5/29 Asian-American History
Hi all,
I have a couple updates this week and then a writeup on Asian-American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander History Month.
Elections: Elections will be held Thursday June 5th through Monday, June 9th at 4PM. As a reminder, all candidates running for roles other than Vice President did so unopposed - as such, members will only be voting on their choice of VP (Brian Gonzales or Brittainy Nelson). If you were unable to attend our meet-and-greet sessions today you can view each candidate’s bios on our website or email them directly with any questions.
Segal: I am working on a few things for people who have reached out to me and/or filled out our Segal survey. Expect another Segal-specific email early next week if you participated in the survey.
President Phone: As I mentioned in my May 15th email I am mid-process transferring my union phone number to another carrier. The initial bug I discovered is a bigger problem than I initially thought and I am switching over to a different provider. Apologies if I don’t get back to you immediately if you call or text - please reach out again if you don’t hear anything after a few days. Rest assured, this hassle is worth it - I’m aiming to cut our union’s annual phone bills in half.
Employee of the Quarter: Nominations for the next round of our Employee of the Quarter program will close on June 1st. Please take 5 minutes and nominate yourself or a peer before the deadline. The Q1 and Q2 winners have been invited to the June 5th City Council meeting where I will make the announcement and introduce them. We plan to do the same with future winners every quarter moving forward.
Scholarship: I am pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 Jackie Awosika College Scholarship! This was a competitive year with more applicants than ever before - we couldn’t award everyone but we were impressed even by the applicants who didn’t win funds.
Our winners are as follows:
Cole Armstrong - Cole is a highschool senior who will be studying Mechanical Engineering at Milwaukee School of Engineering this fall. He wrote an excellent essay on the potential future impacts of AI in our society and will be receiving $1000 in scholarship awards.
Maya Taylor - Maya is a current college student majoring at Exercise Physiology at Northern Arizona University. She wrote an excellent essay on her choice of major and will be receiving $500 from our scholarship program.
Jodi Ohnick - Jodi is our first ever UAEA member who has won scholarship funds. Jodi is a full time City of Tempe employee working with the CARE7 team. Jodi is currently enrolled in the Master of Human Services Program at the Arizona College of Nursing, wrote an excellent essay about what drew her to nursing, and will be receiving $1000 from our program.
I’d like to again congratulate these winners as well as everyone who applied. We would strongly encourage all applicants to try again next year - we have no restrictions on repeat applicants and would love to support as many people as we can. As well as awarding them a certificate and the scholarship funds, we will be recognizing the winners this coming week on June 5th at the regularly scheduled Tempe City Council meeting.
With that, let’s talk about labor history again!
May is Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and I wanted to briefly discuss some Asian-American, Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Labor Leaders who have helped shape this country for the better. This month was originally proposed in 1977 as a single week celebration at the beginning of May to recognize major contributions of Asian and Pacific Islanders. The beginning of May has special relevance for labor history - besides the importance of May 4th, 1886 (the Haymarket Massacre), May 10th, 1869 was the date the final spike was driven into the first transcontinental railroad, something which was only completed due to a workforce that was comprised mainly of Chinese laborers. Somewhere between 10 and 20,000 Chinese workers helped complete the first line (estimates vary considerably due to the tendency of paying them subpar wages under the table ) which would mean they comprised 50-75% of the total workforce during the project. Sadly, as many as 1,000 workers died during the project, largely due to lax safety standards and frivolous use of explosives.
Wong Chin Foo (1847-1898) - Wong Chin Foo immigrated to the US from China in 1867 and is considered to be one of first leaders in the battle for Asian-American civil rights. Though not a labor activist per se, he spent much of his life pushing back against laws that limited the legal rights of immigrants - this laid the groundwork for future labor struggles. Some examples include the Chinese Exclusion Act, an 1882 law that banned Chinese immigration to the United States for 10 years (this was extended multiple times until 1943 when some restrictions were lifted and 105 immigrants were allowed to come every year). There was also the May 6th, 1882 Act, a federal law which barred Asian immigrants from becoming US citizens, and the Geary Act, an 1892 law that limited Chinese immigrants from testifying in court cases. Wong also spent years battling immigrant stereotypes - when certain New York newspapers claimed that Chinese butchers were selling cats and rats, Wong offered a reward of $500 ($16,000 today) to anyone who could provide proof - no one was ever able to do so. Besides being a prolific writer, Wong founded the first American Chinese newspaper, the Chinese Equal Rights League, an advocacy group, and the first organized group of Chinese American voters.
Ah Bing - Ah Bing was never a labor leader but serves as a good illustration of ways Asian immigrants have shaped the US for the better. Not a lot is known about Ah besides the following - he was 6’2”, he likely immigrated to the US around 1855, and he spent many years working on a farm in Oregon cultivating cherries, plums, and apples. Sometime in the 1870s or 1880s his employer discovered that Ah had cross-bred a new type of cherry that was much larger and sweeter than the other varieties they grew - since he had already named a cherry after himself and Ah was known for his size, his employer named the new cherry “Bing.” Bing cherries sold at the time for $1/lb ($25/lb today) and are now the most commonly grown cherry variety around the world. Unfortunately anti-Asian prejudice throughout the 1880s (likely tied to the Chinese Exclusion Act) spurred Ah to return to China to visit his family - due to strict immigration laws, he was never allowed to return to the United States and his eventual fate is unknown.
