The “model minority myth” was created in the 1970s to drive a wedge between Asian communities and black, brown, and working-class white communities. It has continued to define how the Pan-Asian community in the United States is viewed and treated. They are forever seen as resentful and outsiders in the fight for racial and economic justice. It wasn’t always like this.
For nearly two centuries, the majority of immigrants coming to the Western Hemisphere were working-class Pan-Asian immigrants. Chinese railroad workers, South Asian busboys in Harlem, Yemeni autoworkers in Detroit, Filipino and Punjabi farm workers in California and the Southwest, or indentured servants in the colonies of British South America and the Caribbean. people. They were all poor, working-class immigrants from various parts of the Asian continent.
Working-class Pan-Asian communities have historically been integrated and in solidarity with black and brown communities. For example, in Harlem, New Orleans, and California’s Central Valley, South Asian immigrant workers have sought protection from Puerto Rican, Dominican, black, and Mexican families and communities to protect them from white supremacist violence and economic exploitation. It blended into.
In California in the 1970s, Chinese immigrant students and their families joined Latino families in fighting for language access in public schools, resulting in favorable Supreme Court decisions.
Japanese and Filipino farmworkers fought side by side with Mexican farmworkers in the largest and most historic struggle to unionize farmworkers.
Southeast Asians fled war and genocide in the 1970s and 1980s and settled in predominantly black, Puerto Rican, and Mexican communities in Massachusetts, New York, California, Wisconsin, Louisiana, and Minnesota, fighting a common battle over equitable access to education. formed a struggle.
This is a very different reality from the mainstream perception that the Pan-Asian community is mostly wealthy businessmen, doctors, and engineers who are actively trying to assimilate into the white race. White Americans, especially within academia and the mass media, have undermined organizing for racial and economic justice by black and brown communities, and encouraged more Asian working-class people to contribute to those struggles. We have perpetuated the model minority myth in order to create obstacles.
current political moment
We are experiencing the largest surge of white supremacist, Zionist, and Christian nationalist forces in decades. These forces are joined by several Asian right-wing forces that are emerging internally from our nation’s pan-Asian community, including the Chinese American right-wing and South Asian Hindutva (Hindu supremacist) groups. . The Asian community is increasingly becoming an important aspect of right-wing forces across the United States on many controversial political issues. These Asian right-wing forces have a dominant influence on public discourse about pan-Asian communities, even though Asian communities have a long history of working-class and multi-ethnic solidarity. Although Asian conservatism in the United States has been around for a long time, groups such as the Chinese American Right and South Asian Hindutva have become more effective in the ways they organize and mobilize Asian communities, and white supremacist , Christian nationalists, and have become more strategic in the way they forge strong alliances with the Zionists. agenda.
There are many examples of strategic alliances like this across the country. White supremacist groups persuaded Chinese American plaintiffs to join a Supreme Court case to strike down affirmative action. In California, Hindu nationalists are pushing for the history of caste and caste-based oppression to be removed from textbooks and calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom to repeal a statewide ban on caste discrimination. Ta. Christian nationalists recruited conservative Asian faith-based groups to remove LGBTQ+-friendly curriculum from Michigan public schools. Wealthy landlords of Asian descent have been working with corporate real estate lobbyists to end California’s eviction moratorium. More recently, Hindu nationalists abroad and in the United States have made public their deep ideological and political alliances with Zionist forces in Israel.
The growth of these proto-fascist movements has serious consequences for all people in the United States, regardless of race, ethnic background, or class, but the connection is clear. All of our communities are the most negatively affected, as well as being misinformed and recruited by right-wing groups.
White supremacists, Christian nationalists, and Zionists are once again using the Pan-Asian community as a driving wedge against social justice movements, making it difficult to maintain historic, hard-won progressive victories. It’s getting more difficult. This once again creates divisions and impedes progressive organizing and multiracial unity. We are co-directors of Grassroots Asians Rising (GAR), a national network of 34 grassroots organizations rooted in working-class, pan-Asian immigrant and refugee communities. Our membership organizers are directly addressing the effects of the growing power of the right. We know that if we want to win the material change that our communities need and deserve, we need to build a movement strong enough to make justice inevitable.
