Rethinking the Asian American Movement

Daryl Joji Maeda, Daryl Maeda

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136599255
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Although it is one of the least-known social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the Asian American movement drew upon some of the most powerful currents of the era, and had a wide-ranging impact on the political landscape of Asian America, and more generally, the United States. Using the racial discourse of the black power and other movements, as well as antiwar activist and the global decolonization movements, the Asian American movement succeeded in creating a multi-ethnic alliance of Asians in the United States and gave them a voice in their own destinies.

Rethinking the Asian American Movement provides a short, accessible overview of this important social and political movement, highlighting key events and key figures, the movement's strengths and weaknesses, how it intersected with other social and political movements of the time, and its lasting effect on the country. It is perfect for anyone wanting to obtain an introduction to the Asian American movement of the twentieth century.

1

KEY ORGANIZATIONS

The Asian American movement was a loosely organized social movement of national scope. However, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and New York were particularly important sites of Asian American activism. This chapter introduces the key organizations, explaining their origins, the issues they sought to address, and in some cases, how they evolved over time. Many organizations underwent significant changes in a relatively short time span: disbanding, changing names and priorities, or merging with other groups. Asian American radicals constantly had to manage the tension between focusing on their own communities, on the one hand, and building interracial and international solidarity by engaging in coalitions with other “Third World” people, on the other. All of the groups went on from the beginnings discussed here to contribute to subsequent campus activism, community work, labor organizing or political campaigns, either directly as groups or through the participation of individuals who had belonged to them.

Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA)

Any discussion of Asian American radicalism in the movement era has to begin with the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA). Indeed, Yuji Ichioka coined the term “Asian American” when he co-founded the AAPA at the University of California, Berkeley, in May 1968. AAPA’s story reveals how deeply Asian American activism of this period was rooted in the New Left movement of the time. Berkeley was a hotbed of political activism. In 1964–65, it was the site of the Free Speech Movement, in which students occupied the campus to demonstrate for the right to express their political opinions. By the late 1960s, groups like the Black Panthers were rejecting integrationist pleas for “civil rights” and instead calling for “self-determination,” which they understood to mean that people of color should control their own communities and institutions. The anti-Vietnam War movement was in full swing as well, and incorporated several lines of thought regarding the war: pacifists opposed all war as wrong, some white students believed that too many Americans were being killed in a meaningless war, and the Black Panthers and similarly minded organizations opposed it because they believed that in the process of killing yellow people, black and brown people were dying in disproportionate numbers. The Peace and Freedom Party was one white radical anti-war organization that allied itself with the Panthers; Eldridge Cleaver, Minister of Information of the Black Panther Party, even ran as the Peace and Freedom Party’s presidential candidate in 1968.

Many Asian Americans were active in the protest movements at Berkeley, but initially, they participated as individuals rather than as a group. As Ichioka recounted:

There were so many Asians out there in the political demonstrations but we had no effectiveness. Everyone was lost in the larger rally. We figured that if we rallied behind our own banner, behind an Asian American banner, we would have an effect on the larger public. We could extend the influence beyond ourselves, to other Asian Americans.¹

To reach out to other progressive Asian Americans and create a political organization, Ichioka—along with fellow political activist and spouse Emma Gee—combed through roster of the Peace and Freedom Party, picking out people with Asian surnames and telephoning them to invite them to the meeting of an Asian caucus.² AAPA formed after the first meeting of this caucus. It is highly significant that Ichioka and Gee used the methodology of pulling out all Asian surnames—rather than simply trying to identify members of a single ethnic group—because it demonstrates that from its very inception, AAPA was explicitly envisioned as a multiethnic group for all Asians. Indeed, AAPA drew together a diverse group of Asian Americans as its first members recruited members from their own organizations and networks.

According to Harvey Dong (2002), AAPA brought together Asian American women and men from a variety of ethnic and geographical backgrounds, socio-economic classes, and immigration generations. Its members included the Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese Americans who were the children of garment and restaurant workers and small farmers, as well as those whose families had recently ascended into the middle class. Some members were first-generation immigrants, while others were native-born second- and third-generation Asian Americans from the mainland U.S. and Hawai’i. Some had grown up in rural farming areas, while others were from inner cities and still others were suburbanites. Furthermore, AAPA drew students with different cultural and political experiences. Two young women had been politically active well before arriving on the Berkeley campus, having organized strike support for the United Farm Workers (UFW) and formed a chapter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Similarly, a male member of AAPA had been a member of the UFW strike committee before settling in Berkeley. Richard Aoki was a veteran of the US Army who was a member of the Black Panther Party. In addition to incorporating members with prior commitments to leftist politics, AAPA also recruited students from Asian student organizations that were primarily social in nature, such as the Chinese Students Association (mostly Hong Kong students), the Chinese Students Club (American-born Chinese), and the Nisei Students Club. Generational and geographical differences were manifest. Immigrant members who had been raised in Asian majority society saw that their American-born compatriots had internalized racial oppression and believed that they should turn to Asian culture to regain their voices.³ Thus, it was highly significant that AAPA called itself a political organization, because it sought to differentiate itself from merely cultural organizations and it envisioned politics as the glue that could unite such diverse members.

