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Radical Resistance in Conservative Times: New Asian American Organizations in the 1990s
By Diane C. Fujino and Kye Leung
Part 1 of 16
Thirty years after the emergence of the Asian American Movement, new Asian American formations continue to expand the struggle. However, like other US-based social movements, the Asian American Movement today is qualitatively different than in the 1960s and 70s. The political-economic landscape of the 1990s is much more conservative. Economic restructuring, the rise in conservatism including Asian American neo-conservatives, and FBI and police repression past and present have left the radical movements in a weakened condition. Within the Asian American Movement, we witnessed the dissolution in the late 1980s and early 1990s of revolutionary formations with substantial Asian membership such as the League of Revolutionary Struggle. Yet radical Asian American organizing continues, primarily among the youth. And it is our contention that early 1998 marked the beginning of a qualitative upsurge in the Movement.
This chapter focuses on five radical Asian organizations that formed in the 1990s. We did not include liberal or progressive groups such as social service agencies, non-profit organizations, or worker's centers; radical formations that primarily focus on homeland anti-imperialist struggles given the focus of this anthology (though we recognize the continuity between local and international activism); or Asian American activists in multiracial or predominantly White revolutionary groups. We chose to focus on groups rather than individuals because it takes organization to create sustained social change. While the groups examined here represent the majority of radical pan-Asian organizations that have emerged in the 1990s, there are a few new radical formations that were not included; we were unable to contact them or they had already dissolved by the late 1990s. In addition, we are not highlighting new Asian formations in New York City that are already represented in this anthology (articles by Wayne Lum and Tinku Sengupta) and tend to have progressive politics. While preliminary, this paper is the first to examine the contours of radical Asian American organizations formed in the 1990s. We hope it will led to further explorations into radical Asian America.
Background on New Radical Organizations
This chapter examines five radical Asian American organizations: API FORCE, ASIAN!, ACTION, the Asian Left Forum, and the Asian Revolutionary Circle. The assessment of these groups is based on interviews with members, published documents, internal papers, informal conversations with activists. and our direct participation in some of these groups and in the Asian American Movement.