Larry Itliong (1913-1977) - Modesto “Larry” Dulay Itliong was a Filipino immigrant who spent most of his early life working agricultural and canning jobs on the West Coast of the US. As I’ve discussed before, agricultural work was particularly brutal at the time and workers were frequently underpaid. Larry participated in his first strike in 1930 when he and 1,500 lettuce pickers walked off the job - he swiftly became involved in organizing workers and in 1933 helped found the Alaska Cannery Workers Union, the first predominately Asian-American labor union. The group helped win an 8-hour workday (with overtime provisions) as well as end the practice of employees being forced to pay managers and company owners to get the best jobs. In 1956 Itliong helped found the Filipino Farm Labor Union. After seeing no progress with strikes due to the ability of farm owners to just hire Hispanic workers to fill Filipino worker’s spots, his group approached Cesar Chavez and formed a joint coalition which allowed them to pull off a successful strike against Delano Grapes. These groups later merged to form United Farm Workers (UFW), with Chavez serving as director and Itliong serving as deputy director. Later in life Itliong would travel to South America to help organize farm workers in Brazil and Chile - he also helped establish the Paulo Agbayani Retirement Village with Philip Vera Cruz in the 1970s, the first-of-its-kind affordable housing community for retired farm workers.
Philip Vera Cruz (1905-1994): Born in the Philippines (then a US-territory), Philip moved to the US in 1926. He worked in canneries, box factories, and agricultural work until 1942, when he was drafted into the military - he was then honorably discharged in 1943 when he turned 38 and worked with other Filipino-Americans in various California factories supporting the war effort. After WW2 ended, he returned to agricultural work, joined the National Farm Labor Union (eventually serving as the President), and helped with a 1948 Stockton asparagus strike. He moved away from organizing for many years, but was convinced by a neighbor to join the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) in the mid-1960s right before the vote that authorized the Delano Grape Strike. After the UFW formed in 1967, Philip served as Vice President for 12 years, and played a key role in activating older Filipino workers who other union organizers could not engage. He found success through a simple and humble leadership style that de-emphasized his professional status and focused on meeting the needs of laborers. He later worked with Cesar Chavez to help form the Farm Workers Credit Union, the first credit union for agricultural laborers, and with Larry Itliong to found the Paulo Agbayani Retirement Village.
Ai-jen Poo (1974-present): Ai-jen is the most modern organizer on this list. While she was in college in the early 1990s she worked with a group that aimed to reduce Asian discrimination and violence against the community. One major area of concern was how frequently abuse happened against Asian domestic workers (maids, nannies, cleaners, etc), especially due to how isolated their working conditions were. She started organizing these and other domestic workers in 1996 and helped found Domestic Workers United, a labor organization that helped win new protections against harassment and close gaps in overtime laws that excluded domestic workers. She later founded the National Domestic Workers Alliance, a non-profit looking to standardize domestic working conditions across the US - they currently lobby on behalf of about 2 million workers. Similar to some of the other activists on this list, Ai-jen is also interested in the longterm health of workers - she is also the director of Caring Across Generations, a group trying to reform the US long-term care system.
Beyond the people and actions mentioned above, I should also mention that there were a series of labor actions led by Asian, Hawaiian, and Pacific Island workers throughout US history that did not have clear leadership. First, in 1903 Japanese and Mexican-Americans organized the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association, the first US labor union that accepted multiple races. As I mentioned in my January 16th email, the 1894 Pullman Strikes failed in part due to the American Railway Union refusing to admit African-American members - the fact the JMLA was able to emerge only 9 years later is quite remarkable and helped lay the groundwork for future coalitions like the UFW. Second, in 1946 there was a giant strike by Hawaiian workers against sugar plantations - 25,000 workers, most of whom were native Hawaiians or recent immigrants, walked off their jobs, closing 33 of Hawaii’s 34 sugar plantations. This action took 3 years of planning - Hawaiian police and plantation owners would frequently respond with violence when union organizers were spotted near the plantations (many of which were isolated away from cities), forcing many planning meetings to happen at night or in restrooms. Negotiations went on for 79 days and workers eventually won a 45-hour work week (down from 50-55) and a 30% increase in wages. Third, in 1982 nearly 20,000 Chinese garment workers (mainly women) marched through New York demanding better wages and working conditions for their work (poor airflow and cramped working conditions led to frequent outbreaks of tuberculosis, for instance). The mass display of solidarity caused employers to agree to their demands within hours of their march.
Once again, I bring all of this up to emphasize a few things. First, we owe thanks for much of our modern working conditions to the work of activists in the past. Second, labor history is interesting - it’s genuinely fascinating to hear about all the different people who helped form our nation and the variety of experiences they had throughout their lives. Third, many of the movements have only been successful due to the power of coalitions - the Delano Grape Strike, for instance, would not have been successful without the combined work of Asian, Pacific Island, and Hispanic laborers. Unions make us strong but unions can only find success through coalition-building - we should always be looking for opportunities to grow our ranks, not diminish them.
Thank you once again for reading my writeup on labor history. If you want to view or reference any of the past writeups, check out our website’s blog - I’ve included the International Labor Day, Cesar Chavez Day, Women’s History Month, and Black History Month posts there, as well as my writeups on ASRS and our Healthcare.
Thanks for a great week, all!