AAPA’s political commitments included building a multiethnic Asian American political movement and creating both interracial and transnational affiliations. In a document entitled “Understanding AAPA,” it wrote:

We Asian Americans believe that we must develop an American society which is just, humane, equal, and gives the people the right to control their own lives before we can begin to end the oppression and inequality that exists in this nation.

We Asian Americans realize that America was always and still is a White Racist Society. Asian Americans have been continuously exploited and oppressed by the racist majority and have survived only through hard work and resourcefulness, but their souls have not survived.

We Asian Americans refuse to cooperate with the White Racism in this society which exploits us as well as other Third World people, and affirm the right of Self-Determination.

We Asian Americans support all oppressed peoples and their struggles for Liberation and believe that Third World People must have complete control over the political, economic, and educational institutions within their communities.

We Asian Americans oppose the imperialistic policies being pursued by the American Government.⁴

There are three important things to note about this polemical statement. First, the repetition of the phrase “We Asian Americans” at the beginning of each paragraph indicates that AAPA sought to coalesce all Asians together as a political group. Second, AAPA understood the United States to be exploitative and racist at its very core. AAPA also argued that justice would only be achieved when communities of color were able to exercise “self-determination.” Because it saw Asian Americans and other Third World people as similarly impacted by American racism, AAPA argued for solidarity among them. This is a prime example of AAPA’s commitment to interracialism. Third, when AAPA opposed the “imperialistic policies” of the U.S. government, it was voicing opposition to the Vietnam War in particular. This language meant that AAPA saw the war as an attempt to overturn the legitimate government of the sovereign nation of Vietnam through force. More broadly, AAPA declared solidarity with colonized and newly decolonized nations of Asia, Latin America, and Africa and lauded the efforts to build “Third World consciousness” that began with the 1955 Bandung Conference.⁵ In arguing for Third World solidarity, AAPA frequently quoted Communist Chinese leaders, especially Mao Zedong, but also figures such as Chou En-Lai. AAPA thus displayed its internationalism through the significant attention it paid to political developments across the globe.

From its humble beginnings in Berkeley, AAPA became an important and influential organization, participating in the Third World Liberation Front strikes at San Francisco State College and Berkeley, the movement to free imprisoned Black Panther leader Huey Newton, supporting the United Farm Workers Union strike, protesting the Vietnam War, and fighting to save the International Hotel (see Chapter 2 on campus activism and Chapter 3 on community activism). Part of its success stemmed from its flexibility. AAPA envisioned itself as an entity that could bring people together to fight for their common goals, but did not demand strict adherence from its members. AAPA had no official membership requirements or even official rosters; instead, members set their own priorities and worked on the issues that they felt were most pressing.

Although AAPA was a pivotal organization in the Asian American movement, it was also short-lived. After the successful culmination of the TWLF strike at the University of California, Berkeley, which resulted in the creation of Asian American studies within an ethnic studies department, the Berkeley chapter disbanded in late 1969. Its members went on to participate in a wide variety of Asian American movement organizations and causes on campuses and in communities. In addition, AAPA inspired Asian Americans across the nation to organize politically. AAPA chapters formed in places as near as San Francisco, San Jose, and Los Angeles, and as far-flung as New York and Hawai’i, and at Yale and Columbia Universities. These chapters did not make AAPA into a formal national organization. Instead, they were started by people who shared AAPA’s politics, were inspired by the Berkeley example, and borrowed the name to apply to their own organizations. Despite the fact that AAPA had chapters around the country, no formal AAPA national governing board ever attempted to impose a uniform ideology or criteria for membership, authorize the use of the AAPA name, or create a national consensus. Instead, just as the loosely organized individuals within local chapters enjoyed relative freedom to pursue the activism that they chose, AAPA chapters addressed issues of local concern in their own ways. However, the AAPA moniker certainly implied that a chapter shared the Third World politics of the original organization in Berkeley.

Asian Americans for Action (AAA)

In New York City, Asian Americans for Action (AAA, pronounced Triple-A) constituted another early and important Asian American activist group. The AAA narrative has two unique, but related elements: first, unlike AAPA, which started with college students, AAA involved multiple generations, and second, whereas AAPA was an exclusively New Left group, AAA had ties to the Old Left. Despite these differences, however, AAPA and AAA were remarkably comparable in their political perpectives. Their similarities show that although the Asian American movement was not tightly coordinated, the organizations it comprised shared identifiable core values of anti-racism and anti-imperialism.

