Kicking off a summer of API empowerment: Asian American Racial Justice Project July 2024 Recap

By: Emmelle Israel, Graduate Student Researcher for AARJ

Throughout July 2024, the UCLA Labor Center’s Asian American Racial Justice (AARJ) project joined together with community, student, and labor organizations to host a series of three events.

Through educational programming, the AARJ project supports the leadership and organizing efforts of young workers, undocumented students, and other Asian and Pacific Islander (API) community and labor leaders advocating for racial, economic, and social justice.

Young Workers Panel with the Asian American Labor Alliance (APALA) 

On July 11, AARJ co-hosted a “Young Workers Panel” with the Los Angeles chapter of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA). More than 30 API union members and community supporters gathered to hear from a panel of amazing leaders and member organizers from UAW 4811, SEIU 721, and UNITE HERE 11. 

APALA LA co-president and UNITE HERE 11 community organizer Mary Entoma kicked off the event by screening a video highlighting worker voices from picket lines at various LA-area hotels that went on strike starting July 2023. Matthew Vu of the Los Angeles Community Land Trust Coalition then introduced the panelists and led them through a  meaningful conversation about their recent campaigns: 

• For UAW 4811, Noura Alaboudi and Aya Konishi, UAW 4811’s recording secretary for UCLA, shared lessons learned from their union’s unfair labor practices strike and other efforts that union members took in solidarity with the movement for justice in Palestine, alongside other student and campus-wide organizers.
• For UNITE HERE 11, Melissa Dogoldogol, shop steward at the Waldorf Astoria, shared experiences from hotel service workers who went on strike and how union members gained a strong sense of empowerment despite the hardships they faced.
• For SEIU 721, Chris Cassel and Nicolas Solimene discussed the campaign they led at Occidental College, organizing one of the first undergraduate student worker wall-to-wall unions in the country.

Opportunity4All: Mobilizing Undocu API Changemakers

Later that week, on July 13, AARJ supported “Opportunity4All: Mobilizing Undocu API Changemakers,” a webinar hosted by Empowering API, the Undocumented Student Network, and APALA Los Angeles. The Opportunity For All campaign, which began as a student-led movement at the university level and evolved into Assembly Bill 2586 sponsored by Assemblymember David Alvarez (D-San Diego), is proposes allowing students equal access to campus job opportunities, regardless of their immigration status, at the University of California, California State University, and the California Community Colleges.

More than 35 undocumented student activists, immigrant rights advocates, and labor and community leaders participated in the event. Jenny Kim, volunteer project coordinator of the Dream Resource Center (DRC) and co-founder of Empowering API, moderated a panel of speakers: 

• Kent Wong, director of labor and community partnerships at the UCLA Labor Center and founding president of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance
• Jeffry Umaña Muñoz, co-chair for the Undocumented Student Network (USN) and a leading organizer for the Opportunity For All campaign
• Ju Hong, director of the UCLA Dream Resource Center
• Ava Ham, master’s student in biotechnology management at the University of California, Irvine and a campaign coordinator of Empowering API
• Christine Nabung, undocumented community organizer for Revolutionizing Asian American Stories on the East Coast (RAISE)

In addition to sharing their stories of personal connection to the Opportunity for All campaign, the panelists discussed the progress the bill has made in the California legislature and actionable steps for attendees to help pass AB 2586. After the webinar, attendees helped to mobilize more than 15 API community and higher education organizations to sign an open letter to governor Gavin Newsom, urging him to support AB 2586. 

Los Angeles County Federation of Labor’s Next Gen Organizing Institute

To close out the month, AARJ project coordinator Lisa Lei served as one of the trainers for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor’s Next Gen Organizing Institute from July 26-28. The trainees consisted of 35 young workers from unions such as UFCW 770, UFCW 1428, SEIU 121, Workers United, CTA, NUHW, and CWA, as well as interns from the UCLA Labor Center’s Labor Summer program. Together, the group engaged in a wide-ranging curriculum covering race and class analyses, organizing tactics, roleplay scenarios, and personalized feedback from working organizers.

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The Asian American Racial Justice Project at the UCLA Labor Center centers and amplifies the voices of our API communities and generates collaborative efforts to rectify the violence that harms us ideologically, institutionally, interpersonally and internally. While we, as a community, have suffered a history of colonization, anti-Asian violence, and erasure, we also carry a vibrant legacy of resilience, victory, and love. We work in collaboration with unions and community organizations to uplift immigrant youth, develop API union leadership, and coordinate organizing and educational programs that intersect race and worker power.

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