Asian American Movement 1968

STAND UP! Bay Area Asian American Movement 1968-1974

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AAPA at 1968 Greek Theater UCB Anti-War Rally

Introduction to the Asian American Movement 1968

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( photo: 1968, Oakland high school students attend the Black Panther Party funeral rally for Bobby Hutton,16 years old BPP member. )

A History of the Bay Area Asian American Movement

You Hadda Be There.

The Sixties and Seventies, I mean.

You had to be there, sensing the world turning upside down.

It wasn't remote or academic at all.

On our TVs and in our newspapers we witnessed Asian faces rising up to finish off the latest colonial occupation.

An entire quarter of humanity,

once dismissed as clinging to a colorful past

while waiting for some foreign missionary power to take it under its protection,

had now stood up,

an enormous Red banner of self-determination.

Every American guy graduating high school stared right into the gun barrel of the military draft

and had to decide for himself what the world was about

and where he stood in it.

Political assassinations that shocked the nation and sparked frightening riots happened right here in our own cities.

There was no irony in a militant Black Power salute

or a gentle wave of "Peace, man".

It was real.

Then, as now, oppression breeds resistance. In the spirit of those tumultuous times, we present this collection. From these stories, old photos and artifacts we see stepping stones being laid down for advancing the peoples' causes still being fought. Our corner of the world was the San Francisco Bay Area and we begin in 1968.

Asian Community Center History Group Project

The Asian Community Center History Group put together this collection of reprinted newspaper articles, mimeographed pamphlets and black and white photographs from the period. We hope to document this unique movement by letting the reader peruse the original writings and concerns of that time. Our collection was donated from the personal keepsakes of many individuals who saved the materials for forty years, preserving their collections for historical value. The contents of the reprinted materials have been duplicated for the reader. Where possible, the original pieces were digitized for viewing as well. Understandably, the majority of the content is about the development of the Asian Community Center on Kearny Street, as it reflects our personal interests in the history project. A large portion is from the AAPA newspapers and Wei Min Bao.

The project also reprinted a few articles from the Japanese American movement newspapers to bring attention to the important struggles in Japantown, though these organizations were not affiliated with ACC.

Other sources of reprints are from the Berkeley Barb, San Francisco Journal, Kalayaan, Red Guard Bulletin, Getting Together, New Dawn, Rodan newspapers. We've included these and other unaffiliated sources in order to give the reader a sampling of the wide range of voices during the period.

We hope that the material will be useful for those who were touched by this era and wish to examine more in depth its significance. And we hope that new generations can find value in examining the past to serve the present.

A History of the Asian American Movement

The Asian American movement began in the late 1960s and early 1970s during one of the most tumultuous eras in post-WW2 history. In the Bay Area, the Year 1968 marked a wave of Asian American activity. Three distinct Bay Area events earmarked the beginning of this local movement.

1. The 1968 formation of the Asian American Political Alliance in Berkeley.

2. The 1968 San Francisco State University and 1969 UC Berkeley Third World Liberation Strikes.

3. The International Hotel tenants’ first eviction notice in December 1968.

The Asian American movement began amidst national and worldwide turmoil. The Vietnam War, the Civil Rights and the Black Power movements were major factors in profoundly influencing large numbers of Asian Americans to question the nature of American democracy. Revolutions throughout the underdeveloped Third World, and China’s Cultural Revolution fueled a rebellious militancy among Asian American youth. Labor struggles like the United Farm Workers Union strike drew many into support for working people rights. Youth worldwide were rocking to new rebel music and lifestyles which broke with convention. The Free Speech Movement which began in Berkeley in 1964 rejuvenated the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. And worldwide, women fought for equal rights.

Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA)

In 1968, Asian American civil rights and anti-war activists turned their attention to the specific needs of the Asian American population in the U.S.. The Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) in Berkeley became the first organization to use “Asian American”, a new concept in contrast to the conventional term “Oriental.” Before AAPA, Asian Americans had been mostly divided into separate ethnic organizations such as Chinese American Citizens Alliance (CACA), or Japanese American Citizens League (JACL).

The term “Asian American” became a unifying force among the different Asian ethnic groups. AAPA helped open an avenue of activism for many Asian Americans who later took part in the social transformations of the period, including the Third World Liberation Front Strikes at San Francisco State University (SFSU) and University of California Berkeley campus (UCB). AAPA chapters quickly sprouted throughout the U.S. as well, including Los Angeles, New York, and Hawaii.

Third World Liberation Front (TWLF)

The formation of the Third World Liberation Fronts in San Francisco and Berkeley were unprecedented coalitions of Black, Chicano, Asian, and Native American students. The TWLF demands for relevant ethnic-communities studies proposed innovative curriculum programs, minority admissions and staffing reforms. For the first time in history, racial minorities maintained their alliance for many months, enduring arrests, injuries, and tear gas until their demands were won. Many of the demands won have been maintained for forty years by the Ethnic Studies departments and divisions.

International Hotel Fight Against Eviction and Community Struggles

Shortly after the period of organizing students to struggle for the establishment of various Asian American Studies programs on the college campuses, student activism extended into the surrounding communities. This took the form of establishing community centers and organizations that focused on “Serve the people” programs. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Asian American activists opened a number of centers. In San Francisco, this included the Asian Community Center (ACC), Asian Legal Services (ALS), Chinese Progressive Association (CPA), International Hotel Tenants Association (IHTA), Japanese Community Youth Center (JCYC), and Kearny Street Workshop (KSW).

Much different from campus life, community activism addressed the local needs and conditions of the Asian American communities. As the movement became grounded in local conditions, grassroots leadership and participation grew.

A pivotal point for the Bay Area Asian American movement was the struggle against the eviction of the International Hotel tenants in San Francisco. The International Hotel began as a local fight between a financial district developer and mostly Filipino and Chinese residents living within the Manilatown area adjacent to Chinatown. But within this local background were multiple levels of power that represented globalization—in the form of Bay Area Regional master plans and Pacific Rim development. These forces had already destroyed most of Manilatown and were eliminating many existing housing units in the adjoining Chinatown (mostly bachelor hotel rooms), replacing them with office high-rise buildings, hotels, and retail spaces.

Similarly, redevelopment-related issues were focal points of protest in other Asian American communities. In S.F. Japantown, the Committee Against Nihonmachi Evictions (CANE), consisting of the J-Town Collective and community individuals, emerged to address the needs of residents and small businesses. CANE became involved in supporting low-income affordable housing issues and protests against destruction of residential and small business districts. It had a membership base of over 300 residents who were discontented over the direction of the redevelopment largely owned by Japanese multinational corporations.

Third World Student Strikes at SFSU & UCB 1968-1969

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“On strike, shut it down!”

In 1968-69, African American, Asian American, Chicano and Native American students at San Francisco State College and University of California, Berkeley organized campus coalitions known as the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF). TWLF led student strikes demanded the establishment of Third World Colleges comprised of departments of Asian American, African American, Chicano and Native American Studies. Significance of these strikes were twofold: first, minority student were able to unite in solidarity against institutional racism and second, the strikes won the formation of Ethnic Studies programs.

The concept "Third World" provided a common basis of unity for the TWLF student activists. The term identified parallel colonial and racial experiences of minorities throughout US history. Examples of common racial oppression included: genocide of the native Indians, enslavement of Africans, colonization of Chicanos in the Southwest, and the passage of Asian immigration exclusion. This past was linked with the history of Western colonization in the Third World countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The international movements for independence and self-determination in those locales were viewed as related to the demands of U.S. Third World minorities for political power.

Strike tactics involved informational picketing, blocking of campus entrances, mass rallies and teach-ins. Popular support was often met with repression in the form of police arrests, teargas and campus disciplinary actions. Police mutual assistance pacts enabled the rapid formations of riot squads dispatched from throughout the SF Bay area. During the Fall and Spring semesters of 1968-9, hundreds of students were arrested during the SF State strike, including more than 450 on one sweep alone. Similarly, over 155 students were arrested at the UC Berkeley strike which lasted the entire Winter Quarter of 1969. In the last two weeks of the dispute, the UC campus witnessed the stationing of National Guard troops to maintain martial law.

Establishment of ethnic studies programs has been one of the chief legacies of the strike. These programs have expanded nationally in over 250 universities, colleges and high schools. Both UC Berkeley and SF State University provide undergraduate and graduate degree programs in Ethnic Studies. Another important legacy of the strikes involved the establishment of closer working relationship between students and community. The post-TWLF era witnessed large numbers of Asian American students becoming involved in community-based organizing efforts within the Asian American movement. The International Hotel anti-eviction movement and the establishment of community centers in San Francisco Chinatown-Manilatown and Japantown were an outgrowth of this legacy.

Foreign Students Statement (Daily Cal April 18, 1967)

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To the Ice Box:
"We, the Foreign Student Association believe that every nation in the world has a strict and fundamental right to determine for itself its own political institutions. And consequently that no nation is justified in directly or indirectly imposing its will or political views on others. We therefore strongly condemn the military intervention by the United States in Vietnam. We demand the immediate and permanent cessation of the bombing of the North, the recognition of the National Liberation Front, and the beginning of negotiations aimed at achieving the end of the war, the withdrawal of foreign troops, and the reunification and independence of Vietnam."

Chinese Students Association; Foreign Students Association; Arab Students Association; Union of the Iberoamerican Students; African Students Association; Turkish Students Association; Moslem Students Association; Friends of the Tri-Continental; Pakistani Students Association; Iranian Students Association

UCB Chinese Student Club Newsletter July 1968

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CSC MONSOON MERCURY

Chinese Students’ Club
510 Eshleman Hall
University of California, Berkeley

July, 1968 Volume 2 Issue

(Printed next to the CSC SCHEDULE OF EVENTS announcing plans for a Beach Party at Folsom Lake)

THE ASIAN—AMERICAN POLITICAL ALLIANCE:

Rally Postponed

"The AAPA Rally, scheduled for Sunday, June 30, in 155 Dwinelle Hall was cancelled due to the Campus and City curfews enacted in reaction to the demonstrations and violence of Friday and Saturday. The Dean’s office has told us that they would do all theycould to re—schedule the event. All the speakers were notified in advance, and to those who came and were “repelled”, the AAPA offers its apologies and thanks, and asks those people to continue following or joining the Alliance. The next activities are protesting at the Berkeley City Council against the police actions on Friday, June 28, and rallying support for the political prisoner, Huey Newton, on July 8.

The Alliance is now selling “Yellow Peril” buttons to all, and “AAPA” buttons (with the Oriental character meaning ‘East’) to sympathizers and members. The AAPA plans to set up a table at noon in Sproul Hall Plaza. For more information, call... 510 Eshleman, the CSC office, has more information on the Alliance. All those interested in fighting racism, “re-asserting their race”, and working for self-identity, are encouraged to join the Alliance."

--Floyd Huen

BLOG NOTE: On June 30, 1968: Berkeley mayor Wallace Johnson declares a state of emergency and a three day curfew in the city in response to violence in the wake of student demonstrations in support of French student and worker uprisings in France the previous month.

San Francisco State Strike 1968 TWLF Demands

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Photo: SFSU TWLF Strike Picketline (AAPA Newspaper 1969)

TWLF SF State College Student Demands:

1. That a School of Ethnic Studies for the ethnic groups involved in the Third World be set up with the students in each particular ethnic organizations having the authority and control of the hiring and retention of any faculty member, director, and administrator, as well as the curriculum in a specific area of study.

2. That 50 faculty positions be appropriated to the School of Ethnic Studies, 20 would be for the Black Studies Program.

3. That in the Spring semester, the College fulfill its commitment to the non-white students by admitting those that apply.

4. That in the Fall of 1969, all applications of non-white students be accepted.

5. That George Murray and any other faculty person chosen by non-white people as their teacher be retained in their position.

(George Murray was an English Department lecturer who was dismissed for his participation in the Black Panther Party. SF State Strike Committee. On Strike: Shut It Down. 1968. p. 3.)

San Francisco State Strike 1968 Student Brochure

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Photo: SFSU TWLF Strike Picketline (AAPA Newspaper 1969)

INTERCOLLEGIATE CHINESE FOR SOCIAL ACTION

"S. F. State, a community college, exists in a moral vacuum, oblivious to the community it purports to serve. It does not reflect the pluralistic society that is San Francisco--it does not begin to serve the 300, 000 non-white people who live in this urban community in poverty, ignorance, despair. The Chinese ghetto, Chinatown, is a case in point.

1. S. F. State has a Chinese language department that isolates the “Chinese Experience” as a cultural phenomenon in language that 83% of the Chinese in the U. S. don’t speak. Realistically, we can expect that a Chinese woman living in the ghetto, who speaks Cantonese, cannot explain to the scholar that she is dying of tuberculosis because she speaks a “street language” while the scholar mutters a classical poetry in Mandarin. S. F. State does not teach Cantonese.

2. Chinatown is a ghetto in San Francisco, there are approximately 50,000 Chinese of whom the vast majority live in Chinatown. It is an area of old buildings, narrow streets & alleys, and the effluvia of a great many people packed into a very small space. At present, more than 5, 000 new Chinese immigrants stream into this overpopulated ghetto each year, an area already blessed with a birthrate that is rising, and will rise more. Tuberculosis is endemic, rents are high and constantly rising, city services are inadequate to provide reasonable sanitation, and space is at such a premium as to resemble the Malthusian ratio at in most extreme. There are no adequate courses in any department of school at S. F. State that even begin to deal with the problems of the Chinese people in their exclusionary and racist environment."

Philippine-American Collegiate Endeavor (PACE)

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“Statement of the Philippine-American Collegiate Endeavor (PACE) Philosophy and Goals.” Mimeograph excerpt. PACE was founded in 1967 at SFSU.

“We seek…simply to function as human beings, to control our own lives. Initially, following the myth of the American Dream, we worked to attend predominantly white colleges, but we have learned through direct analysis that it is impossible for our people, so-called minorities, to function as human beings, in a racist society in which white always come first…So we have decided to fuse ourselves with the masses of Third World people, which are the majority of the world’s peoples, to create, through struggle, a new humanity, a new humanism, a New World Consciousness, and within that context collectively control our own destinies.”

SFSU TWLF Strike Injuries from Police Brutality

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Strike at frisco state! Pamphlet by Research Organizing Cooperative of San Francisco

Statistics gathered by doctors on injuries to arrested San Francisco State strikers (and innocent bystanders) inflicted by police, between December 2, 1968 and January 30, 1969. pg.31

NUMBER TYPE OF INJURY

1 Ruptured spleen (removed)

2 Fractured skull

2 Concussion

15 Forehead, skull lacerations

3 Nose broken, bloodied

1 Fractured eye orbit

7 Eyes maced

2 Other eye damage (e. g., black)

6 Facial lacerations, swelling

18 Other head damage (bump, swelling, contusion)

8 Stomach badly clubbed, scratched or kicked

2 Broken, contused, fractured ribs

3 Broken fingers, thumb

1 Broken, fractured leg

1 Arm broken, fractured from surgery

1 Arm infected from surgery

1 Kidney infection

4 Other groin area damaged

2 Respiratory Infection

1 Contused lung

7 Other rib area damage (soreness)

12 Back, neck (clubbing, choking, welts, burns)

4 Blood vessel damage. mass1ve bruises only)

15 Hand, arm, foot, leg laceration, swelling, lumps

5 Limb, finger, toe sprain, wrenched, contused

13 General bumps, bruises, soreness only

1 Nausea

80 Total number injured arrestees (many had more than one injury)

These do not include: (1) injuries sustained between November 6 and December 1; (2) injuries not reported; and (3) injuries to people who were not arrested. There might well be more of the latter than there were injured arrestees; it is impossible to tell how many.

Asian American Political Alliance 1968

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It was no accident that the Asian American movement began in Berkeley, California. – also the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement (FSM) at the University of California at Berkeley (UCB). Social activists worldwide were drawn to this center of the student and antiwar movement in the ‘60s. It was a couple—Yuji Ichioka, a UCB history grad student, and Emma Gee—both of whom were civil rights activists, who initiated a Peace and Freedom Party caucus by phoning every Asian-sounding name listed on Party petitions in the Berkeley/East Bay area.

In May 1968 those half-dozen or so who responded met in the Berkeley’s Northside Ichioka/Gee apartment – from then on affectionately referred to as “AAPA home” by its members, because that is how they felt when being around others like them for the first time. Unanimously they agreed to form an historic independent organization - the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA). They quickly enlisted others; hammered out a program*; designed a logo, button and colors; worked out alliances; and boldly introduced itself to the public in July 1968.

AAPA was the first self-named group that called themselves “Asian American,” a term that Ichioka proposed. These AAPA founders, while young in age, were all political veterans from a wide range of experiences. And while most were UC Berkeley students, they never envisioned AAPA as a student organization but a much broader, all-inclusive, community grassroots alliance. Several had from their working class youths been involved with the United Farm Workers (UFW) and other labor organizing, while another was an Army veteran and Black Panther Party member, and all were involved in the ongoing civil rights/black power, anti-war and anti-poverty movement.

These AAPA founders also consciously and carefully chose “Political” and “Alliance” in the group’s name to distinguish itself from previous ethnic groups that had a more social and/or club-like connotation. They did this not to denigrate existing groups like the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), whom AAPA respected and worked with on progressive issues, but to forge an openly anti-imperialist political organization for all Asian nationalities, one that could stand on an equal basis with the other dominant Third World groups at the time, as part of the international Third World liberation movement for self-determination.