To further our collective understanding of the growing right-wing forces within Asian and Asian American communities, GAR has facilitated conversations for organizers to share their experiences. Through this, we uncovered the vast infrastructure of right-wing forces and saw how far their influence extends within Asian communities. Many organizers expressed concern about the prevalence of right-wing ideology in our community through language content, local ethnic media, and cultural and religious community spaces. These are spaces where many people gather to build relationships and gain a strong sense of belonging.
By 2055, Asians are projected to become the largest immigrant group in the United States, surpassing the Latino population, according to the Pew Research Center. Working-class Pan-Asian communities are rapidly growing in key battleground states such as Michigan, Georgia, Texas, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. A variety of right-wing forces are already targeting working-class Pan-Asians, including Christian nationalists recruiting from Asian churches, temples, and mosques, and Republicans building “community centers” in ethnic enclaves in hopes of swaying elections. Communities are starting to organize.
Few grassroots organizations, made up of directly affected people, lead efforts to provide social services or engage in advocacy and policy in Pan-Asian communities. This vacuum is currently being filled by conservative and right-wing forces in Asia who promote proto-fascist policies.
Organizing is the clearest and most consistent tool at our disposal to change this dynamic, but it is also the least expensive way to change systems. The ecosystem for community organizing in working-class Pan-Asian communities must grow and meet the needs of demographics across the United States. Otherwise, we will be left responding to crisis after crisis with a weak infrastructure for leadership and strong movements.
If we want to build the multiracial democracy that we need now more than ever, our movement must help build a foundation that addresses working-class pan-Asian issues. In battle after battle, we are witnessing the use of the Pan-Asian community to promote right-wing and fascist archetypes. Building the common interests of the working class is a way to build a united front of multi-ethnic democracy. Otherwise, progressive movements will continue to be defeated.
As a network, GAR works to unite local organizations nationally and increase their capacity to effectively organize working-class Pan-Asian communities. This includes developing resources for political education in language to increase political awareness. Build strong local organizations committed to building a working class membership base. and to establish political and strategic alliances within a pan-Asian working-class community.
Asian Americans have a history of working class struggle, anti-war activism, solidarity, and strong organizing. As Asian communities grow across the United States, we must remember our history of organizing for working-class interests and solidarity and return to our roots as a working-class, immigrant, and pan-Asian community. yeah. In the current political moment we find ourselves in, we must take sustained action.
Our ancestors forged meaningful relationships and mutual solidarity with black and brown working-class communities, built on working-class interests, and won important racial, immigration, educational, and economic protections. We all continue to benefit from it. Let’s remember to carry on this tradition.
Roxana Mun has been organizing Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) since 2003, when her family and community members were detained and deported under special registration. Since then, Roxana has worked as a youth organizer organizing working-class immigrant desi youth in New York City public high schools and fighting to end school-to-prison transfers, deportations, and the low-wage job pipeline. Ta. She then served as DRUM’s Director of Strategy and Training, where she led the organization of racial, immigration, and educational justice campaigns, political education, and training for organizers, leaders, and DRUM members. From 2016 to 2022, Roxana served on the board of United We Dream and currently serves on the advisory board of the Immigrant Justice Network. Roxana is the National Co-Director of Grassroots Asians Rising, and is a strong believer that it is our movement’s responsibility to lead and lead change around the leadership of frontline communities affected. I lead a group. Roxana is a Bangladeshi-born immigrant raised in New York City, the proud daughter of a domestic worker and a taxi driver. Kathy Dunn has been organizing labor movements and community-led development for nearly 20 years. While serving as executive director of CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities, she developed a strong organizational infrastructure to lead campaigns on housing justice and mobilized the nation to build greater political coalitions on racial, gender, and economic justice. played an important role in forming the alliance. Mr. Dunn currently serves as the national co-director of Grassroots Asians Rising, a national network of organizations building the power of working-class Pan-Asian communities. She has worked as a freelance consultant for various organizations and foundations, building organizational capacity through one-on-one coaching of organizers, driving strategies and organizational models, and program development. She is from Ridgewood, Queens, New York, and Los Angeles, the daughter of Chinese-Vietnamese refugee parents, and raised in a nail salon in downtown Brooklyn. She speaks English and Cantonese.
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