Race, Labor and Immigration
A new labor movement is emerging that takes issues of race, labor, and immigration hand-in-hand. Historically, like many progressive movements, the labor movement has struggled to address issues of immigration and race together with issues of labor--it has been dominated by a white contingency that failed to see deep solidarity across lines of nationality and race as crucial to the success of all working people. But the labor movement today looks different than 100 years ago. New constituency groups are being formed and stand alone organizations are emerging that address the experience of working people of color and immigrants.
Religion and religious communities have a large role to play in helping illustrate the intersectional solidarity--the deep solidarity--of the labor movement. Yet, religion itself is also often a stumbling block for building intersectional deep solidarity within the working majority. Immigrant communities have long faced margianlziation not merely because of their immigration status or racial identity--take anti-Semitism or anti-Asian sentiment, for example, which are crucial drivers in white nationalism. Workers of all races, nationalities, and religions need to build solidarity in order to build economic and political power to confront deep economic issues faced by all working people. The right kind of religion, however, can be a resource in building this deep solidarity and power. The panelists in this forum will explore how religion is a key player in helping to construct a new labor movement across all lines of labor, race, and immigration.
This forum explores the possibilities and challenges at this intersection: for working people that have been traditionally underrepresented by the labor movement -- but have long histories of organizing as and with working people -- what are the emerging possibilities in building deeper solidarity and power as working people of color? How can communities of color who experience marginalization due to their racial identity, immigration status, and ethnicity build power as workers?
Contributors: Robert Chao Romero; Betty Hung; Vonda McDaniel; Francisco Garcia Jr.
“Asian and Latinx Prophetic Immigration Movements”
Robert Chao Romero
May 13, 2021
“We believe, O Lord, that the foundations of our government were laid by Thine own hand; that all the steps and stages of our progress have been under Thy watch and ward…We meet together today to celebrate the anniversary of our national birth, and we pray that we may be enabled to carry out the divine principles which inspired our noble sires and others, and we pray that…capital may respect the rights of labor, and that labor may honor capital; that the Chinese must go…and good men stay.”
As reflected in this sinophobic prayer of Baptist minister Isaac Kolloch from July 4, 1878, the intertwining of labor, race, class, immigration, and U.S. civil religion is nothing new. Kolloch preached these insidious words in San Francisco as part of the anti-Chinese campaigns of the late nineteenth century which culminated in the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Sadly, white worker unions played a central role in the sinophobic movement and portrayed Chinese immigrant laborers as a racially and culturally inferior cheap labor force with which they could not compete. After Kolloch’s endorsement of the Workingman’s Party in 1878, it is said that white working class attendance in his church skyrocketed, and, drawing upon his newfound religious and political acclaim, Kolloch became the 18th mayor of San Francisco the following year.
It is perhaps obvious to state, but the M.A.G.A. movement, under the leadership of Donald Trump and white evangelical figures such as Franklin Graham, Paula White, and Jerry Falwell, Jr., have followed the same time-tested civil religion playbook of Isaac Kolloch and others. According to civil religion, religious clergy work in symbiotic relationship with a narrowly-defined civil community and bring assurances of God’s favor. A civil community is defined by a set of religious understandings and practices, and also sometimes a racial or ethnic component. Membership in the civil community is established by birth, and those of the civil community define themselves in relation to “outsiders” and “enemies.” Following this framework, M.A.G.A. defines its own civil community as those of white European descent, and appeals particularly to the disaffected class of white workers. Mexican, Latino, Muslim, and Asian immigrants are outsiders and enemies who threaten the “American Dream.” As chaplains of the empire, Graham, White, Falwell, and even some Latino evangelical pastors such as Guillermo Maldonado and Samuel Rodriguez, have brought false assurances of God’s favor to Trump’s movement through their various expressions of public support.
As a Chinese-Mexican pastor and professor, I am thankful that a critical mass of Asian American and Latina/o evangelical voices have arisen in the past five years to contest the ungodly wedding of white nationalism and evangelical civil religion. These Asian American and Latina/o Christians insist that white nationalistic evangelicalism is an affront to Jesus and the central Christian message: Jesus is fierce prophet and loving Savior who came to make us and the whole world new according to biblical values of justice, grace, and the Beloved Community. Russell Jeung stands out among leading Asian American prophetic voices. Jeung is co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and Professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. Stop AAPI Hate is a reporting center that tracks and responds to anti-Asian hate crimes and discrimination, offers multilingual resources for impacted community members, and supports community-based safety measures and restorative justice efforts. Its findings have shaped important policy developments of the White House, Congress, and various state and local legislative bodies.