The term “Asian American” quickly became a unifying force among the different Asian ethnic groups. AAPA chapters and other similarly self-titled Asian organizations rapidly spread throughout the US. AAPA opened an avenue of activism for many Asian Americans who later played vital roles in the social transformations of the period, including the Third World Liberation Front Strikes at San Francisco State College and UC Berkeley, the International Hotel tenants struggle, and the formation of Asian Studies and Third World College curriculums nationwide. Just as their Third World brothers and sisters had done, AAPA, as the Asian American expression of “Power to the People!”, enabled Asian Americans to rename, reclaim, redefine, and liberate themselves from oppression.

AAPA Rally July 28, 1968

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Excerpts from a speech written by Richard Aoki for the AAPA rally July 28, 1968

“We Asian-Americans believe that American society has been, and still is, fundamentally a racist society, and that historically we have accommodated ourselves to this society in order to survive...

We’re sick and tired of being sick and tired of being sick and tired of relating to white standards of acceptability...We’re tired of hearing the racist chant about “if you’re white...” This has wreaked havoc upon our cultural identity...

At this point I would like to say a few words about the servant syndrome prevalent in this white racist society...As most of you know the typical Oriental is thought of as a servant (and dig--servants are not considered equals anywhere in time and place)...The Chinese are regarded as laundrymen (fit only for woman’s work), the Japanese are regarded as gardeners. the Filipinos are regarded as chauffeurs...

We are sick of being used by the white racist power structure... Don’t rock the boat...Used as an example...

We Asian-Americans support all non-white liberation movements and believe that all minorities in order to be truly liberated must have complete control over the political, economic and social institutions within their respective communities”.

We unconditionally, support the struggles of the Afro-American people, the Chicanos, and the American Indians in to attain freedom, justice and equality...

We Asian-Americans oppose the imperialist policies being pursued by the American government...

Professor Miyoshi has presented our views on the Vietnam war...We are unconditionally against the war in Vietnam...
some of us view the war as another one of white racist America’s trickbag….They are committing double genocide over there..Dig, if a black, brown or yellow brother is sent to Vietnam he is being sent to kill his yellow brother.. if the black, brown or yellow brother kills the Vietnamese..Mr. Charley comes out ahead, and if the Vietnamese kills the black brown or yellow brother, Mr. Charley again comes out ahead...This is a classical case of heads I win, tails you lose...

In conclusion, I would like to add that the Asian-American Political Alliance is not just another Sunday social club_.We are an action-oriented group, and we will not just restrict our activities to merely ethic issues, but to all issues that are of fundamental importance pertaining to the building of a new and a better world."

UC Berkeley Asian American 1969

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Photos from AAPA Newspaper 1969

AAPA Retort to Agnew "fat jap" Comment 1968

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Nixon~Agnew Retort 09-26-1968

"We must admit that vice—presidential candidate Spiro Agnew has kept his promise. His name is now a household word in the Japanese-American community.

The Asian—American Political Alliance vigorously protests the racist epithet, “fat Jap”, recently uttered by Agnew.

We must reluctantly concur with the Kerner Commission’s finding that “white racism” is the fundamental cause of civil disorders, and that “white racism” seems to have infected a person running for the second highest political office of this country.

We, as members of a racial minority, do not at all feel amused by racist type humor at our expense, or at the expense of any of our racial and ethnic brothers and sisters. We also feel that the so-called apology rendered afterward was wholly inadequate.

It is indeed a very sad commentary on white American culture to use pejorative terms in their relations with minority groups. It is also a sad commentary that Agnew appears to have such a low level of sensitivity as far as race relations are concerned. If the Republican party is victorious in November, we would humbly suggest to Nixon that he would refrain from sending Agnew on goodwill missions to the rest of the world with the exception of either Rhodesia or the Union of South Africa. (ed. note: in 1968, two apartheid countries)

Asian American Political Alliance

AAPA PERSPECTIVES October 1969

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Reprinted from ASIAN AMERICAN POLITICAL ALLIANCE,

Vol. 1, No. 6, October, 1969. Berkeley, page 3.

AAPA PERSPECTIVES

“The Asian American Political Alliance is people. It is a people’s alliance to effect social and political changes. We believe that the American society is historically racist and one which has systematically employed social discrimination and economic imperialism, both domestically and internationally, exploiting all non-white people in the process of building up their affluent society.

"They did so at the expense of all of us. Uncontrolled capitalism has pushed all of the non-white people into a social position so that only manual jobs with subhuman pay are open to them. Consequently, we have been psychologically so conditioned by the blue-eye—blond—hair standard that many of us have lost our perspective, We can only survive if “we know our place”—-shut up and accept what we are given, We resent this kind of domination and we are determined to change

"The goal of AAPA is political education and advancement of the movement among Asian people, so that they may make all decisions that affect their own lives, in a society that never asks people to do so. AAPA is not an isolated group, and should never profess to be such. Its only legitimacy and value is in the effects it has on many people, not just a small group of people. In the same vein, AAPA is not meant to isolate Asians from other people; it is unhealthy as well as unwise to do such a thing. AAPA must constantly expand and grow, and reach out to other people and groups. At the same time, AAPA must meet the needs of its own members and deal with its own problems.

"In the past political organizations have tended to subject themselves to rigid, traditional levels of structure in which a few make the decisions, present them to the body, and the body can vote either ‘yes” or “no.” This hierarchic organization, however, is only a manifestation of the elite control, primeval structure mentality in which you are not capable of making your own decisions, an idea drilled into you. from the foundations of this society.

"AAPA is only what the people make it. We have adopted a structure which better fits the needs and goals of our alliance, not a structure to which we have to adjust ourselves. Furthermore, there is no membership in AAPA in the strict sense of the word. There are workers who for common interests join together with one or more people to intensify the effectiveness of an action.

"Since May, 1968, AAPA has grown from a small group of students and community workers to a powerhouse for Asian thought and action. AAPA is now a member of the Third World Liberation Front, Asian Association, and Asian Coalition. Some past activities of Berkeley AAPA include: Free Huey Rallies at the Oakland Courthouse, Chinatown Forums, McCarran Act lobbies, MASC Boycott, Third World Liberation Front Strike, development of Asian Studies, and liaison with and development of other AAPA’s throughout the state.

"AAPA is only a transition for developing our own social identity, a multiplication of efforts. In fact, AAPA itself is not the important link but the ideas generated into action from it——that we Asian Americans are no longer going to kowtow to white America in order to gain an ounce of respect; that we must begin to build our own society alongside our black, brown and red brothers as well as those whites willing to effect fundamental social, economic, political changes; that we have the right for determining our own lives and asserting our yellow identity as a positive force in a new life based on human relationships and cooperation.”

Asians Unite! Antiwar Brochure 1969

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Asians Unite! U.S. War in Southeast Asia.

Asians unite! Number 2

U.S. Leaders March to War: Memorable Quotes

“When I speak of the Pacific Rim, I am putting the broadest possible construction on the term—the western coasts of South America, Central America, and our own continent, and extending beyond Australia and the Far East to India. There is no more vast or rich area for resource development or trade growth in the world today than this immense region, and it is virtually our own front yard…I emphasize that this is a largely underdeveloped area, yet an area rich in an immense variety of resources and potential capabilities. Were we California businessmen to play a more dynamic role in helping trade development in the Pacific Rim, we would have giant, hungry new markets for our products and vast new profit potentials for our firms.”

Rudolf Peterson, President, Bank of America,

in California Business Magazine

September, October 1968

“Now the Pacific has become an Anglo-Saxon lake and our line of defense runs through the chain of islands fringing the coast of Asia. It starts from the Philippines and continues through the Ryuku archipelago which includes its broad main bastion, Okinawa. Then it bends back through Japan and the Aleutian Chain to Alaska.”

Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of Pacific in 1949

“Examined dramatically, but more often quietly, the rest of Asia has been undergoing a profound, an exciting and on balance an extra-ordinarily promising transformation…In looking toward the future, however, we should not ignore the vital role Vietnam has played in making these developments possible. Whatever one may think of the ‘domino theory’, it is beyond question that without the American commitment in Vietnam Asia would be a far different place today…

This was vital factor in the turn around in Indonesia where a tendency toward fatalism is a national characteristic…And with its 100 million people and it’s 3,000 mile arc of islands containing the region’s richest resources. Indonesia constitutes by far the greatest prize in the South East Asian area…

The United States is a Pacific power. Europe has been withdrawing the remnants of empire, by the United States, with its coast reaching in an arc from Mexico to the Bering Straits, is one anchor of a vast westward across the Pacific…linked by the sea not only with those oriental nations on Asia’s Pacific litteral but at the same time with Occidental Australia and New Zealand, and with the island nations in between.”

Richard Nixon, 1967 writing in Foreign Affairs.

“The empire in Southeast Asia is the last major resource area outside the control of any one of the major powers on the globe…I believe that the conditions of the Vietnamese people, and the direction in which their future may be going, are at this stage secondary, not primary.”

Senator McGee (Wyoming) US Senate, 2-17-1965

“I am sure that the great American people, if only they knew the true facts and the background to the developments in South Vietnam, would agree with me that further bloodshed is unnecessary. However, in times of war and of hostilities the first casualty is truth.”

U Thant, Secretary General of the UN

February 25, 1965

“Now let us assume that we lost Indochina…the tin and tungsten that we so greatly value from that area would cease coming…So when the US votes 400 million dollars to help that war, we are not voting a give-away program. We are voting for the cheapest way to prevent the occurrence of something that would be of a most terrible significance to the United States of America, our security our power and the ability to get certain things we need from the riches of the Indochinese territory and from Southeast Asia.”

8-4-1953, President Eisenhower, governors’ conference

AAPA Position on VIETNAM 1969

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AAPA OCTOBER 1969 VOLUME NO.1, ISSUE NO. 6

“The history of mankind is one of continuous development from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom.” MAO TSE-TUNG

The Asian American Political Alliance supports all oppressed peoples and their struggles for liberation. A simple glance at the Viet Nam situation clearly defines our stand. The Vietnamese people have been oppressed for thousands of years—first by the Chinese, then the French, the Japanese, and finally by the United States. This oppression has progressed from merely paying tribute to being bombed daily. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilize all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their independence and liberty.

In 1945, the Vietminh forces, many who had given their lives working with the Allies through the Office of Special Services, made the mistake of believing U.S. rhetoric. As in 1919, when the U.S. promised China territorial integrity and preached self-determination for all peoples, so it was in Viet Nam in 1945. Viet Nam was officially split in the Geneva Agreement of 1954 to be unified before July 20, 1956. Ngo Dinh Diem, U.S. puppet and head of the South Vietnamese government, at that time refused to hold the 1956 referendum on reunification. The Vietnamese and Chinese people have now learned to watch the man’s hands and not his mouth.

The Vietnamese people not only watch but feel the “peace moves” of the U.S. Even though U.S. troops are slowly being withdrawn from Viet Nam proper, the tempo of the war is increasing. The Paris Peace talks are just a maneuver by the U.S. government to give the proper facade for its senseless war. Monthly U.S. bombings in Viet Nam have increased since Nixon took office. Nixon wants to “win” his war, even if through annihilation of the Vietnamese. Without people there can be no liberation struggle. One third of the rural population of. South Viet Nam has been driven to the cities and six percent of the land has been defoliated. The killing, bombing, starvation and disease exceed that caused by the Germans in World War II. The war is a struggle of survival for the Vietnamese. It is a necessity.

America is conducting a war of technological genocide in Viet Nam. Any human being, who agrees to participate in this senseless, inhuman war to defend the “free world” (domino theory), deserves to bear the suffering of the Vietnamese people. America must prove her superiority over Viet Nam; prove that a nuclear power can mobilize the kind of force required to contain guerilla warfare; prove her position as the protector of “certain inalienable rights”, such as life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The Vietnamese people, struggling for independence; democracy, peace, and neutrality, are resolved to drive out any imperialist forces from Viet Nam. Theirs is a war of human bonds and enduring spirit. They see their comrades, men, women, and children of all ages, die; they see a senseless destruction of the land. In their struggle for survival, ideoogy and organization has become almost meaningless; human relationships deepen and become the source of strength for the people.

The Asian American Political Alliance supports the ten demands of the National Liberation Front and recognizes the Vietnamese as people.

Yellow Symposium 1969

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Student conferences and symposiums played an important role in creating direction for the Asian American Movement. On January 11, 1969, AAPA, the Chinese Students Club and Nisei Student’s Club sponsored a symposium on the UC Berkeley campus with the title The Asian Experience in America/Yellow Identity. Widely attended by college students from throughout California, the symposium helped chart the direction for coming period of Asian American activism. Identity consciousness, Asian American studies, community organizing, student organizing, and support for the Third World Liberation Strike at San Francisco State College were focal points of the conference. Professors from Stanford, UC Berkeley and UC Davis were invited to speak on emerging topics in Asian American studies. A History of the Chinese and Japanese in America was presented by Stanford Lyman (Stanford University), the Asian policy of the US was presented by Paul Takagi (UC Berkeley) and Asians in the Melting Pot was presented by Isao Fujimoto (UC Davis).

At this symposium, George Woo, a member of the SF State College-based Intercollegiate Chinese For Social Action (ICSA), criticized the notion of developing an Asian American identity devoid of community meaning. ICSA was active in organizing Chinatown youth and took a more urgent militant approach to social issues. Arguing that identity without action was only a form of “mental masturbation,” Woo challenged the students to become concerned with the real conditions that people in the communities faced. He called for a reversal of the traditional brain drain of educated youth from the community. Lurleen Chew, another SF State College striker addressed the need for students to express their commitment to activism through the passage of a SF State College TWLF strike support resolution.

The Yellow Identity Symposium concluded with a resolution that fully supported the SF State College TWLF strike and the spread of the movement for Asian American Studies and Third World Colleges to other campuses. An important significance of this resolution was the identification of Asian Americans with other racialized minorities who were involved in their own civil rights and movements for self-determination. By then the press had already introduced the notion that Asian Americans were a model minority that through hard work and perseverance had overcome hardship and discrimination. The Yellow Identity Symposium repudiated the model minority thesis and asserted that Asian Americans were in support and agreement with the demands of blacks, Chicanos and Native Americans.

The next day, Sunday January 12, a statewide AAPA forum was held to map-out activities for the coming period. The intended statewide meeting evolved into an organizational meeting for the establishment of AAPA chapters on a national level. With representatives from thirteen campuses nationwide including, San Francisco, San Mateo, Los Angeles, Berkeley, San Jose, Sacramento, New York and Hawaii, a loose-knit network of AAPA chapters were established within the coming months. The discussions focused on common projects such as defining the content of Asian American Studies and facilitating community work in communities such as Japantown, Chinatown and Manilatown. Berkeley AAPA took on the responsibility of disseminating information to the various chapters. Its AAPA members supported the SF State College TWLF strike, the impending TWLF strike at UC Berkeley, and expansion of the TWLF movement to other campuses.

Yellow Symposium 1969

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Yellow Symposium 1969 Flyer

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asian experience /yellow identity
From: Asian Students of Chinese Students Club and Nisei Students Club
509-600 Eshleman Hall, University of California, Berkeley

Bring this, your invitation, to the 1st Asian Experience in America, Sat. Jan. 11, 1969, 9:00am-4:30pm Pauley Ballroom, ASUC Building UC Berkeley.

"If the Asian American is to live in a very complex American society and an even more complex world, and if he is to be able to assert his own humanity in these life spheres, he must know his own cultural history as an Asian American." 1968 An Asian American Student"

"theasianexperienceinamerica/identifiedyellowqueriesqueuesfriends"

"the asian flu in america, blackheads all; gardeners, cooks, laundrymen and toshiro mifune; the golden race, america the beautiful, glittering ghettoes, second class citizens with visiting rights; chinatown, manilatown, little tokyo relocated concentrated, beautification, hallelujah christian colonies; submissive females, passive males, mellow yellows, that strong silent type; run run shaw, made in japan, p.r. 95 %; japanophiles, sinophiles, you likee chop suey, chop chop, me no savee; white paper, brown paper, yellow paper, black paper, red paper, if I were god I’d make everybody white; third world liberation front, all men are brothers, love is a many splendored thing, black eyed blondes; we all live in a yellow submarine, anti-queue law, call me yellow, no vietnamese ever called me a nigger, let’s call a spade a spade, a jap a jap; buddhaheads transcendental meditation, Jesus is a’comin so get yourself ready for a hard day’s night; reparations for the opium wars, christianity the whole world over, the asians get what they deserve, they breed like rabbits anyways; that fat jap, that skinny chink, chinatown my chinatown, my little houseboy, sayonnara suzie wong; Free University for Chinatown Kids, Unincorporated"

Richard Aoki , Berkeley Barb Feb. 14, 1969 pg.4

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Berkeley Barb Feb.14-21 1969 pg. 4 article reprint

TWLF LEADER TELLS WHY HE’S WHERE IT’S AT

By Phineas Israeli

“ ‘As a child I was interned for four years in concentration camps in San Mateo and Utah.’

Richard Aoki takes another drag on his cigarette and continues to carefully and unemotionally describe his life under the gun of American racism.

