10 Political and Social Movements
Trace how Asian American movements have used labor organizing, student protest, community programs, legal advocacy, and political action to pursue civil rights and build coalitions.
A coalition identity and many forms of action
political and social action has included labor organizing, student protest, community services, legal advocacy, electoral politics, and coalitions across racial and ethnic groups. The term gained political force in the 1960s, when activists used it to unite people with different national, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds around shared struggles. This was a coalition identity, not a claim that communities were all alike.
Labor organizing and shared demands
Activism drew on a longer history of workers organizing against low wages and poor conditions. On September 8, 1965, Filipino members of the struck grape growers in Delano, California. Mexican American members of the National Farm Workers Association joined them. The organizations later merged into the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee.
Workers and supporters used strikes, marches, and a consumer boycott to press for better pay and working conditions. Growers signed major contracts in 1970. Filipino organizers Larry Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz were important leaders. The campaign showed how workers from different backgrounds could build power together, while also raising questions about whose leadership and contributions received recognition.
Labor organizing also took place in urban communities. In 1982, Chinese garment workers in New York City organized a strike that brought tens of thousands of immigrant women into the streets. Such campaigns connected workplace demands with community concerns, including language access, housing, and the treatment of immigrant workers.
Student action and the Movement
In the 1960s and 1970s, students and community organizers joined civil rights, Black Power, antiwar, and other movements. At San Francisco State College, student groups worked with Black, Latino, and other student organizations in the . Its 1968–69 strike called for ethnic studies and greater access to higher education. The action helped establish ethnic studies programs and made coalition organizing a central feature of the Movement.
Activists also created community programs and organizations that addressed education, housing, health care, and workers’ rights. These movements challenged racism in the United States and debated U.S. policies abroad, including the Vietnam War. They argued that history belonged in schools and universities.
The movement’s broad umbrella could obscure differences in class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and political outlook. Building solidarity therefore required listening across those differences rather than assuming they did not matter.
Redress, legal advocacy, and political participation
Japanese American campaigns for redress connected community organizing with political advocacy. Day of Remembrance events helped publicize the history of wartime incarceration, and a federal commission investigated its causes. In 1988, Congress passed the , which acknowledged the injustice and provided an official apology and reparations to eligible survivors. The campaign demonstrated how education, testimony, coalition support, and work through government could combine in the pursuit of civil rights.
The 1982 murder of Vincent Chin in the Detroit area also galvanized organizing. After Chin’s killers received lenient sentences, activists formed and sought a federal civil-rights case. The campaign drew support from African American, Arab American, Jewish, and labor organizations. It helped build pan-Asian advocacy networks while exposing obstacles to in a society where Asian Americans were often overlooked in discussions of race and civil rights.
Continuing movements and durable solidarity
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, and other communities faced profiling and backlash. During the COVID-19 pandemic, communities organized against anti-Asian scapegoating and violence. In February 2020, San Francisco Chinatown residents held a “Fight the Virus, Not the People” rally.
Opposing anti-Asian racism can go alongside confronting anti-Black racism and building solidarity with other communities. Across these movements, organizers have used unions, student strikes, community institutions, public demonstrations, legal challenges, and electoral and legislative advocacy. Coalitions have made campaigns broader and more powerful, while requiring sustained attention to differences within and between communities.