Many Latina/o “evangélico” pastors and leaders have also launched prophetic projects for immigrant justice in recent years. Notably, one important branch has been shaped by distinctly Pentecostal faith traditions. Melvin and Ada Valiente, for example, are Pentecostal American Baptist pastors who lead an organization called, “We Care.” We Care has successfully defended the asylum claims of dozens of Central American migrants over the past several years utilizing faith-rooted advocacy methods. Together with Alexia Salvatierra, the Valientes also played a central role in founding a related organization called “Matthew 25.” Matthew 25 represents a broad partnership of Latino and multicultural evangelical and mainline churches based in California. It is unique in the landscape of immigration non-profit work in so far as it brings together immigrant and multi-cultural churches in equal partnership for projects of advocacy and asylum support. Matthew 25 is also intentionally multi-generational, empowering 1.5 and 2nd generation Latinas/os to serve as “puentes,” or cultural bridges, between immigrant and multicultural congregations. The National Latino Evangelical Coalition, Chasing Justice, World Outspoken, Urban Strategies, and Young Líderes also stand out as representative examples of evangelical, Latina/o led organizations on the forefront of immigration ministry and advocacy. Finally, the multicultural Christian Community Development Association is another predominantly BIPOC-led organization which has implemented numerous immigrant justice initiatives over the years, and whose network reaches into the tens of thousands throughout the United States.
The term “Evangelical” has ceased being a theological identity and is now primarily a political one rooted in the fusion of white nationalism and Christian civil religion. Perhaps ironically, grounded in historic evangelical theological conviction, a critical mass of Asian American, Latina/o, and other BIPOC voices have in turn arisen to champion the cause of immigrant justice, as well as call out the hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy of white evangelicalism in the present moment. We are here to stay. And we’re just getting started. Much more to come…
Robert Chao Romero received his Ph.D. from UCLA in Latin American history and his Juris Doctor from U.C. Berkeley. His research explores the little-known history of Asian-Latinos, as well as the role of Christianity in social justice movements in Latin America and among U.S. Latinas/os. Romero is the author of several books, including, The Chinese in Mexico, 1882-1940 and Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity. The Chinese in Mexico received the Latina/o Studies book award from the Latin American Studies Association and Brown Church received the InterVarsity Press Readers’ Choice Award for best academic title. Romero is also an attorney, ordained minister, and faith rooted community organizer.
“BUILDING COMMUNITY IS TO THE COLLECTIVE AS SPIRITUAL PRACTICE IS TO THE INDIVIDUAL.”
-- GRACE LEE BOGGS
Betty Hung
May 13, 2021
Asian Americans have been largely “invisible” in the U.S. -- invisible in history books, media and entertainment, politics, and broader discourse about labor, faith, and immigration. This is despite the fact that Asian Americans have been in the U.S. since its founding and are the fastest growing racial group in the nation.
Why have Asian Americans been rendered invisible in so many ways?
A key reason is the model minority myth that depicts Asian Americans as “quasi-White” and a well educated and wealthy monolith, perpetuating a distorted picture of the community and masking the racism, poverty, and xenophobia experienced by Asian Americans. The reality is that Asian Americans have the largest income gap and experience the longest term unemployment of any racial group. Six in ten Asian Americans are immigrants and 1.7 million Asians in the U.S. are undocumented, the second highest of any racial group next to Latinx. Combined with the perception of Asian Americans as “perpetual foreigners”, the model minority myth has contributed to the long history of discrimination against and exclusion of Asian Americans -- ranging from the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II to the more recent wave of anti-Asian sentiment during the global coronavirus pandemic.
The disturbing upsurge in anti-Asian hate crimes and violence in the past year ironically has increased the visibility of the Asian American community. Donald Trump’s racist rhetoric characterizing the coronavirus as a “China virus” or “kung flu virus” has endangered the safety and well being of Asian Americans. Across the country there has been a 169% increase in anti-Asian attacks. Over 6,600 hate incidents were reported to Stop AAPI Hate between March 2020 and March 2021, with two-thirds of those filing reports being Asian American women.
This crisis has sparked a national conversation about the intersectional impact of systemic racism, white supremacy, and patriarchy on Asian Americans. In the midst of greater interest and investment in Asian American communities, this raises the following question:
How do we transform this crisis into an opportunity to organize the Asian American community and what is the potential role of faith and labor in this endeavor?