Richard Aoki is a spokesman for the Third World Liberation Front at U.C.Berkeley.

After WW II, the Japanese-Americans were liberated from the ‘relocation centers’ and Richard began his education in black ghetto schools in the Bay Area.

‘Of my junior high graduating class, more than 5O% have been in jail or are in jail now. I see this as a reflection of their being unable to achieve a standard of living through traditional means.’

Richard attributes his schoolmates’ alienation from traditional means to the West Oakland ghetto’s ‘high rate of unemployment, substandard housing, inadequate educational institutions, inferior medical services, and constant police harassment.’

One high school teacher advised Richard that ‘I’d end up in San Quentin five years after I got out of school.’

‘I took it on a very personal level when they vamped on me, but in retrospect,’ he says now, ‘I see they couldn’t have acted in any other way because of the racist nature of the institution.’

When he was 17 Richard signed up for the Army hoping to attain a measure of ‘vertical mobility.’ He was offered a commission ‘but I told them I wanted to do some other things.’

After the Army Richard spent two years at a junior college in a pre-med program. But, ‘I gave that up upon being convinced of the racist nature of the medical profession. There is no institution in this country that doesn’t have it.

‘I started asking around about medical schools and found that there was quota system for Asian-American.’

Having failed to Find a racism-free :one in either the service or school Richard went on the road. He spent six years ‘wandering about the country, just seeing what it’s all about.’

Along the way he worked as a truck driver, hospital orderly, clerk and factory hand. He learned two things: that there aren’t any areas in this country really free of racism, and that his thing was to work for the Asian-American community.

‘I became convinced that this is my country, and if it’s going to become a more positive society then I have to stay here and help.’

Leaving the road, he returned to school, graduated with honors in sociology, and is now a grad student at UC. The Third World Strike is his way of creating a racism-free zone for this country’s Third Worlders.

‘I think the strike’s going on quiet well. Morale’s quite high, we still think we’re going to win.”

Richard believes the Third World College will help the minority communities by creating ‘a circular thing where the youth leaves the community, comes on campus and then goes back to the community.’

The TWLF has put a great deal of energy into building strike support in the Third World community. ‘If we convince them that we’re fighting in their best interests, then there will be another dimension to the struggle.’

The Front expects this support to materialize Thursday (BARB press time) on campus, and the future direction of their strike depends on Thursday’s turn-out.

‘The Third World College will be instituted at U.C.’ Richard says flatly, ‘it’s just a matter of time. The strike is a manifestation of the question of who’s going to control it.’

Though the TWLF has received a favorable response from some faculty and administrators, ‘the main sources of power at the university have indicated an intransigent attitude of non-cooperation with the Third World Liberation Front.’

The Front is aware that many white strikers are dissatisfied with the strike’s tactical pace, but ‘they haven’t seen anything yet, we’ve just started.’

‘Multi-faceted systems of pressure will be exerted on the University.’

‘Nothing much has really happened here -- a few beatings, a few fights on the line, petty acts of vandalism which we disavow, I personally disavow petty acts of vandalism because they’re petty.’

Richard allows that the TWLF at Cal is not in the same place as the Front at State. He says that the Cal branch of TWLF still considers itself to be ‘responsible’, and has been trying ‘to keep a lid on things.’

But he warns that the powers in the University had better move quickly to meet the demands before the lid flies off and ‘everyone does his own thing.’ “

Photos from UC Berkeley TWLF Strike 1969

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UC Berkeley TWLF Solidarity Newsprint 03/1969

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Solidarity TWLF Demands UC Berkeley 1969

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Solidarity!

"The Third World Liberation Front demands the following:

1. That funds be allocated for the implementations of the Third World College

a. Department of Asian Studies—that positions and staff be set up to develop the Asian Studies Department controlled by Asian people.

b. Department of Black Studies as proposed by the AASU.

c. Department of Chicano Studies

d. Any other ethnic studies programs as they are developed and presented.

2. Third World People in Positions and Power

Recruitment of more Third World faculty in every department and discipline and proportionate employment of Third World people at all levels from Regents,

Chancellors, Vice-Chancellors, faculty, administrative personnel, clerical, custodial,

Security, service personnel, and all other auxiliary positions and contractual vending services throughout the University system.

Specific demands for immediate implementation;

a. hiring of Third World Financial Counselors (Special Service

b. Third World Chancellors in the University System

c. Third World people put in the Placement Career as Counselors

d. Third World Deans in the L and S Department

e. Third World people in the Admissions Office

3. Specific demands for immediate implementation:

a. Admission, financial aid, and academic assistance to any Third World student

with potential to learn and contribute as assessed by Third World people.

b. 30 Work study positions for the Chinatown and Manilatown projects, and 10

EOP counselors, including full-time Asian Coordinator.

c. Expansion of Work study program Jobs to the AASU East campus

High School Project, to include at least 30 positions.

d. That the Center for Chicano Studies be given permanent status with funds to

implement its programs.

4. Third World Control over Third World Programs

That every University program financed federally or otherwise that involves the Third World communities(Chicano, Black, Asian) must have Third World people in control at the decision making level from funding to program implementation.

5. That no disciplinary action will be administered in any way to any student, workers, teachers, or administrators during and after the strike as a consequence of their participation in the strike.

6. These demands supercede any previous demands heretofore put forth by members of the Third World Liberation Front."

Third World Liberation Front

Solidarity AAPA Demands UC Berkeley 1969

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photo: UCB TWLF Strike picketline (AAPA Newspaper 1969)

Solidarity Newsprint

Asian Studies Proposal

(Submitted by the Asian American Political Alliance)

GENERAL PURPOSE AND PRINCIPLES

The Asian experience in America is unique. The lives of the Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, and other Asian people have similarities and differences, but generally fall under the category of the Yellow Experience. The phenomena of a colorful people living in a white society deserves study, understanding, and sensitive analysis. It deserves this study because these colorful people need it, in order to understand themselves and the society in which they live.

The effects of American and Western civilization on the non-Western world have been profound. From the earliest contacts of European explorers with the Chinese and

Southeast Asians to the present-day Western military, economic, and political activities and spheres in Asia, the 'white' man has been involved with the ‘yellow’ man.

From the study of these two related experiences- Asians in America and Westerners in Asia—we can perhaps arrive at some understanding about the ‘yellow-white' relationship at its social and psychological roots and manifestations:

Specific Course Proposals

the Asian in America

A) Social Psychology: Dynamics of Racism

The natural alliance of peoples of color results from the exploitation according to and exclusively because of sheer visibility. In this sense, it is simplest put that we know when we are being lied to. Such a perspective as we are attempting to develop could not necessarily emerge from a view of American culture only. We take heart and example from the continued existence of our culture abroad, which proves to us the viability of our heritages the world over.

To explore the social psychological dynamics of being yellow in a white society.

Method: experiential, accounts, testing, group discussions, reference groups, interpersonal relations. Specifics for Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, ghetto, middle class, wealthy.

B) The Asian and His Community

Chinatowns: Development, problems, characteristics

Filipinos: Uniqueness, characteristics, etc.

Identification with community; alienation from the same.

Living in White society: Implications on community identity

Japanese Community: Where? Characteristics, etc.

C) Relationships Among Asian Communities

A study of the inter-community tensions and harmony: distances, effects of national origins, the rural-urban and middle class ghetto relations, and the historical effects

American society . . . - e . g . relocations, politics, economics.

D) America, An Asian Perspective

Political Economy of America

Anti-Asian laws: History and Meaning

The ‘White Man’: What it means????

Our Piece of the Pie: Its value… acculturation, accommodation, and affluence.

E) Community Workshop: Relevant Education

A major problem of the ghetto is the failure of its youth who are fortunate enough to learn a skill, to return the benefits of that skill to the community. This problem is neglected by the existing educational system, which prepares the individual for the assumption of an economically productive position within society. The skilled individual who can and does return to aid the community is the exception, not the rule. The Third World individual who does return is an even greater rarity because the University which already produces too few of these individuals has few Third World people initially and lacks the relevant courses catering to the specific needs of the community.

F) Language: Contemporary Linguistic Skills

The problem of language: dual life and language as presented by immigrant life and handicaps presents the need for Cantonese as well as the desirability of other Asian languages as spoken in the United States.

G) Creative Workshops -

Using traditional and non-traditional media, drama, literature, mass communications, art, music, photography, etc.; in workshops that would develop an Asian American perspective through unique and various art-forms.

The Asian Experience:

The roots of the Asian-American lies in Asia. A knowledge of history is essential;
most pertinent is history involving Western man. Our course offerings in this part of the department would thus center around the nature of the Asian person, and his relationship with Western man. We include the study of ‘Overseas Asians' in this focus, because most Overseas Asians remain in Asia outside of their national origins. Also, Overseas Asian (except Asian-Americans) are distant from America. Community work there is difficult: histoty and current literature are the best we can do.

A) The Roots of Asian Man: Social Conditions for Emigration

Social Structure--Family, Occupations, Politics, and Religion

Economic Condition-labor opportunities, poverty, mobility, class conflict

Western Effects--War, trade, etc.

B. Westernization of Asia: Imperialism, Colonization, Modernization and Effects

Europe: 15th thru 20^th Century

America: 19th thru 20th Century

The study of cities—Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Singapore—as case studies in westernization . . . a study of customs, values and social perceptions.

C. Overseas Asian Communities

Asians in various contexts: Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Asia in comparison
with Asians in America.

D. Asian Revolutionary Ideology: Communism

A core course on ideology, organization of communism in the Asian countries

Eg: China and the thought of Mao.

E. Revolutions and Social Movements

Student Movements in Asia

Conditions for Revolution in Asia

Effects of the West in Revolution and Unrest in Asia.

Solidarity TWLF UC Berkeley 1969 Sather Gate Rallies

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Photos from Solidarity Newsprint 1969

Community Movements

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Shortly after the period of organizing students to struggle for the establishment of various Asian American Studies programs on the college campuses, the activism naturally spilled over into the surrounding communities. This took the form of establishing community centers and organizations that focussed on “serve the people” programs. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Asian American activism found its new direction in the opening of a number centers. In San Francisco, this included the Asian Community Center, Asian Legal Services, Chinese Progressive Association, International Hotel Tenants Association, Japanese Community Youth Center, J-Town Collective and Kearny Street Workshop. In the East Bay, East Bay Asians For Community Action and Berkeley Asian Community Center provided avenues for the community to utilize its centers to organize around community needs. Similarly, in New York Chinatown, the Basement Workshop was established that provided space for community media projects. In one evening, 2,000 posters were silk-screened for use in a police brutality demonstration at City Hall. ESL, citizenship and youth programs were held at the Basement Workshop.

Much different from campus, community activism had to speak to the local needs and conditions of the Asian American community. Insofar as the movement was grounded in local conditions; grassroots leadership and participation was realized. The Asian Community Center became a focal point of local activism in 1974 when Jung Sai garment and Lee Mah Electronic workers used the location for community strike support activities. In 1971, the Chinese American community utilized both Asian Community Center and Chinese Progressive Association to organize welcoming activities for the visit by the Chinese Ping Pong Delegation to the US. For over two decades, the longing of community residents for improved US-China relations had been suppressed by US Cold War politics and control of the Chinese American community by the Kuomintang Party (KMT) that was based in Taiwan. Locations such as the ACC and CPA provided political space in which this imbalance was radically altered.

Another mobilizing point for Asian American movement was the struggle against the eviction of the International Hotel tenants in San Francisco. The International Hotel began as a local fight between a local developer and mostly Filipino and Chinese residents living within the Manilatown area. But within this local background were multiple levels of power that represented globalization—in the form of Bay Area Regional master plans, Pacific Rim development and Asian finance capital. These forces had already destroyed most of Manilatown and were eliminating many existing housing units the adjoining Chinatown (mostly bachelor hotel rooms), replacing them with office highrise buildings.

Similarly, redevelopment-related issues were focal points of protest in other Asian American communities. In 1973, SF Japantown, the Committee Against Nihonmachi Evictions (CANE), consisting of the J-Town Collective and community individuals, emerged to address the needs of residents and small businesses. CANE became involved in supporting low-income affordable housing issues and protests against destruction of residential and small business districts. It had a membership base of over 300 residents who were discontented over direction of redevelopment largely owned by Japanese multinational corporations.

AAPA: DELANO WEEKEND 1970

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AAPA APRIL-MAY ISSUE 1970

REFLECT IONS

For the first time since the taking of the land and the forced exodus of Japanese-Americans from the arms of Ca1ifornia, a group of Asian-American students became involved in the reality of the agricultural workers’ plight. A weekend spent at Delano, California, the center of the grape workers’ three year old strike, brought to these Asian-American students a greater consciousness of the need for worker— student unity in the struggle for survival..

Our visit to Delano brought to us a greater sense of reality. Many of up have the aura of academic success, but in this experience with basic human relations, we were painfully inadequate. We found that we could only communicate in a very limited way with fellow Asians, Asians who are risking starvation because their rights to demand better working conditions and better wages are denied. Luckily, the able labor organizers of the Chicano and Filipino Communities understood our weakness and we found that we were able to learn about the problems through them.

The story is not new to us. The struggle for life and human dignity by the workers of America has been a sad epic. It is a struggle that some of our relatives waged not too long ago in the past. Today there is a new and serious problem added, Chemical sprays are being used in the fields without enough protection for the workers. Many workers have become poisoned by these chemicals, but the irresponsible use of these chemicals has not stopped. Medical care is a luxury these farm workers cannot afford. Even the hospitals discriminate against non-white people. The few people in the medical profession can do very little because there are many colleagues who would ostracize them for helping.

The effects of racial discrimination is very noticeable in Delano. There are clear signs of differing levels of prosperity among the townspeople. The run-down older section of town is inhabited by Asians of Philippine Island ancestry, Chicanos, and Black-Americans, while the well-kept more prosperous section of town is white. Some of us went to a new shopping center near the Filipino Hall. The customers were of all races. We looked at the prices and noticed the discrepancy in buying power that the farm workers and their families are faced with.

There is much to be done at Delano. The people are beginning to develop a cooperative store, but money to build is scarce. There are plans for a farm workers’ hospital which is very badly needed. The land for building has been purchased through the will and the foresight of the people who very often are forced to subsist on fifty or sixty dollars a month.

Some of us have returned many times to Delano. The evidence of the need for worker-student unity is clear. The welfare of all of us is involved.

Paula

AAPA: FORGET MANILATOWN? 1970

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AAPA April-May Issue 1970

"Who are the people of Manilatown in San Francisco? I have walked through Kearny St. between Washington and Broadway, but the thought did not enter my mind that I had walked by the Filipino community. How can 1200 people be ignored? But yet they are. One newspaper article has called Manilatown as the 'home of the forgotten Filipino.'

The average age of the people in Manilatown is around 63 years. Many find the pool halls as their only recreation. They rely on their compadres living in this area for companionship and aid when they need it. The Manilatown Information Center and the United Filipino Hall are there, but only a few frequent themselves there.

There is another group here in Manilatown -- the youth in their 20’s and 30’s. They congregate in the late afternoon and evenings at the UFA hall, mainly to play cards and socialize. Many or these guys could not be termed “acceptable” by normal standards. Many are drop-outs, not only from school but from society as well. Some are newly arrived immigrants. All find it uncomfortable to converse in English.

Manilatown is a part of the North Beach-Chinatown target area— it is true in theory but not in fact. There is one Filipino representative on the local EOC Board. Not one position is stationed at Manilatown. Only recently the EOC has assigned one of its staff to this area, but on a part time basis. A $34,000 Manilatown proposal has been whittled down to a token. Most of this money is allocated for 2 paid staff, with little remaining for needed programs.

Interested Filipino students from…saw the need to focus attention on Manilatown. We saw a need not only to develop a long range program, but also which would be useful and concrete to the community now. We saw 4 pressing problems to this community: education, recreation, health and housing. The first objective is to determine what resources, facilities, and agencies are available in each of these problem areas. The second objective is to discover ways and means on how the Manilatown community can benefit from our efforts.

EDUCATION—-acquainting Manilatown community with such pertinent information, such as medicare, social security, welfare benefits, disability Insurance, etc.

RECREATION——handicraft sessions; bi-monthly fishing trips; movies; checkers and chess.

HEALTH——exploring possibilities for providing a free medical clinic several times a week.

HOUSING—probing into the question of better and adequate housing conditions."

Frank

AAPA I-Hotel Open Letter 1969

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AN OPEN LETTER...

AAPA newspaper

April 7, 1969

"There is a crisis at the International Hotel on Kearny Street. Demolition of this housing unit looms like a black cloud. Individuals and groups have mobilized to protect the people’s rights; they are striving to fend off the invasion of big business in this area of Manilatown.

What about the hotel residents themselves? How do they view this matter? The Human Rights Commission of San Francisco obtained the following information from a survey:

“Most of the residents of the International Hotel say they wish to remain there until a way can be found that they can relocate as a community in that area. Many are Filipinos some are Chinese. Many are veterans of Bataan. A number of the men support their families in the Philippines, send their sons to college there and then bring them to the United States for better opportunities. Several fathers and sons are sharing rooms in the hotel.

The community kitchen in the hotel, the nearby restaurants, the barber shop and pool hall, the United Filipino Association meeting room, the Manilatown Information Center, and the sidewalk outside are focuses of social and cultural life and friendships. Filipinos from other parts of the Bay Area go to the International Hotel for these cultural relationships.

