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Radical Resistance in Conservative Times: New Asian American Organizations in the 1990s
By Diane C. Fujino and Kye Leung
Part 2 of 16
Members of API FORCE, or Asians and Pacific Islanders for
Community Empowerment, came together in Northern California at a September
1994 meeting to discuss "The State of the Asian American Movement."
Out of that meeting, and simultaneous with the frustration various Asian
American activists experienced over cultural insensitivity in the Proposition
187 campaign, about a dozen activists established an organization to voice
progressive concerns of the Asian and Pacific Islander (API) community.
API FORCE was founded in January 1995 through the leadership of Eric Mar,
George Iechika-McKinney, Dan Nishijima, and Rhonda Ramirez. The mission
and purpose of API FORCE, as identified in its membership booklet, is
to: "analyze mainstream political thought and develop progressive
ideological alternatives; empower Asian and Pacific Islander communities
through education, political participation and grassroots organizing;
and support and be a resource for other organizations working for Asian
and Pacific Islander empowerment and against racism-4 sexism, homophobia,
xenophobia, classism, and oppression in all its forms." API FORCE
calls itself a "progressive," mass-based organization, an ideology
that is reflected in the language of its mission and purpose and in some
of its activities, especially in the electoral arena. In addition to the
1994 anti-immigrant Proposition 187, API FORCE organized around Proposition
209, the anti-affirmative action initiative passed by California voters
in 1996; immigrant rights in response to the passage of the 1996 Welfare
Reform Bill; and the successful electoral campaign of Tom Ammiano to the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Among the five groups, API FORCE works
the most within establishment channels. But API FORCE's other activities
and Principles of Unity, modeled after the Black Panther Party's ten-point
platform, reveal a radical politic, especially in its efforts to promote
political education on North Korea and to expose the impact of US militarization
on Asian women. Also, one of the points of unity reads, "...We want
to democratically transform the U.S. economic system of globalized capitalism
and replace it with a truly egalitarian society in which all people can
attain their full human potential." While API FORCE has veteran activists,
the active membership is mainly in their twenties. There is also a diversity
of Asian backgrounds and more women than men in the group. Currently,
George lechika-McKinney, Jung Hee Choi, Sun Lee, Rand Quinn, and Sinai
Tongol sit on the Leadership Council.
ASIAN!, or Asian Sisters (& Brothers) for Ideas in Action Now!, began in November 1994 in Santa Barbara, California, after students in an Asian feminism class attended a Los Angeles rally protesting Jessica McClintock's failure to pay Chinese garment workers. Diane Fujino, Robyn Rodriguez, and Cheryl Deptowicz established ASIAN! as a radical political group to uplift humanity, with an emphasis on improving conditions facing Asian and Asian American women. As mentioned the group, the name changed to include "brothers," but the focus on women's leadership remained. Given the lack of radical activism in Santa Barbara and in fine with ASIAN!'s belief that systemic oppression underlies and connects multiple issues, ASIAN! has organized political forums and campaigns around, among other topics, garment workers; sex industry; political prisoners, particularly focusing on Puerto Rican POWs and letter writing to California political prisoners; and anti-imperialist struggles in the United States, Philippines, Hawai'i, North and South Korea, Okinawa, Puerto Rico, and Africa. ASIAN! has introduced political issues to the campus community and its membership by bringing prominent radicals to speak on the UCSB campus, including Yuri Kochiyama, Geronimo ji Jaga, Ramona Africa, and Rafael Cancel Miranda. ASIAN! also organized coalitions to oppose attacks on affirmative action by the University of California regents and by Proposition 209, and since 1995, organized to save the fife of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the only political prisoner on death row. Despite a desire to include community members, ASIAN! remains a small, predominantly student group with substantially more women than men and a diverse Asian membership in addition to a few non-Asian members. ACTION, the Asian Pacific Islander Collective to Initiate Opportunities Now!, formed in 1995 to focus on Asian American youth organizing in Los Angeles, primarily through cultural-political work. Under the leadership of founder Jason Nawa as well as Tracy Kiriyama, Sunny Le, and Ryan Yokota, ACTION became an organizing space for recent college graduates, college students, and high school students. The group functions with a non-hierarchical, collective structure, with an emphasis on developing leadership skills, raising political consciousness, and building a group culture and personal relationships among members.