A framework that considers the nexus of faith, labor, race, and immigration should include the following:
Center core values of equity, inclusion and justice for all, especially the most marginalized -- Consistent with diverse faith traditions and social justice unionism, there is a moral imperative to prioritize the most marginalized and underrepresented within the Asian American community in efforts to counter anti-Asian discrimination and exclusion. This entails centering the needs, interests, and aspirations of Asian American working families, immigrants including those who are undocumented, women, LGBTQ+, currently and formerly incarcerated, and our elderly. Unless we are intentional about doing so, there is a significant risk that the more privileged will be the primary beneficiaries of the current momentum in Asian American organizing. By taking a values-based equity approach to ensure that the most vulnerable are included in efforts to heal and empower the Asian American community, we can build a more equitable, inclusive, and just society that affirms the inherent dignity and worth of every human being.
Build authentic partnerships and support the leadership of directly impacted Asian Americans -- There is a mantra in the immigrant rights movement: “nothing about us without us.” This also applies to policies, initiatives, and decisions affecting Asian Americans. As we grapple with the dilemma of anti-Asian racism and discrimination, the role of non-Asian allies is critical in devising systemic solutions and addressing implicit and explicit bias on a daily basis. This is especially relevant given recent polling showing that despite 80% of Asian Americans reporting that they have experienced discrimination, 24% of Whites do not believe anti-Asian racism is a problem that should be addressed. To be genuine allies in active solidarity with Asian Americans, it is important to build authentic relationships that are premised on mutual trust and respect. Just as non-Black allies should support the leadership of Blacks in the Movement for Black Lives, so should non-Asian allies defer to and support the leadership of Asian Americans in the struggle for racial and social justice for Asian Americans. This entails active listening, ensuring that Asian Americans have a real seat at decision making tables, and equitably sharing power and resources. For example, labor unions, worker organizations, and faith institutions can proactively reach out to and build authentic, long-term partnerships with Asian American workers, community organizations, and faith leaders. Faith and labor organizations also should educate their own members about anti-Asian racism and why it is important to be in active solidarity with the Asian American community.
Engage in shared, transformative struggle against white supremacy, systemic racism, patriarchy, and plantation capitalism -- The recent disturbing increase in anti-Asian hate crimes and incidents is part of a long history of racism, exclusion, and discrimination against people of color, Indigenous people, and immigrants in this nation. It is essential that we join together in a shared struggle against white supremacy, systemic racism, patriarchy, and economic inequality, especially given that a 2017 poll found 1 out of 10 Americans believed it was acceptable to hold neo-Nazi and white supremacist views. Faith and labor organizations can support the formation of transformational (not transactional) alliances and solidarity amongst Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI), White, women, immigrant, faith, labor, poor and working class, and LGBTQ+ communities. If we are to uphold and strengthen our multiracial democracy, we must build the power of these diverse, intersectional coalitions. We have an opportunity and imperative to forge deep solidarity that promotes collective struggle and belonging while directly confronting structural racism and white supremacy.
By taking this multi-pronged approach, we can counter anti-Asian racism and build a beloved community that advances racial, gender, economic, immigrant, and social justice for all.
Betty Hung, Project Director at the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment and a lecturer in UCLA's labor studies program, is a longtime social justice advocate whose activities focus on law and organizing. A graduate of Harvard and Yale Law School, she has worked for more than 20 years on campaigns and initiatives in the areas of workers' rights, racial justice, immigrants' rights, education equity and gender justice.
Interview with Vonda McDaniel
President of Central Labor Council of Nashville and Middle Tennessee
For this contribution to the forum, Adulin Prophete sat down with Vonda McDaniel to hear some of her own story and how race, labor, and immigration intersect in her experience. Enjoy!
Adulin Prophete
May 27, 2021
Adulin: Good morning, everyone. Nice to talk to you this morning, Vonda. It's a pleasure to work with you, you have been really supportive of my work, I appreciate your time with the Wendland-Cook program as a professional fellow. I wanted to just dive right in to our conversation. As you know, this Interventions forum is on Race, Labor, and Immigration, so considering that theme, let’s start broadly: how is the labor movement at the national level addressing new challenges today for immigrant workers?
