|
| MAIN | HISTORY |
NEWS | VIEWPOINTS |
COMMUNITY | NARRATIVES |
ART/CULTURE | |
Radical Resistance in Conservative Times: New Asian American Organizations in the 1990s
By Diane C. Fujino and Kye Leung
Part 9 of 16
In part due to the ALF--from the networking developed there to the Forum's inspiration to strong criticism of it--noteworthy Asian American political formations and projects have emerged, including two anthology projects on the radical Asian American Movement, the Asian American roundtable at the Critical Resistance conference, ARC, and the Ad Hoc committee in New York City that organized two panels of veteran and younger activists discussing the revolutionary Asian American Movement. But in other ways, the ALF has faced serious problems in building a radical or revolutionary Asian American presence. Perhaps its most significant problem is its lack of vision and purpose. At its May 1998 meeting, the ALF was unable to define its ideology or even to be clear that it was a Left formation. While' its Principles of Unity are clearly radical, the group's unwillingness to discuss a working definition of "Left"--which some define as socialist and others as any politic left of liberal--resulted in a lack of ideological clarity. In addition, the ALF suffers from a confusion over its organizational structure. Though the National Planning Council agreed that the ALF would function as a "united front" and not a network or cadre organization, there is confusion among the general Asian American Left, and even among the ALF leadership, as to the function that the ALF should serve. These problems help to explain why the ALF is struggling to organize its first follow-up meeting to the initial forum.
The local chapters of the ALF have been more active than the nationwide body. Even so the locals, which function with great deal of regional autonomy, have done less work than hoped for over the past year and a half. Still their programs have served to raise political consciousness. In the Bay Area, the activists organized political forums on the role of electoral politics in revolutionary organizing, on student movements, and on examining the role of non-profit organizations in creating social change. The Los Angeles ALF has organized five forums: one on the labor movement; two on international solidarity work around anti-imperialist struggles in Okinawa, Korea, the Philippines, Burma, and East Timor; one of the war in Kosovo; and one on prison issues, focusing on the Juvenile Justice Initiative in California. In addition, the Los Angeles ALF worked with the local chapters of the Black Radical Congress and New Raza Left to form a People of Color Coalition Against the War. New York City ALF has organized forums on the prison industrial complex and about young Korean, Filipino, and South Asian activists working international solidarity movements. The focus of much of ALF's work has not been on educating the public per se, but rather on studying methods of organizing. For example, Los Angeles activists explored ways people can conduct international solidarity work, and Bay Area activists discussed the role of electoral politics and non-profits-in radical organizing. As such, the forums serve primarily as internal studies, though they are open to the public.
A look at the diversity of ALF's programming reveals its multi-issue approach, which is also reflected in ASIAN! and, to a lesser extent, in the other groups. These radical groups focus simultaneously on multiple political issues (e.g., worker's rights, anti-imperialist struggles worldwide, the prison industrial complex) because of their ideological belief that these issues are interconnected and rooted in capitalism and imperialism, in addition to racism. Thus, these groups, to varying degrees, find themselves tackling multiple issues simultaneously and striving to expose the underlying systemic causes.
In addition, the five groups oppose sexism in society and within the Movement and work to promote women's leadership. ASIAN! began as a women's group to provide an organizing space for women to develop leadership skills in an environment free of--or less affected by--male dominance.