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Voices for Justice: Asian Pacific American Organizers and The New Labor Movement
by Merilynne Hamano Quon
posted 2/26/02
Voices for Justice edited by Kent Wong, published by UCLA Labor Research
Center, 2002
This book is beautiful, absolutely beautiful!
Enhanced with PRICELESS PHOTOGRAPHS of workers struggles, VOICES FOR JUSTICE
shares the stories of today's Asian Pacific American Labor Leaders: May Chen
(UNITE-Local 23-25); Leonard Hoshijo (ILWU Local 142); Bob Hasegawa (Teamsters-Local
174); Susan Minato (HERE Local 11); Luisa Blue (SEIU Local 790); Francisco
Chang (AFSCME); Ligaya Domingo (SEIU 1199); Raahi Reddi (SEIU Local 715); Quynh
Nguyen (National Organizing Director Asian Pacific Labor Alliance).
Drawing on their heritage as workers, immigrants, women, and members of the
third world, these fighters organize garment workers, healthcare workers, truckers,
hotel workers, janitors, supermarket workers, meat packers; and strippers.
They represent, not only Asian Pacific Americans, but thousands of workers
of all nationalities and languages. They are Asian Pacific Americans of Japanese,
Chinese, Korean, Pilipino, Vietnamese, and Indian descent. They are "thirty
year veterans" of the Asian American movement AND the new generation of 90's
movement makers. They live in New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
and San Jose.
VOICES FOR JUSTICE shows how ten Asian Pacific American labor organizers are
there for the workers everyday to fight for better wages, benefits; and
working conditions. They organize the unorganized. They work for democracy
and accountability in existing unions. They do the "detail work", as Susan
Minato calls it, the "one on ones"; house visits; meetings with workers at
all hours of a 24 hour day. They have turned their own pain into strength to
empower workers. They listen and address issues not only in the workplace but
in people's homes and communities.
They demonstrate that action means more than words-often times, organizing
workers who do not share the same language. They identify , nurture, and train
the natural leaders. The Asian Pacific Labor organizers featured in VOICES
FOR JUSTICE are on the front lines of building the fighting capacity of a multi-racial;
multi-lingual working class in America today.