The residents of the hotel ask ‘Where can we find a place as good as this for $35 a month? If we have to move, will we have to move into worse places? Will we be scattered from our countrymen, the language we speak the foods we eat, the jobs we work at, the friends to help us, the community kitchen where we can even cook the fish we catch?’

(The above excerpt is from a letter to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors dated March 28, from the Human Rights people.)

International Hotel is a low-rent dwelling unit. The people who live there are elderly, disabled veterans, and other persons who cannot afford the higher rents elsewhere. They do not want to become separated from their friends, security of familiar surroundings, a budget they can barely afford, that is, the residents ask not to disrupt and uproot their whole way life.

The International Hotel stands at a critical point in its existence. Eviction notices were given Monday, April 21, and demolition proceedings will begin June 1st. The tenants will be thrown out without any guarantee of adequate housing. The hotel residents are being harassed by the management to vacate immediately, the power in the community kitchen is being turned on and off, the garbage has not been taken out, the bathrooms have been allowed to get dirty, linen is provided only when demanded, But what is most devastating is the collaboration of the City and hotel owner to destroy this residence for a parking lot.

The tenants and the Filipino community are united in their stand:

1) DESIRE TO STAY—-renovation of building with money received from fire insurance.

2) CITY OF SF TO INSURE THE WELFARE OF ITS PEOPLE--because of critical shortage of low-cost housing, which people can afford ~ the city should intervene in the destruction of this low-rent dwelling.

3) MAINTAIN THE COMMUNITY--if relocation is inevitable, the tenants move only if adequate housing is provided and tenants are moved as a community.

4) HABITATION AROUND KEARNY ST.-CHINATOWN AREA--if residents must be relocated, they are placed around the Kearny St.—Chinatown area."

FRANK CELADA

Asian Legal Services 1971

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Asian Legal Services information flyer

Chinatown Draft Counseling Center 1969

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AAPA Newspaper FEB. 1969 VOL 1 NO.3 P.4

Draft counselors needed in Chinatown

"On 4 January 1969, the Chinatown Draft Counseling Center will begin its services for all Asian American draft age young men. Its headquarters shall be at the Chinatown Legal Aid Society at 755 Commercial Street, and it will operate every Saturday from about 12 to 8p.m. Why draft counseling, and why in Chinatown?

In America, regardless of race, color or creed, there is a distinct lack of knowledge on the part of draft-aged young men about the workings and regulations of the Selective Service System, that arm of the U.S. government which handles military conscription. This fact is no surprise, because the entire structure of the Selective Service System and its regulations reflect its attitude of placing the burden of proof upon the young men of America. Unlike the court system in the U. S., you are guilty until proven innocent; you are inductable until proven deferred or exempt. In the context of a game, the draft system throws the ball to the young registrant and forces him to make the next play. Not only must the young man make his play quickly and at the convenience of the draft system, but the rules of the game were never explained to him. Thus the chance of losing the game is very high for the young man, and it's a game of life or death.

The extreme lack of true knowledge and abundance of misinformation about the draft by young registrants is reflected in statements and questions such as these: I thought you had to be a religious person to get a C.O. (Conscientious Objector status)? ; I have a wife and two kids, but I don’t think that will keep me out; and I 'm too physically fit to be exempt. All these statements are questionable if not untrue. With information like this, how can any young man make an intelligent decision with the draft? That is why the Draft Counseling Center has started. The four counselors who will begin on 4 January 1969, have felt it necessary to furnish the young draft-age men information so as to make more intelligent decisions in regard to the draft. We feel that by making known the rules and regulations of the Selective Service System the registrants will be better able to carry their own cases and will decide for themselves. In a situation where the draft system regards young men as inductable until proven deferred or exempt and at the same time supplies little or no information on the draft itself, we feel that draft counseling is a necessity for the community of young men.

Why draft Counseling in Chinatown then? There are two obvious major reasons. First the Chinatown Draft Counseling Center will be bilingual. Chinese, hopefully in several dialects, will be spoken by the draft counselors in the service to the young men o£ the community. Later, we may be able to provide counseling in Filipino and Japanese languages. In a system where information is not furnished to the young American registrant to the draft, even less is furnished to that American male whose native language is not English. Not only does he not understand the common vernacular of the draft system, but he can in no way comprehend the complex legal explanations for the different legal statuses from C.O. to III-A Hardship deferments. Thus the Draft Counseling Center will provide in Chinatown a service to that individual whose native language is not English, who does not understand the draft system and who has been asked to participate in the functions (Army) of the United States.

Secondly, the Draft Counseling Center is working in Chinatown for two closely related reasons. To begin with, Chinatown in relation to the larger society of America, is culturally isolated. The young men of Chinatown do not understand the inner workings of American life outside of Chinatown, and consequently cannot comprehend the full meaning of the Selective Service System and its regulations, which are a part of that life outside the ghetto. We, of the Draft Counseling Center, feel that by furnishing information about the draft to these young men, that they can place the system into their own perspective. Lastly, many of the alternatives and deferments provided by the Selective Service System are culturally and institutionally deprived by the American society to the Chinatown young men. Occupational, Conscientious Objection and even student deferments are not easy to come by for the Asian ghetto dweller. The Chinatown Draft Counseling Center feels that there is an intense need for information about the draft and alternatives for Chinatown’s young men. Since many alternatives are in reality closed to the Chinatown's registrants, those that are available must be made known to members of the community. We, of the Chinatown Draft Counseling Center, intend to fill this need and serve the interests of the young men of Chinatown. We welcome interested persons who wish to help or donate money to contact

Chinatown Draft Counseling Center c/o

San Francisco Neighborhood Legal

Assistance Foundation

755 Commercial Street

San Francisco, California

Saturdays, about Noon to 8:00 pm"

Free University for Chinatown Kids founded November 1968

2008-01-06T13:45:00.000-08:00

AAPA Newspaper Ad FEB. 1969 VOL 1 NO.3 P.4

Where did the term Third World begin?

2007-12-30T18:09:00.000-08:00

AAPA Newspaper Vol.1 No.4 1969 Article

"The Bandung Conference (Indonesia) of April 1955 was the first instance when representatives of a large number of “underdeveloped” nations congregated. The Bandung Conference was one of the major impetuses in the development of Third World consciousness among the nations of Asia, Latin America and Africa. The following are excerpts from Chou Enlai’s (Peoples Republic of China) speech at the conference:

'The people of Asia and Africa created brilliant ancient civilizations and made tremendous contributions to mankind. But ever since modern times, most of the countries of Asia and Africa in varying degrees have been subjected to colonial plunder and oppression, and have been thus forced to remain in a stagnant state of poverty and backwardness. Our voices have been suppressed, our aspirations shattered, and our destiny placed in the hands of others. Thus, we have no choice but to rise against colonialism. Suffering from the same cause and struggling for the same aim, we the Asian and African peoples have found it easier to understand each other and have long had deep sympathy and concern for one another.

‘...However, the rule of colonialism in this region has not yet come to an end, and new colonialists are attempting to take the place of the old ones. Not a few of the Asian and African peoples are still leading a life of colonial slavery. Not a few of the Asian and African peoples are still subjected to racial discrimination and deprived of human rights ...We need to develop our countries independently with no outside interference and in accordance with the will of the people.

...the days when the Western powers controlled our destiny are already past. The destiny of Asian and African countries should be taken into the hands of the peoples themselves. We strive to realize our own...Independence. but this does not mean the rejection of…cooperation with any country outside of the Asian-African region. However, we want to do away with the exploitation of backward countries in the East by colonial powers in the West and to develop the independent and sovereign economy of our own countries. Complete independence is an objective for which the great majority of Asian and African countries have to struggle for a long time_.

‘...we Asian and African countries, which are more or less under similar circumstances, should be the first to cooperate with one another in a friendly manner and put peaceful coexistence into practice. The discord and estrangement created among the Asian and African countries by colonial rule in the past should no longer be there. We Asian and African countries should respect one another and eliminate any suspicion and fear which may exist between us.

This meeting of ours was not easily brought about. Though there are among us many different views, they should not influence the common desires that we all hold. Our conference ought to give expression to our common desires and thus make itself a treasured page in the history of Asia and Africa.’

—-Chou En-lai

1955

Ed. Note :Non-alignment and underdevelopment defined the "Third World". Asia, Africa and Latin America underdevelopment stemmed from European colonialism exploiting their natural resources, markets and cheap labor. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) saw the Third World as part of a worldwide strategy against U.S. and Soviet Union worldwide hegemony. This "Three Worlds" analysis placed the U.S. and the Soviet Union within the First World; Europe, Japan and the Soviet Satellite Countries in the Second World; and the underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America within the Third World.

What is the origin of the saying "Serve the People"?

2007-12-30T16:06:00.000-08:00

The saying "Serve the People " originated in China and then was popularized in the United States during the 1960's. “Serve the people”, translated in chinese as “serve the masses”.

In a speech titled, “Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art,” given May 1942, Mao Tse-tung explained,

“The motive of serving the masses is inseparably linked with the effect of winning their approval; the two must be united...”

In this speech, Mao quoted a poem by Lu Hsun, a revolutionary 20^th century writer,

“This couplet from a poem by Lu Hsun should be our motto:

'Fierce-browed, I coolly defy a thousand pointing fingers,
Head-bowed, like a willing ox I serve the children.'

The ‘thousand pointing fingers’ are our enemies, and we will never yield to them, no matter how ferocious. The ‘children’ here symbolize the proletariat and the masses. All Communists, all revolutionaries, all revolutionary literary and art workers should learn from the example of Lu Hsun and be oxen for the proletariat and the masses, bending their backs to the task until their dying day.”

Later in September 1944, Mao gave a speech titled, “Serve The People” which coined the well known phrase.

In the United States, the Black Panther Party in Oakland used the phrase “Serve the People”, calling their many community services, “Serve the People programs”

An article in THE BLACK PANTHER newspaper, April 6, 1969 titled, SERVING THE PEOPLE reflected on the Lu Hsun poem and Yenan speech as well. It read,

“The Black Panther Party is a political party established to create revolutionary political power for Black People and is continuing steadily to serve the People heart and soul. . . Our Cardinal Rule is:

‘Have faith in the People, and faith in the Party.’ This faith derives from an undying love for our people and the awareness of a need for governmental eclipse. We, as the vanguard of the oppressed masses, realize that we must and will serve the People heart and soul. The need and wants of the People must be fulfilled, and we, as Huey P. Newton says, shall be like an oxen to be ridden by the People. The exploited and oppressed people's needs are land, bread, housing, education, freedom, clothing, justice and peace and the Black Panther Party shall not, for a single day, alienate ourselves from the masses and forget their needs for survival, but instead institute to the People faith to the death.”

International Hotel Fight Against Eviction

2007-12-20T18:14:00.000-08:00

International Hotel Eviction Struggle 1968-1977

2007-12-20T15:29:00.000-08:00

On October 28, 1968, the first eviction notice was served on 150 elderly Filipino and Chinese tenants of the International Hotel in the Manilatown district of San Francisco. This marked the beginning of a nine-year long anti-eviction campaign against financial district redevelopment interests. Widespread student and community grass-roots support imprinted this event as a milestone in Asian American civil rights history. The campaign culminated in the deployment of over three hundred riot police, mounted patrols, anti-sniper units and fire ladders in a 3AM eviction raid. A three thousand person human barricade was brutally cleared away by authorities before tenants were physically removed from the premises.

The International Hotel was located on the final block in a once thriving Filipino American enclave. Originally consisting of over ten square blocks and located near the edge of San Francisco Chinatown, Manilatown was considered home to many Filipino farmworkers, merchant marines and service workers. During the 1960s, financial district encroachment had slated much of the residential Manilatown community for "higher use" development.

The original intent of International Hotel owner Walter Shorenstein, President of Milton Meyer Co., was to demolish the building in order to build a multi-leveled parking lot on the site. In protest, tenants, represented by the United Filipino Association (UFA), marched to Milton Meyer Co. offices and were successful in obtaining a lease agreement to be signed on March 16, 1969. However, in the early morning hours of March 16, a suspicious arson fire swept through the north wing of the second floor of the International Hotel. Three tenants, Pio Rosete, Marcario Salermo and Robert Knauff, were killed in the fire. Milton Meyer & Co. canceled the lease agreement and used the fire as justification for the demolition of an unsafe building.

Mounting opposition forced Shorenstein to sign a three-year lease scheduled to end June 30, 1972. In the meantime, the building went through extensive renovation project at the hands of hundreds of student and community volunteers. Abandoned street-level store fronts were replaced with community centers. Burnt-out hotel rooms were rebuilt, plastered and painted.

International Hotel storefronts such as the Asian Community Center, Chinese Progressive Association and Kearny Street Workshop became conduits for political, social and cultural transformation of the S.F. Chinatown-Manilatown area. Community center participants included student activists from the Third World Liberation Front strikes of San Francisco State College and UC Berkeley. Veteran Chinese American labor activists of the 1930s and individuals involved in the campaign to normalize relations between the US and People's Republic of China also saw the International Hotel block as an alternative to the more conservative Chinese Six Companies establishment.

By March 1974, Shorenstein transferred property ownership to a Chinese-Thai liquor baron, Supasit Mahaguna, who held title to the property under the name Four Seas Investment Corporation. The property transfer had the effect of changing the target of the struggle from local big capital to foreign Asian capital. Negotiations with Mahaguna for lease extensions proved fruitless and eventually, Sheriff Richard Hongisto was mandated by California Supreme Court decision to carry out the eviction in 1977.

In this nine year period, the key factor for the series of eviction postponements, numerous court stays and intervention by local politicians, was public support. The participation of volunteers and the organization of the tenants had built a new level of community solidarity and public opposition to the eviction. A newly formed tenant organization, International Hotel Tenants Association (IHTA) was formed as a democratically elected representative organization for the tenants. Its daily functions involved caring for the general welfare needs of the mostly elderly Filipino and Chinese residents.

Following the tumultuous forced eviction, tenants and community members continued to lobby for low-income housing on the International Hotel site. With public support, they were able to forestall Four Seas' development plans for twenty years. Ground-breaking was originally scheduled in 1998 to build a parochial school on the ground floors with 104 units of low-income housing on the upper floors. Bureaucratic delays will postpone construction into the next millenium. Due to community input and pressure, a Manilatown Heritage Museum and cultural center has been incorporated into the construction plans. The museum will be a testimonial to the dedication and memory of the International Hotel tenants.

SAVE THE INTERNATIONAL HOTEL PAUNAWA

2007-12-20T15:19:00.000-08:00

INTERNATIONAL HOTEL PAUNAWA October 1970 p.2

International Hotel Committee

“Chinatown and Manilatown occupy seventy square blocks in North San Francisco. To the north are the gaudy nightclubs of North Beach, to the south and east stand the buildings of San Francisco's financial district, and to the west are the plush hotels of Nob Hill. The crowded, shabby streets of Chinatown and Manilatown stand in sharp contrast to the affluent surroundings. The Chinatown-Manilatown area has the highest population density of elderly persons in the nation. The overcrowding and poverty result in the highest tuberculosis and suicide rate in the nation. Every year 6000 newly arrived immigrants take up residence in the Chinatown ghetto adding to the problems.

EVICTED

In December 1968 residents of the International Hotel, one of the few low-income housing facilities in the area, were told to vacate the hotel immediately so that a parking lot could be built on the site. Protests and demonstrations were mounted in the community in an effort to save the hotel. Finally the owner of the hotel, Milton Meyer, Inc., agreed to lease the hotel to the United Filipino Association (UFA). The lease, however was never signed. The night before the signing of the lease was to take place, a mysterious fire broke out in the hotel. Three tenants were killed in the blaze that completely destroyed the north wing of the building. Lease negotiations were broken off. Evidence pointed to arson as the cause. However both Milton Meyer Inc. and city officials claimed the fire was an accident.

Immediately afte r the fire, the city moved to condemn the building. They offered to tear the building down for Milton Meyer Inc. at no cost. Hotel tenants and the United Filipino Association decided to fight the condemnation. Picket lines appeared in front of city hall and the offices of Milton Meyer, Inc.. UFA lawyers a suit against Milton Meyer, Inc., charging that the company was negligent in its operation of the hotel.

HASSLED

Meanwhile, hotel residents were harassed and intimidated. Kitchen facilities were locked up. Tenants often found themselves without electricity, sanitary facilities were not maintained. The city relocation agency began to displace tenants out of the hotel. Mr. Wing Lew, a resident of the hotel for twenty years, \was forcibly moved to another hotel three blocks away .He struggled back despite the fact that he could barely walk. Unfortunately strained from the constant harassment, some tenants sought other housing.

The picketing and the campaign to mount public opinion against Milton Meyer, Inc. began to have its effect. In the face of declining business and mounting public support for the UFA campaign to save the hotel, Milton Meyer, Inc. agreed in July, 1969 to lease the hotel to UFA for two years, with a third year optional. However the signing of the lease was not a total victory for the UFA. Under the new lease the United Filipino Association agreed to pay rent of $40,000 per year. In addition the UFA would pay property taxes on the building which amount to around $25,000 per year.

