, strikes, and decentralized sabotage to disrupt state power.
Key Judgment 3
The text reveals the continued influence of Latin American revolutionary history and Zapatista autonomy on contemporary anarchist organizing in the U.S., signaling a rejection of both Marxist-Leninist vanguardism and electoral politics.
Evidence: The piece calls for the rejection of all political parties—including leftist formations like PSL and DSA—while celebrating the EZLN’s refusal of state recognition and hierarchical organization as the model for future movements.
Analysis
We Are All Illegal: An Intro to Brown Anarchy is more than a polemic—it is a strategic document offering both ideological grounding and operational directives for a growing, networked anarchist current within U.S. Latinx communities. By reframing Latinx illegality not as a vulnerability but as a political strength, the text inverts the narrative of marginality and calls for insurgent action rooted in indigenous autonomy, labor disruption, and post-state collectivism.
The manifesto’s most immediate value lies in its power to radicalize. It speaks directly to those alienated by both liberal and socialist attempts at political integration, framing reformism as co-optation and electoralism as betrayal. The tone is confrontational, yet pedagogical, urging readers to recognize how everyday acts—undocumented labor, neighborhood mutual aid, informal markets—are already anarchic in form. The document’s core argument is that if these practices are scaled, coordinated, and weaponized, they can destabilize not only the U.S. immigration regime, but also the capitalist system itself.
Operationally, the text encourages a pivot away from visible mass movements and toward decentralized, anonymous resistance. Black bloc tactics, clandestine organizing, and refusal to engage in leadership structures are central themes. The strategic goal is to become “un-representable,” making the movement impervious to co-optation, surveillance, or decapitation through arrests or repression. It offers not only critique but a roadmap—emphasizing migrant worker strikes, school walkouts, localized resistance cells, and the disruption of state infrastructure as actionable next steps.
The invocation of historic uprisings—from Oaxaca to Chiapas to Argentina—grounds the vision in a Latin American revolutionary lineage distinct from Western anarchist traditions. The text reclaims this legacy to propose a new, hybrid praxis of brown anarchism: rooted in indigenous knowledge, diasporic resilience, and insurrectionary confrontation.
