CHICAGO, October 9—Today on Indigenous People's Day, the Grassroots Education Movement will bring together activists, parents, teachers and community residents to defend public education and public services in Puerto Rico and Chicago against the austerity and privatization agendas of big banks and their political allies. They’ll gather at 10AM at Chicago Ave. and Kedzie, in the heart of the city’s Puerto Rican community, to raise those demands.

In Puerto Rico, big banks have used predatory loan schemes to rack up profits and push a sweeping austerity agenda at the expense of ordinary residents – and are using the disastrous consequences of Hurricane Maria to target public education for even deeper cuts and expanded privatization. Even before the hurricane, that austerity agenda had prompted months of student strikes across the island.

In Chicago, big finance has deployed similar practices – by similar profit-takers – that have undercut the fiscal health of Chicago’s public school system. At the same time, some of the city’s wealthiest big finance players have donated generously to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s political campaigns – and supported his borrowing binge and his efforts to close the greatest number of Black and Latino schools in American history. For example, the company of billionaire hedge fund boss Ken Griffin has invested in Puerto Rican debt – and encouraged austerity to gin up profits. Griffin is top donor to both Emanuel and right-wing governor Bruce Rauner – and pressed the mayor to close dozens of Chicago schools.

The people of both Chicago and Puerto Rico confront ongoing cuts, privatization and profiteering – dynamics that are exacerbated by a long history of racism and lack of democracy. Just as Chicagoans are denied an elected school board and a real voice in public education, racism and colonialism have blocked the Puerto Rican people from a basic democratic voice in who controls their government or economy.

GEM is gathering to protest these bad actors on a day of resistance to colonization and privatization, and in the wake of recent moves by Emanuel’s hand-picked Board of Education to close scores of Black and Latinx schools while setting the stage for even greater charter expansion. The target bank office lies in a community that is expected to see a wave of Puerto Rican refugees fleeing from the aftermath of Hurricane Maria – where terrible conditions have been intensified by years of education and public service privatization on the island.

Protesters will demand that big banks return the money they have siphoned away from struggling communities, and deliver a letter to mark the occasion. GEM members are also demanding that Mayor Rahm Emanuel honor his agreement to fund 22 Sustainable Community Schools in neglected communities, and are demanding a meeting with the mayor to discuss this issue and the systemic inequity in Chicago Public Schools.