The UFA found itself in possession of a dilapidated, unsanitary, unsafe building. In the course of time, tenants of the hotel and Asian students began to rebuild. The volunteers came from as far away as Los Angeles and New York to make the hotel a decent, low-cost dwelling. The first step was to repair the fire ravaged North wing at a cost of $80,000. The cost would have been considerably higher if much of the work had not been done by student and community volunteers. Donations of furniture, paint, and building materials together with an abundance of manpower brought about the change. What was once a run-down hotel is now a real home for the elderly Filipino and Chinese residents. Cracks and holes were patched, walls were repainted, and old furniture was repaired or replaced. Often on Saturdays, the hotel was jammed with volunteer workers. As rooms were renovated, people moved into the storefronts on the ground floor. Most of the spaces were sub-leased to service oriented programs. They sought to serve the needs of the community. The Asian Community Center provides a supplemental food program to expectant mothers with small children. In addition, they have a free film every weekend for the elderly in the community. Also housed in the building is the Chinatown Youth Counci1, an organization that attempts to serve the needs of street kids.

The services offered at the International Hotel and the entire block have achieved recognition in the community to help overcome the tremendous problems which plague it.

Recreation programs were created in the hotel. Excursions outside the community, monthly dinners, weekly brunches, and a few other successful programs were Instituted by the workers to reach out to the tenants. The tenants themselves have taken the responsibility of running many of the programs.

UNITY

The generation gap between young workers and the elderly has been bridged through their interaction at these recreation events. Also, tenant participation in the rebuilding of the hotel has given strength and spirit to the whole hotel community. All in all, the underlying bond between the tenant and the worker is their common goal: to build a new way of life and a new home.

The strength behind the hotel is the people who are served. They come not only from the Chinatown-Manilatown community, but from as far away as New York and Hong Kong. In the coming struggles they along with the tenants of the International Hotel will deal decisively with the owner. Then, hopefully, he will understand that human rights are more important than property rights.”

International Hotel Tenants and supporters

2007-12-19T17:31:00.000-08:00

Portsmouth Square I-Hotel Rally Skit

I-Hotel Tenants protest at City Hall

S.F. Journal Newspaper I-Hotel photos August 1977

2007-12-19T17:02:00.000-08:00

People Come First at the I-Hotel 1972

2007-12-19T16:06:00.000-08:00

International Hotel tenants and volunteers

WEI MIN MARCH 1972 VOL.1 N.6

PEOPLE COME FIRST AT THE INTERNATIONAL HOTEL

The International Hotel is located on Kearny and Jackson Street. Built in 1907, the International Hotel has offered low-cost housing to retired farm workers, to the elderly on pensions, and to newly arrived immigrant families in desperate need of housing. Today, it is the home of approximately 130 Filipino and Chinese people, the majority of them elderly single men. As a group, they understand the oppression of this society, and many have suffered much, as this story shows.

THE INTERNATIONAL HOTEL IS THE PEOPLE’S HOTEL

It was a Thursday morning in Everybody’s Bookstore, and as I was attending to a customer, Bill Sorro from the I-Hotel rushed in. His brow was creased, but seeing that I was busy, he turned and hurried out. Within a couple of minutes, Judy Kajiwara, another Hotel worker, came in. She said that they needed a translator, that an old Chinese man was sick upstairs.

Hastily climbing a flight of stairs and arriving at Room 121, I found the Hotel staff already there trying to make things comfortable for the old man. We checked him for fever. He showed no temperature and his pulse felt normal. Someone said the old man was diabetic and hard of hearing as well. We asked him how he was, whether or not he had any aches or pains. After asking several times, he finally answered that he was alright. We then asked him if he had eaten. He nodded no. One of the staff members rushed out to the Star Lunch Cafe around the comer and came back 5 minutes later with some vegetable soup. By that time, the old man had sat up to show that he was alright. He put the soup aside and went to get his trousers which were draped on the chair by the side of his bed. I knew what he was doing but something stopped me as I wanted to watch this proud and noble old man. He was looking for his wallet and finally extracted it from his trousers. At that moment I interjected and said, “No, Uncle, the staff bought it for you.” He graciously thanked us and put his wallet back. The old man really had no money. He was very thin and showed signs he suffered from malnutrition.

Later, the I-Hotel staff discussed the situation and decided that in view of the old man’s diabetic condition he needed a check-up at the hospital and that it was better to send him there.

Worker at Everybody’s Bookstore

I-Hotel Eviction Night August 1977

2007-12-19T13:35:00.000-08:00

Reports estimated 3,000 protesters formed a protective human chain around the International Hotel, delaying the eviction until the early morning hours. 300 police and sherriffs stormed the ring of protesters using police clubs and horses. Dressed in riot gear, the police eventually forced the supporters to move away from the front door. After clearing the sidewalk, the sherriffs broke down the doors with sledge hammers and forcibly evicted the tenants inside.

Eviction Night

2007-12-19T13:30:00.000-08:00

Sherriffs break down ACC door

After the I-Hotel Eviction

2007-12-19T13:05:00.000-08:00

ACC'S Door is boarded shut, demolition notice nailed.
Above photo: supporters descend from rooftop to hang a demolition protest banner.

WE WON'T MOVE Tenants and friends on bench

2007-12-19T12:52:00.000-08:00

1974 Bench in front of International Hotel

Al Robles RAPPIN WITH TEN THOUSAND CARABAOS IN THE DARK

2007-12-18T19:40:00.000-08:00

By Al Robles

Al Robles is a co-founder of Kearny Street Workshop and has been a community worker in Chinatown Manilatown for 40 years. His poetry has been published in many works, including the following poetry in RAPPIN WITH TEN THOUSAND CARABAOS IN THE DARK poems by Al Robles, published by UCLA Asian American Studies Center 1996.

Reprinted with permission of the poet

Rappin’ with Ten Thousand Carabaos in the Dark

International Hotel—in the mongo heart & isda mind of the Philippines—where old & young Pilipinos live, hang, & roam around all day like carabaos in the mud: eating, sleeping & working. Pilipinos scattered all over—brown faces pied high, moving like shadows on trees, concrete doorways, pool halls, barber shops. Guitar music echoes thru— down deep in your mongo heart & isda mind. Chinatown across the way. Sixty-thousand or more live in rooms the size of tea pots, stretching east, west, north & south. Thousands are crammed in damp basements, alley ways, behind run-down barrels of ancient Chinese mountain wine. Thousands of Chinese children run along soy sauce streets— long black hair glistening like a cool stream—a quiet moon watches. Short crop of hair—morning spring faces— underneath fresh-soaked clouds. All those tiny footsteps keep the winter belly warm.

All night session—ocean of words

Legaspi—Frank—Bob—-Bill Sorro—Mee Har—Me

& somebody else.

Early start at Legaspi’s UFA mountain fortress

Put down your white mind

with your eyes behind brown skin

brown =brown =brown=brown

fallen coconuts on a cold

cold winter day.

brown=brown=brown=brown

fish drying

in the hot summer sun

Bill Sorro: “You know, when I go into the pool halls

& see my Pilipino brothers, I want to say to them:

‘you know I know how you feel; I know how you think.’ I want to say to them,

Manong, manong, manong, don’t you know

you are being fucked.”

“I am brown, I am together, I am beautiful”

Come down from those white flaky hills

the smell of the carabao shit stills

the mind

keeps the pampano swimming

in your belly.

Put down your knives & forks

and eat rice & fish

with brown winter-soiled hands.

jump and wallow

in the mountain-grass heap shit

of the carabao.

Ah, Pilipinos

IF you only knew how brown you are

you would slide down

from the highest

mountain top

you would whip out your lava tongue

& burn up all that white shit

that’s keeping your people down.

Don’t you know

you smell like

the deep brown earth

if you only knew

if your eyes were

only opened

you would see the sun

come down

Al Robles: Asian Center

2007-12-18T19:34:00.000-08:00

By Al Robles

Reprinted with permission of the poet

Asian Center

Asian Center For the old—downstairs

in the basement—near the International

Hotel. Mr. Low cares for the old Chinese

Legaspi cares for the old pilipinos

two ancient Chinese

standing in the center like an orange egg yolk

in a lotus bun

“is Legaspi here?’

(a chinaman points his finger)

Legaspi sits quietly

Silver-gray hair

ancient ifugao eyes

a spring sprig

pushed through

kearny street cries

young faces crowd

the pool halls

“we have to clean up

the philippines.

there has to be a revolution”

back alleys

loneliness

in cheap coffins

dead and forgotten

pilipinos

out of a finger

a widow bleeds

shield and sealed

in holy water

drowning primitive minds

wrapped in angelic garments

and metal crosses

break the eternal rituals

of the priest

pressing pilipino minds

into wailing fanatics

Al Robles Ode to Bill Sorro

2007-12-18T15:52:00.000-08:00

By Al Robles

Reprinted with permission of the poet

Ode to Bill Sorro

bill sorro

cried today

he cried

for his countryman

for a manong

from the philippines

who died

on his lap

in the children’s playground

at portsmouth square

bill sorro

cried today

in his small room

at the international hotel

because

manong santos died

and jullana sat there

listening

to a voice

cut sharp

like a bolo

when he read his poem

to santos

who never had

a chance

to see his country again

bill sorro

cried for santos of the international hotel

santos of the st. paul hotel

santos of kearny street

santos of manilatown

santos his kababayan

santos of his brown hands

digging for his roots.

Asian Community Center Founded 1970

2007-12-18T13:44:00.000-08:00

Asian Community Center 1970 Program

2007-12-18T13:43:00.000-08:00

"WHAT WE SEE

We see the breakdown of our community and families.

We see our people suffering from malnutrition, tuberculosis, and high suicide rates.

We see the destruction of our cultural pride.

We see our elders forgotten and alone.

We see our Mothers and Fathers forced into meaningless jobs to make a living.

We see American society preventing us from fulfilling our needs.

WHAT WE WANT

We want adequate housing, medical care, employment, and education.

WHAT WE BELIEVE

To solve our community problems, all Asian people must work together.

Our people must be educated to move collectively for direct action.

We will employ any effective means that our people see necessary."

Asian Community Center Food Program

2007-12-17T16:17:00.000-08:00

WeiMin Newspaper Vol.1No.1

FOOD SUPPLEMENTS

"America is.a very wealthy country. But here in our community, there are hundreds of families that do not get enough food. To take some of the pressures off, the government releases some of its surplus food stocks and makes it available to organizations who are willing to distribute it to the people. Because food is a basic need, Wei Min She has distributed the food since the program began 18 months ago. The program releases surplus food (food bought by the government to keep the farm prices high) to parents of children under the age of six and to pregnant or new mothers who qualify under the poverty guidelines set up by the government. For the past three months, bureaucratic red tape and inefficiency on the part of the high-up administrators had tied up the food program. Many of the people on the program need the food desperately. Wei Min She intends to put pressure on those responsible for the foul-ups and make the food surplus available again as soon as possible to the people on the program."

ACC Family Newsletters

2007-12-17T16:15:00.000-08:00

The Asian Community Center distributed a bilingual family newsletter to Chinatown families in the ACC food program beginning in 1972. The newsletters focused on family health and news bulletins. The following are articles from the newsletter with helpful food program recipes, and a women's forum.

ACC Family Newsletter : food pick up

2007-12-17T16:00:00.000-08:00

FAMILY NEWSLETTER AUG 1972

Food Supplement Announcement

Be Sure To Get Your Food!

We have three days to distribute the food for the food program each month. It will usually be on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday of the second or third week of the month. If you cannot come to pick-up the food on these three days, you can phone the Chinatown food program staff at… and have them save it for you to pick up on a later day. You should let us know sometime during the three days we distribute so we could set your food aside for you, otherwise, your food will be taken back to the United Health Alliance warehouse. If you phone, you should leave your name, address, card number (which is in red) and the day you plan to come pick the food up so we could get everything ready for you.

ACC Family Newsletter : nutrients

2007-12-17T15:59:00.000-08:00

Family Newsletter November 1972

Cooking For Nutrition

The loss of nutrients such as vitamins and protein is inevitable whenever cooking is involved. However, the loss can be minimized by proper cooking methods.

MILK. Milk and dairy products contain significant quantities of almost all the nutrients needed, except vitamin C and iron. If not watched carefully, milk can easily scorch and curdle. (First of all, milk does not need heating for normal consumption. However, if warm milk is preferred, it should be heated at moderate rather than high temperatures.

If milk is allowed to curdled, nutrients will be lost because the curdled portion contains most of the protein.

MEAT. 'lhe price of a piece of meat has no relation to its nutritional value. 'The less tender or less popular cuts such as chuck roast, ground beef, tongue have as much nutrient value as the more expensive cuts for the same amount of meat. Moisture lost from meat during cooking can be minimized by avoiding very high temperatures and long cooking times. During cooking the drip losses collected in the bottom of the pan contains vitamins, minerals, and protein. To get these nutrients, skim off the fat and use the drippings to make gravy. Meat is an excellent source of protein, iron, and B vitamins.

FRUITS and VEGETABLES . When fruits and vegetables are cooked, some flavor, color, and nutrients will be lost. Nutrient loss is minimized with a short cooking time because there is less heat destruction and chemical reaction of vitamins and minerals. Some water soluble vitamins like the B vitamins are lost from boiled vegetables. Using a small amount of water minimizes such loss. Also, using a heavy pan, tight cover, controlled heat will avoid scorching vegetables. After vegetables are cooked, try to use the remaining water in soups or juices, to recapture lost nutrients. Vegetables should be added to boiling water because there is a greater loss of proteins and minerals when cooking with cold water. Frozen vegetables need a minimum amount of water and cooking because they are already cooked or partially cooked.

ACC Family Newsletter : recipes

2007-12-17T15:55:00.000-08:00

FAMILY NEWSLETTER MARCH 1974

RECIPES

(* ingredients provided in food program supplies)

TURKEY NOODLE SOUP

6 cups water

2 chicken bouillon cubes

2 stalks celery

4 ounces uncooked noodles

*3 cups cut-up canned turkey (canned chicken may be used also)

Salt and pepper to taste

Cut up celery. Put water, bouillon cubes and celery in a pot.

Cover and cook slowly 10 minutes. Add noodles. Cover and simmer for about 10 minutes, or until noodles and celery are tender. Add turkey and heat. Add salt and pepper. Make 6 servings, about 1 cup each.

FARINA QUICK BREADS

1 egg

*1 cup milk or 4 tablespoon powdered milk

1/ 4 cup salad oil

*1 cup Farina

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 cup water

1 cup flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

Grease the bottom of 12 medium muffin cups or 1 bread pan. Set oven at 400 degrees. In a bowl, beat egg. Stir in milk and oil. Add remaining ingredients, Just until the flour is moistened. The batter should be lumpy. Fill muffin cups 2 /3 full. Bake 20-25 minutes until brown. If using bread pan, bake for 45 minutes, or until brown. For variations, add cut-up fruit, as blueberries, strawberries, raisins, or add bacon or put jelly in the center of each :muffin before baking.

ACC Family Newsletter: Women's Thoughts

2007-12-17T15:42:00.000-08:00

FAMILY NEWSLETTER APRIL 1974

“In the last issue of the Family Newsletter, we started a new section on women. We hope this section will be an open and lively forum for women from various sectors of the community to air their feelings and opinions on different issues. The plan is to have two regular columns in the women section: WOMEN'S THOUGHTS" and "FAMILY LIFE". However, we will only start with "WOMEN' S THOUGHTS" since we need time to build up contacts with different women who are willing to write and contribute to the women's section. We welcome your participation, suggestions, and criticism. In this issue we are printing an article written by a mother from the Chinese community on her thoughts after attending her first International Women's Day celebration. In the women section we will try to closely translate all writings of women into simple English so that the writings can also be used as material for learning English.”

MRS. WONG

“Last Sunday (March 3rd), at the request of my son , I went to Chinatown' s commodore Stockton Elementary School to celebrate International Women' s Day . This was the first time in my life to participate in a Women's Day celebration. At that time, I had some doubts in my mind. How come my son was so interested in a Women’s Day celebration? He even worked several weeks in preparation for this program. That day, I discovered the great spirit of the volunteer workers who cared for and helped each other.

“ As I stepped into the school gymnasium, I saw my son Wilson. He immediately brought me to sit down in the auditorium. By that time, it was already full, and there were many people standing at the back of the auditorium. Suddenly a woman’s voice announced, “The little ones, please come and sit on the floor near the stage and give your seats to the older people". The children were very cooperative. They immediately left their chairs and sat on the floor next to the stage. There were still not enough chairs, but people brought in more chairs and put them along the aisle so that the guests could sit comfortably. Around three o 'clock, the program started. The first performance was a group of young men and women singing - "A Tribute to International Women's Day." They sang very well. Not only was the melody entertaining, the words to the song were also very meaningful. I have copied them so that everyone can have the opportunity to admire the song:

“The sun is shining from high above,

bringing us warmth and hope,

the sisters are full of the morning,

…full of strength,

giving out light and heat,

like the bright red sun .

****

Women, never fall behind,

dare to challenge, dare to struggle,

lifting heavy burdens,

the men, strong with high ambitions,

the women can hold up half the sky .

uniting together in one spirit,

a bright future is before us.”