Vonda: Well, thank you, Adulin, for the question. That's a great place to start. You know, the labor movement has changed a lot in the 30 years that I have been a member, and I came to the labor movement really based on my own experiences growing up in a church that had a history of social justice. When I came to the labor movement it was really an awakening of sorts—a different kind of awakening than you think about in terms of your religious awakening—that caused me to start reading the stories about the Memphis sanitation strike that really involved Black workers that were not respected and worked in really unsafe conditions. Dr. King gave his life trying to fight in reality what was a labor dispute. That right really shaped the trajectory of the next 50 years.
So, now we find ourselves in situations where the labor movement is addressing a changing workforce in terms of its demographics, and the pandemic has really exposed the weaknesses in our economy. For example, the poultry plant situation is one where you had large immigrant workforces that really have been conditioned not to report safety concerns that were having large outbreaks of Covid. But, it isn’t just about those workers and their struggle. It’s about how that labor situation impacted the broader community. In response, the labor movement really had to, in my opinion, pivot from advocating for policies that improve the lives of all workers but immigrant workers. In particular, we've run citizenship clinics and we've been a part of advocating for DACA and other policies that could improve our broken immigration system.
But now, we're in a situation where we are really faced with a central question: “How do we make sure that immigrant workers have access to health care?” Because, in this pandemic when everybody stopped working it was the immigrant community that was harmed the most. They did not have access to unemployment insurance. They didn't have access to the public health care on a local level. And, so here in Nashville—and nationally—the labor movement went into action to try to make sure that immigrant workers didn't operate in the shadows and that they had the protective equipment that they needed and that they had access to health care and paid leave. So the pandemic has caused a real shift in terms of our organizing focus, but I think it was time to make such a shift. It is time.
Adulin: Thank you, Vonda. That was very helpful and enlightening for me to hear, being an immigrant myself I was particularly interested in hearing your response. At this point, I wonder if you can say more about your own experience coming into the labor movement.
Vonda: Sure! That’s a funny story. You know, my mama is a school teacher, and when I was growing up I didn't really consider that her membership in the teachers association amounted to a union membership.
You know, growing up in the South, I really didn’t have the same union pedigree that many of my friends who are second, third, fourth generation union members. But at my first union orientation that they have as a part of the hiring process, when I went to the union hall there were all these pictures on the walls that weren't very diverse. They were of the officers—the people that had served as a part of the union leadership. The guys that did orientation—apparently they had caught a cowboy boot sale—and so they were all dressed in their cowboy boots and union jackets. None of them looked like me. I was the only woman or person of color in that meeting space and I really was like, “You know what? I’m just going to join, so give me a card, but I want to be out of here before it gets dark.” And that was the beginning of my union experience. But, I will say that when I went into the plant, I met an Italian retired firefighter who had moved south. He was from New York, and he had been very active in his union in New York. He was my first mentor when I went to work, and he taught me about our contract and what was in it and how that related to me, and he introduced me to all of my co-workers.
About two months after I started working, he decided that we were going to have a union election. He had decided that he wasn’t going to run as the union steward, and I asked him why, and he said, “Oh, cause I'm a short timer. I'm not going to work a long time here, and so I think tonight is a good night to have union election.” I said, “Oh, well who's running?” “You,” he said. “I am?!” “Yes. It’ll be fine,” he said. “We're going to work through this together.” And that was the beginning of my union journey as a department steward. He taught me the value of relationships, the value of communication and education. Even though I started out in the union feeling very different and that much of it was foreign to me, he really set the table for what has been a lifetime of advocacy on my part and experiences that have been very valuable and shaped my life.
Adulin: That’s a wonderful story, Vonda, and very inspiring. So, as you know, I’ve lived in the U.S. for a little more than six years, and for a significant part of that I’ve been living in Nashville. So, considering the history of slavery in America, but especially in the South, even after the civil war, and even today African Americans and Black people or people of color don't really have the same rights as the white people when it comes to work. I wonder if you can talk about the importance of the labor movement for Black workers in the South, especially in terms of how the labor movement has historically fought for the civil, political, and economic rights for Black people in the South?
