Mission
Serve, Observe, and Protect
San Patricios is a community of Irish, Mexican, and Indigenous people and allies, united the way the original Batallón de San Patricio was in 1847 — by the belief that these communities' fights are the same fight. We carry their name forward as a living organization, not a memorial: a network of chapters doing mutual aid, community-oriented self-defense, and cultural education work on the ground. Central to that work is decolonized education and the revival of native languages — Irish, Spanish, and Indigenous languages our communities were punished for speaking, taught again on our own terms.
Our programs are modeled on the original Black Panther Party's “survival pending revolution” approach and grow out of the Brown Beret tradition of community defense and youth organizing — see our history for how those threads connect. We organize against the same nativism and anti-immigrant hostility the original San Patricios deserted an army over, in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, Indigenous land and water defenders, and every community doing this work alongside us. Black organizers and allies are welcome in San Patricios too — and where our own chapters aren't the right fit, we'll connect you directly with the Black Panther-descended and -inspired organizations we work beside.
“We serve the people who raised us, defend the communities who need us, and remember the ones who came before us.”
What We Do
Mutual Aid
Food drives, supply distribution, and resources moved directly to the people who need them — organized locally, chapter by chapter.
Community for Self Defense
Know-your-rights training, cop-watch patrols, and de-escalation and self-defense classes, so communities can look out for each other without waiting on anyone else.
Cultural Education
Decolonized history and language programs for members and the community — reviving Irish, Spanish, and Indigenous languages, and teaching the real history of the Batallón de San Patricio on our own terms.
Anti-Racism & Solidarity
Organizing against the racism, nativism, and anti-immigrant policy that the original San Patricios faced — and that Irish, Mexican, and Indigenous communities still face today.
Direct Action Support
Logistics, turnout, and legal-observer coordination backing tenant organizing, labor drives, and immigrant-rights actions.
Decolonization
Organizing in solidarity with Indigenous land and water defense, Irish anti-colonial struggle, and other movements confronting occupation and colonialism directly — including Free Palestine.
Movements We Stand With
No one does this alone. These are the traditions we come from and the movements we stand beside.
Brown Berets
San Patricios grew out of the Brown Beret tradition of Chicano and Indigenous community defense, education, and youth organizing dating to 1960s East Los Angeles — we consider ourselves part of that lineage, not a separate thing standing next to it.
Black Panther Party (1966 model)
Our community programs — food distribution, know-your-rights and cop-watch patrols, political and cultural education — are structured after the original Black Panther Party's "survival pending revolution" model: concrete community service paired with organizing, not charity alone.
Black Lives Matter
We stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter's organizing against police violence and for Black liberation. An attack on one community's safety is everyone's fight.
The broader Panther-descended network
We're aligned with the wider network of modern Black Panther-descended and Panther-inspired community self-defense organizations carrying that model forward today, alongside Indigenous land- and water-defense movements and the Irish republican mutual-aid tradition.
Irish Anti-Colonial Struggle
We stand in solidarity with the Irish struggle against British occupation and colonialism — the same fight for self-determination the original San Patricios carried with them from Ireland into Mexico. Tiocfaidh ár lá.
Free Palestine Movement
We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people's fight against occupation and for self-determination, and with the international movement demanding it.