“There was also a short play called "The Modern Women" performed by three young women. Their acting skills were as good as those of movie actresses . They fully and spiritedly played out their parts. This short satirical play made fun of the backward women who wanted to enter the "Miss Chinatown Pageant" for glory and fame. They allowed themselves to be used meaninglessly and be displayed as flower vases. Although this type of action is only that of individuals, it is enough to lower the reputation of all women. I remember not long ago, there was a high school student in a beauty contest who publicly denounced the officials of the beauty contest. This kind of action was a little too much. But still she had recognized beauty contests were insulting to womanhood. Her anger must have been burning within her to a point where she could not hold it back. Besides, young people are usually too emotional and excitable. If she was Chinese, she probably would not have had the nerve to speak out at those wrong- doers and thus voice the anger of all women. Luckily, she was a new American woman. No matter what her action was, she had shed away the shame of us women and had awakened the sisters of the world to run toward the healthy, bright, and revolutionary path of new women.

“The program was rich in variety. Besides Chinese music, singing, and short plays, there was also a martial arts demonstration . Two young women (one Chinese, one Caucasian) were very talented in martial arts. They can be called "heroines among women.”

“The entire program has only my praises and no criticisms. Even the little performers in the "Little Doctor" skit were very good. It was difficult to believe that this group of little angels could speak such perfect Cantonese. This made people very happy. I hope they can retain their bi-lingual abilities forever. Then we will never have to worry about our successors in the next generation.”

Asian Community Center Film Program

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WeiMin Newspaper Vol.1No.1 October 1971

FILMS

ASIAN COMMUNITY CENTER

846 KEARNY STREET

“Wei Mm She’s Film Program has been in existence for almost two years. Many improvements, such as translating films in English into Chinese (so that films can be shown regardless of its language) have been made during that time in order to serve the people better.

Films are shown at the Asian Community Center on a regular basis, every two weeks on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

The ones most enthusiastically received are those from China. These films show our people a true picture of china, since the only news and opinions about China for the past two decades have been distorted and biased by the news media.

We urge you to come, and welcome any suggestions you have for us.”

Everybody's Bookstore opened 1970

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EVERYBODY'S BOOKSTORE

2007-12-17T15:07:00.000-08:00

WEI MIN VOL 1 NO.1 P. 11 OCT.1971

EVERYBODY’S BOOKSTORE

840 KEARNY STREET

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 94108

HOURS:DAILY, 10:30 AM UNTIL 9:00 PM

“As an on-going project of Wet Min She, Everybody’s Bookstore has been made possible because of community support. Everybody’s Bookstore is non-profit and self-sufficient. We have no paid staff as all labor is voluntary. Any money we make is re-invested into the bookstore to expand the inventory. However, we hope to earn enough in the future so that we can support other “serve the people” programs, such as maintaining the Asian Community Center. Through this way we can put the people’s money into good use.

Everybody’s Bookstore was opened to make literature and art from the People’s Republic of China more available to the Chinese community of San Francisco. Our selection of low-cost books from Hong Kong, which includes translations from English works, has been very popular. Our English books are listed and arranged under different topics such as China, Asian Americans, minority struggles in the United States, the Third World, labor history, and community organization and educational change. Our address is 840 Kearny Street. Our phone number is 781-4989. We are open from 10:30 AM until 9:00 PM.”

ACC Summer Youth Program

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WeiMin vol.1no1 pg.11 Oct. 1971

Children’s Program

“This summer, Wei Mm She sponsored a Summer Youth Program held at the Asian Commuity Center. Much was learned from this program and it will help us in our future programs for youth, which is ages 6-12 years old.

The youth program was divided into weekly topics. Things taught were: a balanced diet, plants, animals, and history about our forefathers in America. Every week there were two outings, centered around that week’s topic.

Exercises, chinese folk dancing, fishing, and other educational games were very popular with the children. The general rule was that for the outings, there was one adult for every six children. We must admit that the grown-ups had just as .much fun as the children in those activities.

Surveys are now being passed out to the parents in order to know better what they want and feel is needed for their children. In the meantime, a children’s film program is planned for the weekends. This is to begin in October.

News about it will be listed at the Asian Community Center bulletin board or in the newspapers.”

Asian Community Health Clinic 1971

2007-12-16T12:13:00.000-08:00

Wei Min December 1971 vol.1 no.3

MEDICAL CARE FOR PEOPLE
The followingarticle was written by the Asian Community Health Clinic team to announce and explain their efforts to help solve the health needs of the community. We look forward to much success for them.

Severe health problems exist in Chinatown. This fact is documented by official city health statistics and our own personal observations and experiences. The conditions of overcrowding, poor housing, and low incomes are some of the main causes for the community’s health crisis. Agencies such as the Chinese Hospital Out-Patient Clinic, the Northeast Health Center, Telegraph Hill Neighborhood Association Medical Clinic, the Northeast Mental Health Team, and the Northeast Medical Services Center have all been trying to remedy the situation.

NEEDS NOT MET

However, sorely needed medical attention has not yet reached a large section of the community. Between low-income families who can afford private professional health care, there exists a large group of families who are not yet reached by current health care delivery procedures.

Under the NEMS guidelines, for example, a family of four earning more than $5,500 per year will not be eligible for service. However, there are many families, even with an annual income exceeding $5,500, which cannot afford private care. In this same group, we might also include those who, although technically eligible for health care at the existing facilities, are discouraged from utilizing their services ponerous and oppressive administrative procedures.

BEGINNING

A group of members of the Chinatown community met in October 1970 to discuss some possible solutions such as setting up a free clinic. Months of meetings went by with no concrete results while attempts were made to find a location, stabilize the membership, and launching mass health screenings.

After much research into the feasibility of such screenings, a glaucoma screening was launched. With the donation of medical personnel and equipment (mainly from the Northern California Society for the Prevention of Blindness), our own volunteer bilingual staff, and the donation of space at the Asian Community Center, a glaucoma screening was conducted on July 10 and July 17.

SCREENING RESULTS

The results of the screening clearly indicated the magnitude of health crisis facing the Chinatown community. Out of a total of 174 people that were screened, there were 9 cases of severe to mild glaucoma, 30 cases of severe to mild cataract, 81 cases requiring prescription for glasses, and 10 cases of other eye problems. Many of these cases involved multiple eye problems

LEGAL PAPERS

Since the glaucoma screening, we have been trying to open a clinic on a regular basis. We have been incorporated as an independent, non-profit, tax-exempt organization under California State law. The present all-volunteer staff included several doctors, community health workers, members of community organizations, working people from the community, the Asian Health Caucus from UC, and students from San Francisco State and City College.

INSURANCE

The doctors with us are hospital physicians, and are therefore only covered for malpractice at the hospitals they work at. For their work at the clinic, however, we need to obtain a malpractice insurance policy that covers their work, specifically for the Asian Community Health Clinic. In order to do this, the cl

inic itself must acquire a State license to function as a health clinic before the insurance company will sell us the insurance. This license has been applied for but the date of its arrival is uncertain. Pending our opening as a clinic on a regular basis, we are planning further health screenings. The next one we wish to conduct is a children’s eye screening.

OBJECTIVES

In our attempt to provide health services for the Chinatown-North Beach community we define our objectives as follows;

1) To increase the accessibility of the existing health facilities to the people of the community.

2) To make basic health services readily available to the community through our facilities.

CONCRETE STEPS

To carry out these objectives, we have designed the following programs:

1) To continue with health screenings and the referral programs on the screenings, so that the community will become more aware of the resources available to them.

2) To set up an operative health clinic where patients can receive the attention of a doctor and medical staff and acquire whatever treatment, or advice from other facilities (such as hospitals for advanced cases beyond the clinic’s facilities) as is called for by medical diagnosis.

3) To institute a preventive-medicine educational program as a means of solving some of the health problems developing in the community that can be checked by conscious preventive efforts.

Although we are meeting with many technical difficulties, we are looking forward to the opening of the clinic which will take place as soon as possible. It is our firm belief that good and adequate medical attention is the right of everyone, regardless of one’s income. In view of this principle, we will work to make the clinic a true community clinic.

AAPA: Cooperative Solution for Garment Workers

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asian american political alliance newspaper vol.2 no.1 page 4 November 1969

The Cooperative:

A Viable Alternative For

GARMENT FACTORY WORKERS

"The situation of the garment factories in San Francisco Chinatown has been a political issue for years. In an atmosphere of conflict amongst power and interest groups such as the Six Companies, ILGWU, Teamsters, City Council, contractors, and the Hunan Rights Commission, the welfare of the garment workers has been ignored and neglected. The struggles going on in Chinatown now indicate an attempt to unionize in the main interest of the ILGWU and Teamsters; to rezone under the guise of integration; to strengthen the.strongold economic position of the contractors; and to maintain the subordination of the workers to the dictates of the Six Companies. These attempts have shown little or no concern for the woman worker’s needs or the feasibility of letting her have control of her own life and lifestyle. The rezoning issue has tried to ohscure the real problems of exploitation which exist in Chinatown.

It is common knowledge that an average garment worker earns far below minimum wage and operates under substandard conditions. In addition to this, there are unique problems which inhibit organizing workers. These include family ties between the ladies and contractors, language and ethnic barriers and the social, atmosphere of the existing shops. A lady can take time off to shop for groceries, pick up the children from school, or cook dinner for the family, whenever she desires. In many cases, when the garment worker has pre-school children, she can bring them to work and care for them at the shop.

Despite sporadic efforts in the last three decades to unionize and alleviate conditions, the strife of the garment working women has been intensified in the past year. In June, 1969, the San Francisco Labor Council approached the Chinatown Board of Supervisors with an amendment to rezone the garment shops out of Chinatown, ostensibly because they are in violation of commercial, industrial and residential districting. The International Ladies Garment Workers Union and manager Cornelius Wall precipitated the whole issue. After ten years of unsuccessful.unionization of Chinatown garment workers and feeling frustrated, Cornelius Wall set the issue of zoning the ‘sweatshop’out of our community before the Human Rights Commission. The ILGWU justified moving the shops out of Chinatown as a healthy measure of integration which would eliminate tile sweatshopism of the existing factories. It failed to deal with reality--it would put 3000 women workers out of jobs, throwing them into a labor market where their limited sewing skills and language facility would be of little value. The ILGWU’s real interest is money. If the Chinese garment workers were part of the white market and shops, they would likely be forced to unionize and pay the $5.60 dues sought by the ILGWIJ. In the past the ILGWIJ has had little success in organizing and unionizing Chinatown workers because of communication and cultural difficulties. A basic distrust of whites and their institutions exists in Chinatown. The unions that have been established in the Chinatown area, such as Locals 8 and 101 have merely been “paper unions” which absorb the $5.60 per woman and manage to do nothing about raising pay to minimum wage or bettering working conditions. Actually the union exists in Chinatown only through employment requirements made by certain contractors. The ILGWIJ is notorious for being a powerful bossism trade union, with tendencies to negotiate with management and employers and not for workers.

Seeing that the union has worked in conjunction with the Labor Council and HBC, it is obvious that these forces are politically expedient for and instrumental to each others interests. There has been a six mouth postponement of rezoning, called by the HRC to investigate and study Chinatown’s grievances. Studies have been conducted for years; this postponement actually serves the unions. They hope the women will be more receptive to joining a union after seeing their jobs and place of work threatened, just as the contractors will be more receptive to unionism. On the HRC sit many union members—S.F. is basically a union town. Contractors have been self-interested and exploitive and carry on much off—the—record business, maintaining low wages and poor working conditions. Striking against these shops would seem ineffective because unemployment of women especially with sewing skills is so prevalent. A group of striking women would easily be replaced, so a woman had best hold on to a $50 per week job with security, rather than risk it to improve conditions.

The Asian Studies 130 class has familiarized itself with these kinds of problems in Chinatown and realizes that the women are up against wall. We have learned much about Chinatown politics, the white and Chinese ruling class, mechanics of the gament factory, unionism the superficiality of government agencies and commissions. We have been thinking about the alternatives to the better condition of the garment factory workers within the community. There have been proposals to create an all-Chinese union local in Chinatown. But this would require non-interference from existing locals and from hostile employers. Then the union would have decide or be forced to align itself with racist AFL-CIO or Teamsters.

What the Asian Studies class proposes is to initiate and build a cooperative. This would be a progressive, self-perpetuating and revolutionary alternative. In this type of organization, the workers will have the chance to partake in operations and administrative processes of the co-op. The co-op would be more than just another sub-contracted shop to some huge garment manufacturer. We want to work on the garment from start to finish, in order to cut production and tracking costs. We will design, cut, sew, and sell the garment ourselves. In other words, a vertical, operation of the desired garment from start to finish would be set up. The co-op will provide training in all areas of production and administration, in addition to sewing of garments. Hopefully the co-op would be a fluid and ‘viable force in the Chinatown community. What profit made from the sold merchandise will be returned into the operation of the co-op and given back to the workers. The cooperative will serve to educate the workers to some understanding of the intricacies and contradictions of the American economic system. The cooperative will provide the workers with a consciousness of political, social and economic problems in American society. They will be aware of how they are exploited and suppressed in their community and job.

This article has been written to solicit help from fellow Asians. We cannot implement the idea discussed above without adequate resources, including social and political. commitment and funds. We are starting by getting and gathering

all information on sewing, cutting and financing that we possibly can. We are still on a low level stage in that there are a lot of areas with which we are not familiar. We need at this time a person who has had years of experience as a tailor. We need people who are well versed in the legal proceedings for getting into business. We need people who know how to cut material. We also need people who have connections in getting sewing and cutting machines, at minimum prices. All persons interested and willing to help please contact Steve Wong in the Asian Studies Office, 3405 Dwinelle Hall, U.C. Berkeley.

We are also (as mentioned before) desperately in need of financial support. We would gladly appreciate any donations for the project. We are forthrightly sponsoring films on November 14 and 16 to raise funds. Any other fund raising ideas would be welcome, Again, contact Steve."

Chinatown Co-op Garment Factory Film Festival

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Chinatown Cooperative Garment Factory

2007-12-15T16:48:00.000-08:00

a better garment factory

The Chinatown Co-op

Wei Min Chinese Community News. Vol 1, No. 1. October 1971. P. 3.

The Chinatown Cooperative garment factory--humming machines, laughing, talking voices. At first it looks like the other garment factories in Chinatown. But where’s the boss? Why is there free talk, workers speaking their minds, saying what they think of the manufacturers and, work?

At the Chinatown Cooperative, there is no boss. The Co-op is run and controlled by its workers. Together the workers decide what work they will do, time they will put in, and discuss the financial situation of the Co-op. When the manufacturers come in with contract work, the workers negotiate with them for the prices. They plan their own lines of clothes and arrange for the cutters and materials themselves. What brought these Chinese and Filipino women together to start their own business? Why did they pick this way of operation?

GOOD ALTERNATIVE

To the women of the Co-op, the factory is their alternative to the exploitative work conditions that face garment workers in other factories. It means a step to self-pride, reap the benefits of their labor, and eliminating the middle man or contractor who decides the pay and work conditions of the workers.

Much has been learned about the competitive nature of the garment industry and the myth that the U.S. encourages the development of small private businesses. And still much more is to be learned about the channels a small business can use in order to succeed, something that has always been kept from the Chinatown community-at-large. But the Co-op workers and students are determined that the factory will succeed. They want to set an example for other workers in Chinatown and encourage them to stand up to and start their own businesses, free from bosses.

Right now about 3500 women are employed in Chinatown garment factories. From one-third to one-half of San Francisco’s apparels are made by Chinatown sweatshops. The annual wholesale value of the work in Chinatown is over $15 million while the annual payroll totals only $6 million. Workers receive only $1-$2 per dress while the manufacturer will receive $12-$15. The dress will then retail at $25-$30.

THE WHOLE PICTURE

The Transitory nature of fashion dictates that the apparel industry

stay away from large-scale methods of production. Instead it relies on small-scale methods of production: the small size of factories and manufacturers, the separation of functions in production, and seasonal changes. The only factories which employ several hundred workers are those which produce cheap merchandise in large quantities like Levi Strauss.

The different functions of production can be seen as divided by profit levels. The manufacturer is the one who gets the materials and determines the what, when, and. where of production. He could do all the production. in his own plant, but instead he gets the materials, does the cutting, and than contracts it out for physical production. This way he is relieved of managerial decisions pertaining to labor and work conditions.

The contractor is at the next level. He bids for work from the manufacturer and receives a certain amount for the production of the garments. The labor and management of the shop are his concern. Entry into contracting business requires little capital. The result is a large number of contractors competing among themselves. This gives the manufacturer the option to offer whatever price he wants for the work. If one contractor doesn’t take it at his price, another will. In Chinatown alone, there are 156 contract shops. If a manufacturer comes up with a “hit number”, all he has to do is add contractors rather than expand his own plant for his temporary increase in volume.

The contractor, in order to successfully compete for work, tries to decrease his labor costs. Wages are lowered and hours increased for workers. Piece-work is used in order to increase the workers’ production and not their wages.

The Chinatown Co-op is not the first time garment workers in Chinatown have organized. In the early 1800’s three guilds existed in Chinatown: Tung Yip Tong, Gwing Yee Hong and Gum Yee Hong. These guilds had memberships up to 1,000 workers. Once a worker became a guild member, he was guaranteed his basic employment rights. The worker couldn’t be fired by an employer unless his co-workers approved the action. Wage rights were recorded and registered at guild headquarters. Therefore the same work done in other factories by Chinese operators had to follow the standardized wage set by the records. If the agreement was violated, the factory owner was boycotted and blacklisted, while “scabs” were fined and expelled from the guild.