A pair of older Japanese American women with links to the Old Left organized AAA in New York in 1969. Before World War II, Kazu Iijima had been a member of the Young Communist League while a student at Berkeley and a member of a Japanese American progressive group called the Young Democrats. After the war, amidst McCarthyism, she avoided politics and concentrated on raising her family. In the 1960s, however, she and her friend Minn Masuda, who had also been a prewar radical, took notice of the swelling of Black Power. They attended rallies and heard speakers like H. Rap Brown and James Farmer indict the U.S. for its racism and imperialism. Deeply inspired, Iijima and Masuda decided to start their own organization. Iijima’s son Chris urged his mother not to limit the group to Japanese Americans, but to include all Asian Americans. In order to recruit members, Iijima and Masuda approached every Asian person they saw at rallies and demonstrations, asking for their names and addresses, and inviting them to a meeting. Although many must have been confused by being approached by “two little old ladies,” 12 to 15 people showed up at the first meeting on April 6 at the Iijima’s apartment and the group grew steadily with each subsequent meeting. They dubbed their new organization Asian Americans for Action. Some initial members were, like Iijima and Masuda, Nisei (second-generation Japanese American) with ties to the Old Left. Younger members, mainly Chinese American college students from Columbia University and City College of New York, had been politicized by the Black Power and anti-war movements. Thus, unlike AAPA in Berkeley, AAA had connections to the Old Left through its older Nisei members, but what the two organizations did share was that both grew out of the New Left.⁶

The moniker Asian Americans for Action pointed out the organization’s activist and political aims. Rather than being a cultural or social organization, AAA envisioned itself as a political formation with an emphasis on practice. Ideologically, it opposed racism, imperialism, and capitalism. As discussed in Chapter 5, AAA held vigils on the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, protested against the renewal of the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty, and especially demonstrated against the U.S. war in Vietnam. All of these anti-imperialist activities fostered AAA’s growth.

One of the key recruits to AAA was Yuri Kochiyama, a Nisei woman who grew to be a legendary figure of Asian American radicalism. This tiny woman of boundless energy and enormous personal warmth lived an extraordinary life of political commitment that has inspired countless Asian American activists over the decades. Born as Mary Nakahara in San Pedro, California, in 1921, she was a patriotic American through high school and even after being incarcerated in an Arkansas concentration camp during World War II for no reason other than being a Japanese American. Although she always socially involved, she did not become politicized until she and her family resettled after the war in New York City. In 1960, Yuri, her husband Bill, and their six children moved into an apartment in Harlem, a poor, black neighborhood yet politically vibrant. There, she met civil rights leaders, learned about Black history and culture, and became involved in the venerable civil rights organization CORE (Congress of Racial Equality). The Kochiyama household became a multiracial gathering place for Japanese Americans—friends, relatives, and acquaintances from the family’s extensive ethnic network—and black members of the organizations in which Yuri had become involved.

As Kochiyama aptly said, “Harlem has been my university-without-walls.” One of the key professors at this university was Malcolm X, whom she met in 1963. When she met Malcolm, Yuri was still an integrationist, yet was still drawn to his nationalism because she valued the hope and direction it gave to black people. On the evening of June 6, 1964, the Kochiyamas hosted a gathering of hibakusha (Japanese atomic bomb survivors) visiting the U.S., Japanese American friends, and black and white civil rights activists. The hibakusha had asked to meet Malcolm X, and remarkably, he appeared in the Kochiyama’s living room. When Malcolm spoke, he wove together the history of domestic U.S. racism with its history of colonialism in Asia, telling the hibakusha that they had been atomically bombed, while blacks in America had been hit by the bombs of racism. Shortly after his visit with the hibakushas, Malcolm went on an international tour of Africa, a trip that saw him evolve from a nationalist to an internationalist. Bill and Yuri received 11 postcards from Malcolm, from a total of eight countries that he passed through on his transformational journey. Tragically, Malcolm was cut down before he could fully implement his new vision. When Malcolm X was shot at the Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965, Yuri Kochiyama rushed onto the stage to see if she could help him, and it was she who cradled his head in her lap as he breathed his last. From her association with Malcolm, Yuri went on to a storied life of activism, becoming one of the few non-black members of the Republic of New Africa, participating in the takeover of the Statue of Liberty in 1977 as part of the Puerto Rican liberation movement...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Editor’s Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: Reframing the Movement
• 1. Key Organizations
• 2. Campus Activism
• 3. Community Activism in Cities and the Countryside
• 4. Arts and Culture
• 5. Interracialism, Internationalism, and Intersections of Gender and Race
• 6. Consolidations and Transformation
• 7. Conclusion: The Asian American Movement Remix
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index