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Radical Resistance in Conservative Times: New Asian American Organizations in the 1990s
By Diane C. Fujino and Kye Leung
Part 8 of 16
Although Prop. 209 passed statewide, in areas where active anti-209 campaigns were organized, the initiative was defeated. Here ASIAN! played a leading role in the UCSB coalition and API FORCE's efforts helped to sway the Bay Area Asian American community. It is important to distinguish the work of radical groups like ASIAN! from that of liberal groups that also work on reform campaigns. While many liberal groups see affirmative action as an end in itself or as a means for reducing discrimination, radicals argue that affirmative action was a concession the US government gave to the people at a time when the radical Movement was demanding community control of the workplace and schools. Through their anti-209 work, ASIAN! educated the community about how the 1960 Master Plan in California created a system which tracked poor and minority students into vocational jobs and sharply reduced their access to the university. ASIAN! contrasted the 1990's call for affirmative action to the 1960's call for open admissions for all people of color into the university. Still, unlike a few revolutionary groups who shun reform work as counter-revolutionary, ASIAN! fought to save affirmative action in California and throughout the University of California because they recognized that college and work opportunities would be cut off for people of color, women, and the poor were they to lose even the mild benefits of affirmative action. Thus countering repressive electoral measures is necessary, but not sufficient. Working on reform does not make one reformist; here radical groups differ from liberal formations. Like most radical and revolutionary groups, ASIAN! believes it is imperative to improve concrete conditions of people's fives while providing a radical analysis of social issues and fighting for militant and just--and not simply moderate-demands.
ASIAN! has also helped to politicize the UCSB campus by organizing speaking engagements for radical activists. They have used these events to make connections to larger social issues. For example, when ASIAN! brought Geronimo ji Jaga to campus in February 1998, he had acquired celebrity status--at least among progressives and Leftists. The former Black Panther had recently been released after serving 27 years for a crime he did not commit. Recognizing his popularity and the sparse mainstream interest in political prisoners, ASIAN! capitalized on his presence to discuss the general issue of incarcerated activists and to mobilize for Jericho '98, the nationwide march and rally for political prisoners--issues strongly supported by Geronimo. Moreover, by organizing forums on, among other issues, Asian women in the garment industry, Puerto Rican independence, and US government efforts to dislocate the Dineh (Navajo) from their ancestral lands in Big Mountain, Arizona, ASIAN! has brought awareness--and a radical analysis--to little known issues. As a result, campus organizations look to ASIAN! to provide political leadership, and significantly, the campus as a whole has grown in its political organizing. Focusing on a younger--and possibly less petty bourgeois--constituency, ARC and ACTION have helped to politicize high school students. ARC holds workshops on Asian American history and activism for high school students and is fundraising to establish an afterschool program to regularize these studies. And ACTION established a tutorial program for local high school students, including the children of former Yellow Brotherhood activists.
The group the ALF targets is the community of activists. Through its May 1998 forum, the ALF has been successful in advancing nationwide discussions about the Asian American Left; creating increased dialogue among Asian radicals regardless of their involvement in the ALF; bringing together veteran activists, some of whom had not interacted in years; and bringing together newer and more experience activists.