But when the garment workers became predominantly women in the 1900’s, the guilds began to lose their strength. Immigration and language pressures limited the women’s capabilities in fighting for higher wages. The guilds soon disappeared.

The union that is now trying to organize in Chinatown is the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). It ha received little support in Chinatown. Only about 700 Chinese workers are now in the union. This is because of the union’s reputation of being a “top-down” union—meaning its failure to do anything for the workers except collect $5.60 a month for dues.

The Chinatown Cooperative is a new alternative for garment workers. Not only is it the first business in Chinatown with no boss and run by its workers, but it is also the first which has people working together collectively. It is the first where workers are helping their fellow workers out in the production as well as providing a personal social life.

Chinatown Co-op Worket Speaks

2007-12-15T16:40:00.000-08:00

WM vol.1no.1 oct. 1971

THE WORKERS SPEAK.

MRS. CHOW (37 YEARS OLD)

I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT A CO-OP WAS AT FIRST. I THOUGHT THE YOUNG PEOPLE WERE VERY GOOD AND REALLY WANTED TO HELP THE PEOPLE IN CHINATOWN, BUT I DIDN’T THINK THEY UNDERSTOOD THE GARMENT INDUSTRY VERY WELL.

I WASN’T THE FIRST WORKER HERE. I CAME BY HERE ONE DAY TO WATCH THEM MAKING CLOTHES AND I ASKED IF I COULD HAVE WORK, THE YOUNG PEOPLE TALKED ABOUT WHAT THE CO-OP WAS. THEY SAID IT WAS FOR THE PEOPLE AND THAT ALL ASIANS SHOULD WORK TOGETHER TO HELP EACH OTHER.

IT DEPENDS ONI THE PEOPLE IN THE CO-OP WHETHER IT WORKS OR NOT, WE DO THE WORK, SO ThE CO-OP BELONGS TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO WORK IN IT. WE TALK ABOUT HOW TO IMPROVE OUR WORK, WHEN WE HAVE MEETINGS WE SPEAK OUR MINDS OUT.

I TALK TO MY FRIENDS ABOUT THE CO-OP AND THEY SAY_,“IF IT WORKS, LET ME KNOW”, THEN THEY WILL COME HERE,. TOO. THEY HADN’T THOUGHT ABOUT A CO-OP BEFORE.

MRS. CHANG (40 YEARS OLD)

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO SAY IT. YES, I THINK THE CO-OP IS MUCH BETTER THAN OTHER PLACES, IT’S MUCH FREER. YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE BOSS AND ALL.

I FOUND OUT ABOUT THE CO-OP FROM A FRIEND, THE UNIONS DON’T REALLY DO ANYTHING, ONILY WHEN YOU GET SICK, MAYBE. BUT IT’S USELESS. I NEVER JOINED THE UNION (ILGWU).

IN OTHER GARMENT FACTORIES I JUST WORKED FOR THE BOSS. THE PAY ISN’T THAT MUCH MORE HERE, BUT IT’S NOT FOR THE MONEY THAT WE WORK HERE.

THE YOUNG PEOPLE ARE VERY NICE, ALL THE BOSSES WANT IS DOLLARS. BUT THE YOUNG PEOPLE WANT WHAT’S GOOD FOR THE PEOPLE.

MRS, LEE (36 YEARS OLD)

IT’S VERY HARD TO WORK IN AMERICA BECAUSE MANY OF US CHINESE CAN’T SPEAK ENGLISH AT ALL. AND WHEN WE GO TO ADULT SCHOOL TO LEARN, WHAT WE LEARN ISN'T ALWAYS TOO MUCH USE, BUT HERE WE ARE LEARNING ENGLISH TOGETHER AND WE LEARN THINGS AND WORDS WE CAN USE IN OUR WORK AND IN DEALING WITH THE MANUFACTURERS,

Tiao Yu Tai Movement 1971

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Tiao-yu Tai Special, March 1971,
figure 1.Sub-sea oil fields found near Taiwan and Korea

Tiao-yu Tai Special, March 1971,
figure 2. Oil in Southeast Asia

In 1971, what has become known as the Tiao-Yu Tai Movement brought thousands of overseas Chinese professionals and students across U. S. college campuses into political activism. The Tiao-Yu Tai Movement (TYTM) involved protests against Japan’s colonization of eight fishing islands called Tiao-Yu Tai, located 120 miles from Taiwan and 240 miles from Okinawa. Historically Chinese territory until Japan’s invasion in 1894, the islands were returned to China after World War II. Because of the islands’ proximity to Taiwan, the islands fell under Taiwan’s jurisdiction. Then in 1968 with the discovery of sub-sea oil fields in the region, Japan began to claim the islands as Japan’s territory again. A U.S. endorsed plan to turnover the islands to Japan ignited large Chinese student protests in Hong Kong and elsewhere. In nationwide protests called by the National Diao-Yu Tai Action Committee, thousands of overseas Chinese students marched against Japan’s attempts to take the islands.

Tiao Yu Tai Movement Open Letter to Nixon

2007-12-14T20:40:00.000-08:00

An open letter to President Nixon and members of the Congress

Full Page Ad. The New York Times, Sunday, May 23 1971

We write to call your attention to the violation of Chinese sovereignty over the Tiao Yu Tai islands by the Japanese and Liu Chiu (Ryukyu) governments. This took place after a 1968 United Nations geological survey had revealed that the continental shelf in the East China Sea might hold rich oil reserves. We urge you to respect and to take appropriate measures to ensure Chinese sovereignty over these islands. Such action by you will remove a source of conflict in East Asia and will further the friendship between the American and Chinese peoples.

The Tiao Yu Tai islands (called "Senkaku" in Japanese) are a group of eight uninhabited islands located about 120 miles northeast of Taiwan on the continental shelf and separated from the Liu Chiu islands by a deep underwater trench. Chinese historical records detailing the discovery and geographical feature of these islands date back to the year 1403. For several centuries they have been administered as part of Taiwan and have always been used exclusively by Chinese fishermen as an operational base, both before and after World War II.

The Province of Taiwan, including these islands, was ceded to Japan in 1895 after the first Sino-Japanese war. These territories were returned to China at the end of World War II according to the 1943 Cairo Declaration which stipulated that Taiwan be returned to China. This was later reaffirmed by the Potsdam Agreement.

Despite China's undeniable sovereignty over the Tiao Yu Islands, the Japanese and the Liu Chiu Governments have tried repeatedly to assert claims to these islands since the 1968 oil survey. These governments have committed series of extremely unfriendly acts against China, including the forcible ejection of the Chinese fishermen from the area and the mutilation of the Nationalist Chinese flag on the islands. These provocations have enraged all Chinese, who until the end of World War II were the victims of prolonged Japanese aggression. Equally important, this conflict is regarded by the Chinese as just one aspect of the overall effort t to revive Japanese militarism.

The extent and depth of their feelings can be illustrated by the actions taken by the Chinese people in the United States. On January 29 and 30, 1971, some three thousand students participated in protest marches held in New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Honolulu. On April 10, 2,500 people, representing a wide cross section of the Chinese community, gathered in Washington, D.C. to protest the support of Japan's claims by the United States, which had stated its neutrality on the issue. At about the same time, another 1S00 Chinese also demonstrated to show their great concern over this issue in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, ant Montreal. These events have been widely reported in the press, for example, most recently in the Washington Sunday Star on April 11 and the New York Times on April I1 and the New York Times on April 12.

We therefore ask you to reconsider the United States' policy on this issue. State Department spokesman Robert McCloskey stated on September 10, 1970, that the United States would remain neutral. Any attempt to turn the Tiao Yu Tai islands over to Japan in the forthcoming "Okinawa Reversion Agreement" will contradict the principle of neutrality. Specifically, we ask that you

1. Disavow any claims that the Tiao Yu Tai islands are part of the American administered Liu Chiu islands or Nansei Shoto.

2. Recognize Chinese sovereignty over these islands.

3. Censure actions by the Japanese and the Liu Chiu governments which violate Chinese sovereignty and condemn attempts by these governments to resolve the issue through the use of force.

We appeal to you to use your initiative and moral authority to assure that the legitimate rights of the Chinese People will not be sacrificed as an expedient to international politics. Your just action in this matter will improve the prospects for peace in the Pacific area.

Coordinators for the Tiao Yu Tai Open Letters

[Ed note.: Ad was signed by hundreds of faculty members, professionals, and students from U.S. colleges.]

What is Wei Min She?

2007-12-14T20:07:00.000-08:00

January 1971 Wei Min She, "Organization for the People" was formed out of the experience of the Asian Community Center.
"What Is Wei Min She?" is a handout written in 1971 explaining the organization.

"WHAT IS WEI MIN SHE?
Wei Mm She is an Asian American anti-imperialist organization in the S.F. Bay Area. Our name means “organization for the people.” Our organization is committed to building an anti-imperialist, multi-national, revolutionary mass movement in this country. Our strategy is to build a united front movement of all who can be united against the system of imperialism, led by the working class. The system of imperialism is controlled by the small class of capitalists who own the majority of the world’s wealth, while everyone else must work to live. We see the system of imperialism as the root cause of oppression of workers, national minorities, students, and women. While it exploits workers and national minorities at home, imperialism oppresses and exploits the people of .the world. Since the end of WWII, the U.S. has become the most powerful power in the world. Its tentacles have reached out and seized political and economic control of the underdeveloped nations of Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.

In the last couple of years, we have seen US, imperialism on the decline. The rise of national liberation movements in the underdeveloped and oppressed nations have been kicking U.S. Imperialism out of their countries. Vietnam and other countries in Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America have cut off the ability of U.S. companies to make superprofits. In other parts of the world, the political and economic strength of the U.S. is being challenged by other capitalist nations in Europe and Japan. Competition with another imperialist power, the Soviet Union, has also weakened the U.S. position.

Because of the rising struggles and economic and resistance abroad, the U.S. has found itself in a vise, US .imperialists find that they cannot maintain their rate of profits. They are turning to the working class at home to insure the profits they lost abroad. Nationwide, the living standards of the people are being attacked in a thousand different ways. People are being confronted with work speedups, mass layoffs, elimination of protective work laws, cutbacks in social services, increased police terror in Third World communities, energy freezes and food shortages.

Immigrant and minority workers are being attacked even harder. Because of the economic crisis, the companies are coming out with all sorts of propaganda to prevent unity in the class. The recent wave of anti-alien propaganda in the news and the massive deportations of Mexicans in California are bringing back reminders from the past. In the 1890’s, when the capitalists no longer needed the labor of Chinese and when the workers’ movement was on the rise due to the depression, the employers put the blame for the economic crisis on the large influx of Chinese workers into the country. Hence, a misguided workers’ movement began to develop around the slogan, “The Chinese Must Go:” instead of “The System Must Go:” When the Chinese were kicked out or forced into hiding in the Chinatowns throughout the West, unemployment was not solved and economic depressions continued on.

Today, immigrant workers are kept unorganized and used as cheap pools of labor. They have little job protection and work the longest hours at the lowest pay. The present crisis only intensifies their exploitation even further. However, this does not mean that working people are not resisting. These attacks on the people‘s living standards have been met with a militant and ever growing anti-imperialist movement. People everywhere are fighting back. Together with the peoples of the world, the American people are uniting across national lines to begin building the struggle against imperialism.

The anti-war movement, the struggles for childcare, and the increasing numbers of strikes arid walkouts are powerful testimonies to this development. Asian American and other Third World people are fighting for our democratic rights arid against national oppression. The Lee Mah and Jung Sai organizing drives in the S. F. Chinese Community, the struggle for equal employment in N.Y. Chinatown arid the fight for Ethnic Studies at U. C, Berkeley are a few examples. As Third World people, we must fight both oppression as minorities and exploitation as working people. Not only must the struggle be taken to the Asian communities, it must also be linked-up with the overall struggle of the multinational working class against the system.

The development of the mass movement into one is key to building the United Front Against Imperialism. Through this united front, we can rally various sectors of the American people against this system which must exploit in order to survive.

In building this united front, Wei Min She is involved with these areas of work:
1) Building labor Struggles--building the movement of Asian workers to link up with the larger working class movement to be able to lead the fight against imperialism. We have had practical experience in building support for the Farah strikers, Farmworkers, Nam Yuen Restaurant Busboys walkout, Asia Garden Restaurant workers dispute, S.F. Gold garment factory organizing drive, and now, Jung Sai and Lee Mah,.
2) Student Organizing—fighting for ethnic studies and building the anti-imperialist student movement through various forms of student organizations.
3) Fighting For Democratic Rights--building a movement in the community around the issues of health, housing, education, equal employment etc.
4) Building the Friendship of the Peoples of U.S and the People’s of China_--through film programs on China, forums, and. U.S.-China.People’s friendship events such as the 1974 Friendship Fair and October lst Celebration.
5) Building the Struggle Against the Oppression of Women--forums, supporting struggles of working women on the job, building the fight for childcare, and. participation in initiating events such as International Women’s Day.

If you would like more information about our organization, please contact us at: Wei Min She c/o ACC 846 Kearny St. S.F.,CA. 94108"

U.S.-China Friendship April 1972

2007-12-14T18:02:00.000-08:00

Welcoming the Peoples Republic of China Ping Pong Team
in San Francisco April 25, 1972

"Friendship First, Competition Second"

Greeting China's Ping Pong Team in San Francisco.

U.S.-China Friendship WMB 10/1971

2007-12-14T17:17:00.000-08:00

WEI MIN BAO VOL. 1 NO. 1 OCTOBER 1971

PRESENT INFLUENCE OF CHINA – US RELATIONS ON CHINESE IN AMERICA

The sudden twist in the official American outlook on the People’s Republic of China caused an upsurge of interest about China from the general public. Overnight, newspapers reversed over twenty years of virtual blackout by printing every conceivable kind of news item, from diplomatic speculation to Paris-copied Mao jackets.

The Chinese American community, however, has reacted much more cautiously. One factor is the presence of the Nationalist Kuomintang Party (KMT) in major Chinese communities in the United States. Also, their dominance of the Chinese Six Companies, hierarchal head of the traditional family associations, has exerted tremendous influence on the economic and political conditions of major Chinese communities. This has enabled them to pose quite convincingly as the spokesmen for Chinese here, especially because their political views have been so conveniently similar to those of the federal government. Now, this is changing.

The abrupt break of American hostility towards China is actually an attempt on the part of the Nixon government to reassert American prestige at a time when the progressive policies of other nations towards China are beginning to be strongly felt. The pro-China sentiment in the United Nations, contrasted with decades of American outbursts against China, is a solid fact the United States has difficulty accepting.

FRIENDS OF HOOVER

It is also no secret that Nixon badly wants to be re-elected next year and has always tried hard to assume the role of peacemaker. The vanity of his actions, whatever the effect, and the real nature of his thinking, unsuccessfully hidden, is clearly reflected by J. Edgar Hoover, boss of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), long-time friend and close political associate.

Mere days after Nixon appeared to reverse his political image by announcing his efforts to meet with Chinese leaders, the newspapers printed a recent statement by Hoover, reporting his speech to the U.S. Senate that “Red China” is the greatest threat to world security and the “internal security” of the United States. Much before, in May, 1968, also in front of the Senate, Hoover stated that the Chinese American population represents a danger to America because they are Chinese. Sharply racist, he repeated that statement in his recent appearance before the Senators. Nixon, not unexpectedly, remained silent regarding Hoover’s charges.

These different views present contradictory information which the Chinese living in the United States must sort out to understand our position in this country. This is another reason the Chinese community has allowed the KMT to carry on, at least for the time being, its rapidly weakening claim that it speaks for all Chinese.

FALSE KMT SUPPORT

The demonstration the KMT and Chinese Six Companies staged on September 21, 1971 to protest the rightful seating of the People’s Republic of China replacing the Taiwan province representatives in the United Nations is an example of this. Despite claims of thousands of marchers, only 600 Chinese showed up, many of them forced or paid because of relationships with the KMT or Six Companies.

The new developments and consequent confusion in the Chinese community over our new role is nothing new. Depending on how friendly or unfriendly relations have been between China and America, the Chinese living in this country have been welcomed or turned away. Our image changes according to the needs of the government to justify its policies.

This racist attitude was evident during the McCarthy era (the early 1950’s) when many Chinese Americans were branded subversive and communist, ruining their businesses and lives. This occurred just after the People’s Republic of China was founded and America turned only to words, not facts, to justify its outbursts against China.

These two factors of the still-weakening KMT and racist attitudes towards the Chinese will be resolved as newer, more progressive voices are heard. These are already present in the Chinese community, working to provide a more realistic, reasoned view of the People’s Republic of China. These attitudes show that the people themselves want to know much more about China, especially in a community where accurate news about China has been almost non-existent. It seems certain that newer organizations with more progressive attitudes are getting increased support from the Chinese community.

San Francisco Journal, China Ping Pong Team Visit 1972

2007-12-14T03:30:00.000-08:00

Ping Pong Past and Present

San Francisco Journal April 19, 1972 p.3 v.1 no.9

by Alan Feia and Christine Wilson

article excerpt

“…The International Table Tennis Federation, founded in Germany in 1926, initiated organized international competition. The field was dominated by European players until 1952 when the men’s singles champions were from Asia, the titles having been won by Japan’s H. Sato one year and China’s Jung Kuo-tuan. Two years later the championships were held in Peking and the Chinese won the coveted Swaythling Cup (the Davis Cup of table tennis). That year everyone agreed, playing on their home court had nothing to do with China winning the championship. They were - and are 13 years later, the best players in the world.

