The challenge

In New York City, 80 percent of people of Asian background are immigrants or refugees, and more
than 60 percent of them have no or limited English proficiency. Most are poor. Many work full time, often at multiple jobs, but low wages keep them at or near poverty level. Fear of deportation, discrimination, and, in some cases, anti-immigrant sentiment, keep many exploited workers from seeking legal protection to improve their lives.

Seeds of commitment

The women who lead CAAAV, formerly known as the Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence, are products of their communities: they have experienced the problems other Asian immigrants face. They describe themselves as immigrants, refugees or their children, former low-wage workers, former student activists, and mothers. They are united by their desire to produce a form of community organizing that can respond effectively to the needs of globalization’s “new working class.”

CAAAV leaders say they are driven and sustained by community members’ deep belief in the organization. “Whether we are taking a slumlord to court, holding the welfare center accountable for our civil rights, confronting exploitative employers, or building alternative institutions that will improve conditions for our children, we are as much students as we are facilitators.”

Accomplishments

The Asian communities with which CAAAV works speak dozens of languages and encompass a multiplicity of cultures, histories, and ethnicities. For example, CAAAV includes Indonesian domestic workers and Chinatown sidewalk vendors. Both groups are Asian, but inhabit very different worlds. CAAAV has developed successful programs to help its varied constituencies. The Youth Leadership Project (YLP) works with members of the sizeable populations of Vietnamese and Cambodians in the Bronx. Many are refugees who fled the destruction of the Vietnam War and are now working in unsafe conditions and for poor wages in sweatshops. YLP organizes young people and their families to push for a living wage and to promote change in the legal system, including implementation of alternative sentencing instead of deportation. In 1998, YLP led a campaign that resulted in federal civil-rights monitoring of a local health clinic, and reinstatement of health care to those unfairly denied access.

CAAAV’s Women Workers Project works with Indonesian, Malaysian, and Filipina women who are domestic workers in New York City. Their isolation and lack of protection under U.S. labor laws makes them vulnerable; employers know they fear deportation and sometimes take advantage of them. CAAAV unites women from across the city through avenues such as the Asian Women’s Leadership Course, and works to create fair labor standards for domestic workers. CAAAV also co-founded Domestic Workers United, a citywide union of domestic workers of all nationalities; the group’s efforts helped lead to passage of legislation in 2003 that protects the rights of domestic workers in New York City.

CAAAV’s Chinatown Justice Project (CJP) works to prevent the city’s Chinese population from being displaced by an influx of high-end housing and other lucrative real estate development. Through CJP, tenants united to form a cohesive front and develop strategies to remain in the neighborhood. Recently, local CJP youth persuaded the city council to pass legislation prohibiting racially motivated harassment of immigrant tenants. In 2003, the Chinatown Tenants Union, founded by CJP, instituted a program that has enabled non-English-speaking tenants to complain about negligent landlords. The city today has triple the number of bilingual housing inspectors, a translation radio system for inspectors, and a 311 hotline that provides three-way translation between housing specialists and tenants.

Leadership style

To work effectively, the five leaders of CAAAV say they look to their varied cultures, languages, and histories to find common ground. “All of our organizing exists in the context of how other race/ethnic communities are struggling with different faces of the same issue,” they write. That perspective has allowed the leaders to build successful multi-racial coalitions. The leaders of CAAAV also exchange leadership techniques from their disparate cultures, believing that “our strength lies in our differences as much as our shared vision.”

For the past decade, much of CAAAV’s work has focused on nurturing leaders within the communities the organization serves. “The challenge has been for those newer leaders to take hold of the organization’s work and direction, feel empowered to exercise leadership at all levels of the organization, and challenge veteran leaders when there are disagreements,” the leaders write. CAAAV regularly evaluates how power operates in the organization, encourages regular discussions of power and privilege, and promotes activities to deepen connection and community.

The future

Ai-jen Poo, the Special Projects Director for CAAAV, is helping to coordinate CAAAV’s leadership and campaign development programs. Jane Sung E Bai, CAAAV’s executive director, is helping to develop a long-term strategy for the organization. Helena Wong, who runs the Chinatown Justice Project, plans to develop low-income youth and tenant leaders as well as a long-term plan for the project’s future. Carolyn de Leon-Hermogenes, a former domestic worker who now organizes that community, plans to develop the Queens Women Workers Center “into a space where thousands of community members can help shape that community’s future.” Chhaya Chhoum, who directs the Youth Leadership Project, will continue developing youth leaders. “I want to change the way my community sees leadership . . . young people can be leaders, women can be leaders, and leaders should reflect the demographics of our community.”

More about CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities

“As a multi-national, multi-lingual organization, with members of various faiths, sexual orientations,
and ages ranging from 13 to 65, CAAAV staff must work to build unity across many forms of difference while advancing its mission.”
- Joo-Hyun Kang, Director of Programs, Astraea Lesbian Foundation
for Justice

"They're very oriented toward trying to understand not just what they're doing in the local communities in Chinatown and the South Bronx but what that has to do with the rest of the world."
-Linda Burnham, ED Women of Color Resource Center