[Navigating Way Net]
Last altered May 29, 1996
Sunu P. Chandy
"The Second Annual National Asian Pacific American Conference on Law and Public Policy, Representational Issues Affecting the APA Community" was held on March 15-17, at the Harvard Law School and The Kennedy School of Government.
An Asian American student from Northeastern Law School and I approached this event with skepticism because often Asian-American 'professional' speakers try and tell us how better to fit into the model minority picture and assimilate into corporate 'American' culture. However, there were some pleasant surprises at this conference.
One of the main speakers, Mr. Dale Minami, talked about how we need to work with other people of color, with progressive white Americans, and with gay and lesbian groups (of course, assuming no cross membership between our group and those, but it's still a big deal that he said the words...). He also quoted Mari Matsuda who states that Asian Americans will not be buffers in the black/white polarization: "we will not be used".
Another highlight was the panel on "Corporate Accountability to the Asian Pacific American Labor Movement." The speakers here addressed the difficulty of organizing Asian Americans around labor because we are present in three different categories: Asian American workers, small business owners, and Asian Americans who have broken into corporate American. Among Asian Americans there is severe economic polarity since for every one person making over $75,000, there is another Asian American making $10,000 or less. The speakers were unwilling to say that Asian Americans in corporate work now perpetuate the same oppression of workers. This was because the speakers' goals were to somehow persuade all Asian Americans to make responsible decisions whichever level they work in and in this way create a unified Asian American struggle. They promoted the idea that corporate lawyers can work on prevention of abuses from the top.
I am sure, however, that class-based tensions between Asian American groups often arise, and I don't think this is addressed. For example, Asian Americans who are small business owners are often against a higher minimum wage, although workers are fighting for such measures. However, small business owners are often also exploiting their own and their family's labor to survive in addition to the labor of their hired workers. There is a pressure to keep these businesses alive and it may seem impossible without exploiting workers. There was also a discussion of all the subcontracting that takes place between clothing retailers and sweatshops which allow retailers to say that they know nothing about the mistreatment of workers. But, as one speaker pointed out that corporations who are profiting from these sales must know that the workers are underpaid, because how else can they be making such high profits. If they are only paying $1 for each piece of clothing, they must know that somewhere in the chain, people are being exploited.
The speakers on this panel really wanted to get Asian American lawyers from every community involved, and they saw progressive attorneys as the link between the mainstream Bar Associations and the workers/activists in the field.
There were very few South Asians presenting at or attending this Conference. I decided to hear the Indian American woman speaker on the panel about government jobs, even though I wanted to attend the panel on grassroots efforts, which was more interesting to me. After hearing all of the compromises necessary to work for the government and all the times when you are not allowed to take a stand or be an advocate, I had to leave that panel and attend the other one. This reminded me that connections can never be made solely on the basis of racial or other identity, but that they are about politics and values and a common agenda as activists.
These conferences were useful for me because I was able to hear a number of women of color and other Asian-American lawyers speak about their views on where we are at, and this was both inspiring and frustrating. In any case, it provokes my thinking as to which portion of my identity needs to take prominence at certain times. This is difficult because I base my activism on the fact that I will not rank my gender or sexual identity above or below my identity as a person of color. At Northeastern Law School, there are a number of groups which I should be/could be, in theory, devoted to. However, because each group narrowly focuses on their issue alone, I always feel a need and a responsibility to bring up the other missing issues. This is a hard task, when these groups are supposed to be serving somewhat as support groups, with a basic level of trust or empathy which I often find missing. As a result, I am only involved minimally, suspiciously, and often half-heartedly. The only groups that I know, which acknowledge at least the race/gender intersection, is women of color groups and thus, we should consider starting one such group at Northeastern Law School.
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One of the most helpful workshops that I have attended recently was on negotiation by Roger Fisher. He suggested that we organize our thinking about conflict by using these four steps: what is going on, what is causing this/what's lacking here, what are broad ideas or strategies to change the situation, and what are specific action that we can take. He also discussed some reasons why conflict and miscommunication arise:
These ideas were put forth, not so that we can judge each other, but rather so that we can understand why and how it is that we come from such different places in our thinking.
[Navigating Way Net]
Last altered May 29, 1996