MASS PARTICIPATION

“Mass participation tells the story. China has 3.8 million registered tournament players, compared with 2,500 in the U.S. An additional 200 million Chinese play with varying frequency.

‘Every school in China has ping pong,’ reported Arthur Barran, president of the Canadian Table Tennis Association. ‘In Canada and the U.S., we play in the basement. In China, it’s a serious sport’

Considered by Mao Tse-tung to be the people’s exercise, ping pong is pursued by children, grown-ups and elders with a vigor that is typically Chinese. A Swiss pathologist, cardiologist and ping pong nut, Dr. Sorko J. Dolinar, recently decided that ‘purely from a medical point of view, table tennis is the most energy-taxing sport, even more so than marathon races.’ In a serious game the players move with the rapidity of the ball, and some have been known to lose two pounds in a five-game set. It is a game where size, income, ethnicity, circumstance have little to do with a player’s opportunities.

‘It’s a relatively easy game for the average person,’ Mrs. Connie Sweeris, a member of the U.S. team, commented. ‘You can keep in shape by playing just once or twice a week and you don’t have to be huge. I’m just 4 feet 11 and I manage.’

“But . . . as Arthur Barran reminds us, ‘top table tennis is a tough sport, not a pattycake thing in the basement recreation room. These people are superb athletes.’

“And though the trip is long, the food, foreign, and the language difficult, the Chinese ping pong players will mange quite well. With their nods and smiles and an occasional greeting in English they were proving themselves to be superb diplomats as well. “

Jung Sai Workers Rip Garment Industry 1974

2007-12-13T19:04:00.000-08:00

Wei Min July-August 1974 Vol. 3 No. 8

130 On Strike, Many Arrested

Jung Sai Workers Rip Garment Industry

“If you’re not afraid, join us. If you are afraid, this isn’t the place for you~” This was the slogan cried out in Cantonese by 135 garment workers (mainly Chinese along with several Pilipinos and Chicanos) in front of Plain Jane (Espirit de Corp) Co.--one of the largest garment manufacturers on the West coast.

The women are strikers from a Plain Jane contract shop in Chinatown, Jung Sal (Great Chinese American Sewing Co.). The “sweatshop” conditions at Jung Sal coupled with intense police harassment and arrests on the picket line has forged even stronger unity and militancy among the strikers.

On the first day of the strike (July 15), the 135 strikers shut down Jung Sai completely--resulting in Plain Jane liquidating the contract shop. Seeing this tactic, the workers went directly to the main Plain Jane plant to shut it down.

Several days later, July 16, 38 Jung Sai workers and 2 supporters were manhandled into police paddy wagons and hauled off to jail. One woman who was arrested was hit by a scab truck. The police left her lying there for over an hour. The police repeatedly told her to get up saying she was “faking it”. Meanwhile the scab driver sat smiling in his van under police protection--finally an ambulance came and carried her off to the hospital.

The strikers were cram packed into small paddy wagons, as much as 20 people per wagon. Two Chinese women fainted on the way for lack of oxygen. When one of the women who fainted asked for a drink of water in jail, the police doctor told her to drink it out of the toilet. Racist cops warned the women that if they were in Peking, it wouldn’t be so easy for them to do these things. And how did the women respond to this treatment? They told the cops, “We’ll be back until we win!”

WHY ARE THEY STRIKING?

What was it that led the Jung Sai workers to take this course of action? Just check out the working conditions and living standards of people in Chinatown. We sfl know that for years, the Chronicle, radio and TV stations, numerous sociologists, etc., have pointed to the problems, but for once, working people are realizing that the only real solution is to organize and fight back.

At a recent press conference one Chinese woman exposed the horrid conditions at Jung Sai which drove her to the point of attempting suicide. With the strike, she saw that the only real solution is to fight. She saw the only solution was to knock down the company for its years of harassment, speed-ups, and inhumane treatment of the workers.

WHAT ARE THEY UP AGAINST?

What are they up against? They are up against one of the largest garment manufacturers on the West coast which has 55 contract shops in San Francisco, 20 in Chinatown; 40% of its production is done by exploiting working people overseas in Hong Kong, Korea, and India. Doug Thompkins, President of the firm, a ‘hip’ long hair employer built his empire off the backs of immigrant women workers in the U.S. and Third World workers overseas. But now that the workers are fighting back, he is doing everything possible to smash them

He has called in strike-breaking police DAILY to harass and arrest peaceful pickets. The cops are the worst in the city. Strikers and supporters are busted at random. These “examples of S.F.’s finest” come out to the picket line every day with their riot batons drawn, and with their leaded gloves, to laugh at, harass, and provoke the pickets into creating an incident. Often, there are as many “men in blue” as there are pickets.

Also on the side of the company are the courts. Just the other day July25, Judge Samuel Yee, a local “fantung” (“rice bowl”--a derogatory term for one who exploits and lives off the people) revoked O.R. (release on own recognizance) and set $150 to $250 bail for some of the 15 pickets who were arrested the day before on trumped up charges of “obstructing the sidewalk, resisting arrest, and blocking a parked truck.” The Judge also told arrested supporters that they had no right to be out on the picket line. That Chinatown already has enough problems and enough trouble without “people like you making more trouble.”

Well it seen that the people who are making the real trouble for Chinatown--the bosses, the garment manufacturers, the Six Companies, the police, and the courts--are all in cahoots and determined to keep workers from being organized. On the other hand, support for the workers has been rapidly growing every day. Responding to their call ‘BA-GUNG!’ (strike!), community people, garment workers, students and working people throughout the Bay Area have come out in support of the Jung Sal strikers.

On Saturday, July 20, the Jung Sai workers linked-up their struggle with the Lee MAH workers. Over I50 people participated in a car caravan-parade throughout Chinatown spreading news about both struggles. Garment workers rushed out of their shops to grab leaflets as the 30 car caravan drove by. Garment bosses slammed their doors shut as shouts of “Lee MAH unfair!” Jung Sal unfair!’ rumbled throughout Chinatown. Even today, people are still talking about the caravan.

The climate in Chinatown is now one of excitement where everyone is closely watching to see which side will win. The bosses are looking at these two struggles, and the workers are looking at these two struggles. A victory could ignite the spark for organizing the entire community.

Their fight is everyone’s fight. On one of their leaflets, the Jung Sal strikers say: ‘Our fight is the fight of all garment workers. While we slave for pennies, the manufacturers make dollars off of us. Our fight is the fight to get rid of sweatshop conditions. We don’t want Chinatown or any other community to be used as a haven for cheap labor by employers. They think we have no rights as human beings or workers. Therefore, we are standing up and fighting for our rights and the rights of all workers.’

The workers informed us that they need the support of everybody. People can support them by coming out to-the picket lines at 900 Minnesota (SF); publicizing the strike to other workers and donating to the strike fund (mailing address: 2230 Grant Ave., P.O. Box 362. San Francisco, California 94l33). For further information call 397-0629.

Let’s all rise up, support the Jung Sai strikers and make the slogan they learned in jail --“WORKERS UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED “, a fact.

Chinatown Photo Gallery

2007-12-13T14:55:00.000-08:00

Jung Sai Garment Strike

2007-12-13T14:46:00.000-08:00

2007-12-13T13:19:00.000-08:00

May 4th Singers: Building Bridges

2007-12-12T23:08:00.000-08:00

A Remembrance by V. Wong

I'll never forget that rainy night gig in Santa Cruz. I was a co-founder of the May 4^th Singers, the first Asian American anti-imperialist singing group. We performed without pay at all kinds of events, from picket-line rallies to fundraising concerts. We were another of the many groups that sprouted in the 1970s from San Francisco Chinatown’s Asian Community Center (ACC), where we met and practiced regularly. We often had several gigs a week all over California, and we’d go at our own expense to whatever and wherever we were asked. We’d cover other musicians’ songs like Prairie Fire as well as original songs we’d collectively write for contemporary struggles. We’d also participate with other workers and artists to create and perform skits, like “We Won’t Scoop Your Poop” where we re-cast Norton from the Honeymooners TV series to join an ongoing garbage workers strike.

We’d been booked for a cultural event celebrating Chicano heritage in Santa Cruz. But when we got there, it wasn't the usual welcoming scene. The crowd was mainly Latino teenagers, some in gangs, some high-school dropouts, some college students, and most all children of migrant workers. A couple of fights had already broken out and we were told the police had threatened to bust the whole thing. Some in our group wondered out loud why we were there, afraid the crowd would find us corny at best, or more likely targets of their jeers and beer bottles.

We were a dorky-looking group, all right, with our white-shirts and dark-pants outfits. Even we jokingly referred to ourselves as the Asian Serendipity Singers because we sang folk songs accompanied by acoustic guitars. We'd vary in size from 5 to 50 people, depending on who could show up for a gig. And you didn't have to undergo any "American Idol"-type audition to join, so our singing ability ranged from tone-deaf to ok-(but-don't-quit-your-day-job).

The moment had arrived. The MC tried with little success to get the crowd's attention, then introduced us. We took the stage and went into our first song, "It Isn't Nice," by Malvina Reynolds about civil disobedience when facing injustice. Some people actually started to listen while others continued ignoring us, some couples making out in the darkness. We plowed through our set, getting scattered and increased applause, a lot just for our perseverance, we thought.

Then we got to our grand finale - our favorite song, "Stand Together," that we'd written about being sons and daughters of immigrants ourselves, generational conflicts with our parents and society, starting to understand what our parents went through to raise us, and instead of fighting and blaming each other and other nationalities, we should unite all our struggles and fight together – like the Lee Mah electronic workers and Jung Sai garment workers who joined their strikes together.

Most of the kids were really listening, and gave us stomping applause at the end. Many came up and thanked us for expressing what they've gone through. Some were inspired to form a music group or write songs about their experiences. We were all deeply moved by their genuinely warm response, and felt ashamed of our initial trepidation they'd think us uncool and hokey. We underestimated them, and ourselves. They taught us how deeply music can be the best instant bridge to a multinational mass audience and to never underestimate people’s intense desire to transform the world for the better.

May 4th Singers Song: STAND UP !

2007-12-12T18:40:00.000-08:00

Wei Min March-April 1974 Vol.3 No.5

literature & art

The following song was written and sung by the May 4th Singers and Prairie Fire at the Chinatown International Women’ s Day -Celebration and the Bay Area InternationaI Women’s Day Celebration, 1974:

Chorus:

Stand up! For your jobs and your families.

Stand up! If you want a better life.

Stand up! You got to think about your children.

STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS!

Mama took me with her

When she went to work at six.

I slept beside the chair

Where Mama served that ten-hour shift.

Mama’s paycheck couldn’t fill

No babysitting bill.

So Mama took me with her.

Chorus

Working after school -

My homework’s never done

McDonald’s pays me nothing

They work me to the bone.

With jobs so hard-to find

They got me in a bind

working after school

Chorus

Working on the line

Thinking words I dare not say

Henry works beside me

Making almost twice the pay.

It makes you stop and think

We do the same damn thing

Working on the line.

Chorus

Now that I’m a mother -

Childcare’s what we need

It takes both our incomes

To feed our family.

Men and women work together

United, to make life better

Sisters and Brothers!

Chorus

Stand up! For your jobs and your families.

Stand up! If you want a better life.

Stand up! You got to think about your children.

STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS!

Chinatown Workers Festival

2007-12-12T17:30:00.000-08:00

Chinatown Workers Festival

‘WE MUST STAND TOGETHER’

WEI MIN Newspaper September 1974 VOL.3 NO.2 PG 7 excerpt

"EDITOR’S NOTE: The Chinatown Workers’ Festival held on Saturday night, August 24, marked a historic occasion for the San Francisco Chinese community. For the first time in decades, workers front Chinatown gathered to celebrate their achievements and share their experiences. An enthusiastic crowd of over 600 from Chinatown as well as from all over the Bay Area packed the Chinese Cultural Center to participate in this event, organized by Lee Mah and Jung Sai workers and their supporters…

“This is gonna be a dynamite show, I can tell already,” said a young garment worker on our way into the Chinese Cultural Center where the Festival. was about to start. And there was something in the air that night, as outside the sun was melting into a deceptively still San Francisco sea, inside the auditorium was supercharged with a militant spirit born out of a growing struggle and unity.

Just as the Jung Sai and Lee Mah workers have refused to let anything or anybody divide or demoralize them, those working on the Festival were determined that the program would not only be entertaining, educational and uplifting, but a call to united action by working people and the community.

A bit long and a bit uneven at times, sure.. .but the message throughout the program came on loud, clear and strong:

“JUNG SAI, LEE MAH FIGHT FOR CHINESE WORKERS, FIGHT FOR ALL WORKERS!”…

The two skits presented by the Lee Mah and Jung Sai workers and supporters vividly and accurately depicted the

oppressive and exploitative conditions of electronic and garment workers in Chinatown, as well as their tight back. Those playing the bosses and their supervisors hilariously captured the management “running dog” mentality. But it was the workers playing themselves and the supporters playing themselves who were key in why the skits went over so well with the largely working class audience.

“Half the Sky”, a popular skit by the Chinese Modern Theater (CMT) on Chinese women’s oppression and liberation, again provoked responses like: “That’s my husband up there! He’s just like that!” and “That’s exactly how it is!” But the CMT’s “Why We Should Support the Workers” really hit the audience with the greatest emotional impact. Briefly the skit revolves around a lively discussion on a Chinatown street among three women—one of whom’s thinking of going to work at Plain Jane to support her family as her mother has been laid off at another garment factory; another woman who tries to persuade the other not to work there; and the third, a Jung .Sai striker. Upon discovering that one of the women may become a scab, the Jung Sal striker begins relating the unbearable conditions leading up to the strike; how too long and for too little Chinatown workers have been robbed of their rights and human dignity and a decent living; that we must begin now to stop the brutal exploitation and oppression of Chinatown workers, -that we must build and spread this fight for justice for Chinese and All workers.

I saw some of the Jung Sai strikers clutching their chests with clenched fists, testifying to the truth of what the actresses were saying. As the skit reached peak levels where the Jung Sal workers’ anger boiled over--determined to never be oppressed again--many in the audience, particularly some of the workers, burst into bitter tears. At the skit’s conclusion, the audience whole-heartedly applauded the fine presentation. The CMT powerfully drew upon the daily experiences of Chinatown workers to evolve the essence and raw gut level emotions generating the Jung Sai and Lee Mah workers’ militant stand.

Three songs were especially written for the Festival and are reprinted in the supplementary sheet enclosed. “Song of the Chinese in America” was written and performed by the Friendship Chorus in Cantonese, and was a very beautiful and moving lyrical tribute. “We Must Stand Together” by the May 4th Singers (M4S) an Asian American cultural group, was a snappy, spirited song sharpening the political advances of the struggle…

‘Song of the Chinese in America’

Cross the ocean over waves,

away from home we came

fearing neither hardship nor bitterness,

we dug the mines,

and built the railroads,

developing the new continent.

In countless fishing boats and nets

-through wind and rain we toiled.

For generations we’ve enriched

this land,

with our bare hands developed it into orchards and farms——

with our sweat— -

This is our home.

In garment shops, laundries, and restaurants, we worked hard.

Our lives have been discrimination, oppression, and exploitation;

and immigration laws that keep workers silent and families apart.

The wheel of history cannot be stopped,

new generations blossom to the challenge

-Now we push forward in unity.

CHORUS:

A hundred years of struggle,

has nurtured a new force..

Our minds are broad and open,

Our sights far and wide,

we are marching towards peace.

United with people of all races.

to create a new world

So strong is our determination.

So high our spirit.

Victory is in sight!

‘We Must Stand Together !’

Who dares to make waves that will change

our lives?

Who dares to go against the tide?

Who’s making history that books can’t

hide -

Teaching lessons that bosses can’t

buy?

LEE MAH AND JUNG SAI WORKERS

Fighting for the right to organize

We’ve been worked too hard for far too long

Win back our jobs, get the bosses off

our backs.

CHORUS: We must stand together—

JUNG SAI-- LEE MAH!

It’s a fight for the better--

TYUNGIT—HEILOI !

The struggle’s ignited

We can’t be divided

- And we’ll win!

Plain Jane and Farinon are running scared

As the class whose profits just won’t

last

They can’t keep immigrants down no more

We ain’t scared of their cops or their

courts.

Y ‘know, it ain‘t much diff’rent from

here to Hong Kong

We gotta put a stop to those runaway shops~.

Link up with workers’ struggles ‘round

The world

Rise up! 0ur time has come!

CHORUS

We’re gonna build this struggle all. over the land

Come on out to the picket lines!

We’ve gotta. take on this system that keeps us down

Place the power in our working hands!

So if you’re weak — this ain’t the place for you

But if you’re strong — C’mon! (and)

Join us!

For it’s a long hard battle — lots of obstacles to move

But the struggle is long overdue.

CHORUS

GUNGYAHN TYUNGIT HEILOI (repeat)

TYUNGIT JAUSH LIHK LEUNG (repeat)