Vonda: Definitely. It’s true that the history of the labor movement and Black workers and women workers of color has not been without its challenges. In fact, especially in the trade union movement. So, the AFL-CIO are two different arms of labor. The AFL, the American Federation of Labor, represents mostly craft unions that had race clauses, to be honest, up until the late 1960s or early 1970s, where they did not permit people of color to apprentice and become journeymen and skill craftsmen. It was a way of ensuring that they had access to wage scales that they felt were exclusive to them. The CIO, which is the Congress of Industrial Organizations, recognized that multi-racial solidarity was something that was particularly important because after World War II or during the war, when they could not run the factories, women and people of color began to get those positions, and when they got those positions they joined the CIO. So, for a while, you had these two competing forces. In 1955, I believe, the AFL and the CIO merged in a convention in Pittsburgh.
When you think of the Great Migration you think of workers that migrated after agriculture was no longer a dominant force in the economy. So people of color left the fields and went to Detroit and went to New York. They went north just seeking opportunity, and they went to work in the steel mills and the auto plant. But often when they went to work they were in the lower paying jobs, even within the union, even within the opportunity that the union provided for them. They still did not have access to the economic stability that white union members had.
It wasn't until the late 1960s and early 1970s that many of the unions dropped the race clauses from their membership. In fact, A. Phillip Randolph, who was not just a labor leader but a civil rights leader, and his parents were leaders in the AME church, he organized the first all-Black union, and he organized them against the Pullman Company, which was probably the most powerful company of that time. It took 13 years for him to actually get a union, so there were enormous struggles, as you can imagine. Organizing anything and holding it together for 13 years is an enormous challenge, but Randolph eventually was admitted to the AFL-CIO and was the first African American to serve on the executive council of the AFL-CIO, which is the governing board and body of the AFL-CIO. So, you know, it's an enormous honor for me to be able to hold a seat, when there are folks that have been on that board that have such proud histories. I hope that answers your question in terms of the kind of forward progress for people of color in the labor movement.
But, you know, there have been some very proud moments and there have also been moments of deep disappointment and setback. I still believe in the power of the labor movement, and I think Black workers can still benefit from the labor movement. When I came into the labor movement in the early 1990s the rate of unionization for Black and brown workers was somewhere around 40%. It has dropped since that time to somewhere around 18% or 19%, but the one thing that has been constant is that Black workers who are a part of unions usually have higher wages by 25% to 30%. Black workers who are unionized have access to health care, and they have usually defined pension plans, which regardless of education level, regardless of all other factors, make people aware that there's always a premium to union membership, no matter what.
People of color are more likely to join a union than any other demographic. That's why the Amazon organizing campaign in Bessemer, Alabama was so exciting, because it represents a workforce of almost 5,000 Black and brown workers in the South. Many of those organizing in Bessemer don't have access to health care and they make roughly $15.40 an hour, which, you know, I mean that's better than some jobs, but that's still not a living wage—even in rural Alabama.
Adulin: Thank you, Vonda. To wrap up here, what gives you hope when you think about the future of the labor movement and organizing with immigrants and people of color?
Vonda: I am hopeful when I think about the future of the labor movement, but what I know is that currently we operate in an environment that favors the boss. The current environment favors the boss, because joining a union is a right that should be every worker's right to say yay or nay, without any intimidation by the boss.
But, what we often find is that once the petition is filed for workers to join a union election workers are bombarded by anti-union propaganda and intimidation until the vote. So, in order to change that landscape there are definitely going to have to be policy shifts. Currently, the Pro Act has passed the House and is pending Senate approval, but it makes me hopeful that if we are able to pass the Pro Act that it will—not totally correct— but begin to correct some of the broken labor law that has caused such a nose dive in the number of people that are joining unions.
About every day in the news there's some article about inequality in our society. Recently, Princeton University did a study that was not solicited by organized labor, but it showed that when union membership goes down, inequality goes up. So, if we as a society are going to address the inequality that we see and are experiencing, we're going to have to fix the broken labor law, which prevents people from being able to join the union. Over the years, I have worked a whole lot of elections, and I can't tell you how many doors I’ve knocked on and phone calls I’ve made or postcards I’ve written—that's just part of the work. That's what we do. And often in the past, people in which I held a lot of hope got elected and then somewhere along the line they disappointed me. But that didn't cause me to disengage from the process. What I know is that we have to continue to stay engaged and advocate for the things that are our priority, and so in the first 45 or 50 days of this new Presidential administration, we've seen some positive things happen. So, what I'm hoping is that over the course of the next five or six months that we will be able to pass policy that actually begins to change things that people can feel in terms of their own life. I’m hoping we will see more successful organizing campaigns.
Adulin: Thank you, Vonda. This has been such a wonderful conversation.
Vonda: Thank you, Adulin.