The case, which was continued to September 18, referenced a speeding ticket issued to Leanne Cusack on June 5, when she struck and killed Murod Kurdi with her car. Cusack had admitted to drinking before getting in her vehicle, but when Oak Lawn Police Department (OLPD) arrived at the scene, they allowed Cusack to leave without alcohol tests or arrest for the death she caused. The next day she was seen drinking at the same bar.

After the crowd of over 100 supporters raised chants for justice, Murod Kurdi’s mother and brother, Fadia Muhamad and Suphi Kurdi, shared their grief at the loss of their family member with the press.

“I want to see justice,” Muhamad said. “There is no parent that should ever have to go through something like this.” She also connected the case to the larger issue of public safety in Oak Lawn, expressing the urgency of accountability that is needed to prevent another tragedy. “If there is no justice, this can and will happen again,” she said. “It's not a matter of if, but a matter of when and who the next victim will be.”

For Murod Kurdi’s family and the Arab community of Oak Lawn, justice means prosecution — by the Cook County State's Attorney's office — of Kurdi’s killer to the full extent of the law. Kurdi’s community also demands that Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul open an independent investigation into the OLPD for its crimes and neglect toward Arab communities and other oppressed nationalities.

In line with the racist stance of OLPD, the court staff at Bridgeview County showed special treatment for Kurdi’s killer, while denying his family and their supporters adequate room to witness the hearing. Court officers let Cusack enter and exit the courtroom through a backdoor to avoid facing the family of the man she killed.

Kurdi’s case comes less than a year after three Oak Lawn police officers beat 17-year-old Hadi Abuatelah within an inch of his life. One of those three is Mark Hollingsworth, who was also one of the officers assigned to review the footage of Kurdi’s killing, though he wasn't at the scene when it happened. In a meeting with Fadia Muhamad, Hollingsworth claimed he saw enough to know that the killer wasn't drunk.

The organized response from the community in Hadi Abuatelah’s case has resulted in Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx bringing charges against Patrick O'Donell, one of the three offending officers.

“The struggle of the Arab community against police crimes in Oak Lawn shows that justice is not handed down by the system,” said Arab American Action Network organizer Muhammad Sankari. “Justice is won by fighting back and demanding it.”

#ChicagoIL #AsianNationalities #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #PoliceCrimes #MurodKurdi

San José, CA – Over the last two years, hundreds of thousands of Asian Americans and their supporters have taken to the streets to protest the wave of violence against Asian Americans. From the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when a Burmese family was assaulted in Texas; to the Atlanta Spa killing in April 2021, where six of the eight people killed were Asian American women, this wave of violence against Asian Americans inspired protests across the country, even including middle-school students.

These protests were the largest ever to draw together Asian Americans of different nationalities. This was in part because the targets of the hate crimes were Chinese American, Korean American, Burmese American, and others. Although the hate and national chauvinism was mainly driven by anti-Chinese sentiment fanned up by racist politicians such as President Trump, the racists did not know and did not care about their victims’ nationalities. There is also a growing common experience of young Asian Americans who were either born here or grew up in the United States, of their common experiences because of the national oppression as people of Asian descent in the United States.

The fight against violence against Asian Americans also pulled many of the different classes in our communities: workers as well as members of petty-bourgeoisie such as small businesspeople, professionals and managers. However other types of national oppression, such as unjust treatment by ICE and immigration can differ, given that more well-to-do Asian Americans better able to afford legal representation.

The struggle against violence against Asian Americans is part of a larger struggle for full equality and against national oppression. Asian Americans have a long history of struggle against racist and discriminatory government laws and actions, from Foreign Miners tax in California in the 1850s to the witch hunt against Chinese American academics today. Asian Americans have also faced racist discrimination in housing, in the labor force, in marriage, in every facet of life.

The struggle against the national oppression aimed at Asian Americans has always had connections with the oppression of African Americans and other oppressed nationalities. Anti-miscegenation laws originally aimed at African Americans were also applied to Chinese Americans and other Asian Americans. On the other hand, restrictive covenants, which banned non-whites from buying many homes (to keep neighborhoods white), were first found in San Francisco, again aimed at Chinese Americans. But these racist restrictions in housing deeds also spread nationwide to enforce housing segregation against African Americans.

The fight against national oppression has also crossed over between Asian Americans and other oppressed nationalities. In 1894, American-born Kim Ark Wong was denied re-entry to the United States after having traveled to China to see his family. The Chinese American community fought a legal case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and 1898 won a decision that guaranteed citizenship for American born children of non-citizens. This was especially important for Asian Americans, as Asian immigrants could not become U.S. citizens until the 1940s. This case was important to the Chicano community as well as other Latinos who have immigrated to the United States.

At the same time the struggle of other oppressed nationalities, especially African Americans and Chicanos, both benefitted and inspired Asian Americans. 1947 Mendez v. Westminster decision ended legal segregation of Chicano and Asian children in public schools in California. More than anything else, the upsurge of African Americans in the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the early 1960s set the stage for the end to the racist 1924 Immigration Act, which imposed quotas in the hundreds on immigrants from Asia. Without this change, Asian American would be much smaller and vastly different today, with only Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Filipinos as the main nationalities. Many of the young organizers of protests against anti-Asian violence said that this was not their first protests, they first marched after the death of George Floyd.

While Chinese, Japanese and Filipino Americans had fought for their rights since the 1850s, often alongside Chicanos in particular, the first consciously unified Asian American fight didn’t happen until the 1960s. The struggle sparked by Black Students for Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, led to the formation of the first explicit Asian American organization, the Asian American Political Alliance or AAPA, in 1969. AAPA was the major Asian American organization on campus fighting for both a department of Asian American Studies and a College of Ethnic Studies that would include Black, Chicano and Native American Studies departments.

The rise of African American revolutionary organizations in the 1960s also had a large impact on Asian Americans. The Black Panther Party inspired the formation of I Wor Kuen or IWK in the late 1960s. IWK was named after an anti-imperialist uprising in China in 1900, but their political program was based on the Black Panther Party’s Ten-point Program. IWK turned towards Marxism-Leninism in order to better grasp the class struggle within the Chinese American community, and eventually merged with other M-L groups that came out of movements of oppression, such as the largely Chicano August 29th Movement and the largely African American Revolutionary Communist League, formally the Congress of Afrikan People, a pan-Africanist organization.

Revolutionaries and Marxist-Leninists in the African American and Chicano movements revived the understanding that African Americans in the Black Belt South and Chicanos in the Southwest were, in fact, oppressed nations in the United States. As nations – that is a historical community with a common language, culture, economy and territory – they had the right to self-determination, up to and including the right to separate and form their own countries.

While a few voices raised the concept of an Asian American Nation, this had no basis in fact. Asian Americans do not share a common language, with most Asian American nationalities speaking different languages other than English at home. They have many different cultures, although they have some historical ties. In fact, Asian Americans comprise many different nationalities from East, Southeast, South and Central Asia: Chinese American, Filipino Americans, Indian American, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans and Vietnamese Americans just to mention some of the larger nationalities.

But most importantly, there is no common territory for Asian Americans in the United States. The most concentrated population of Asian Americans on the mainland is in the San Jose-San Francisco Bay Area, which over the last 20 years has developed two small cities that are majority Asian American. In contrast, in the Chicano Nation there are large cities such as San Antonio, Texas and Los Angeles, California, more than 70 counties across seven states, and even the entire state of New Mexico that are majority or near majority Chicano.

There are many Chicanos and Mexicanos who live outside the Chicano Nation. Some even live in majority Chicano/Mexicano counties such as Adams and Franklin counties in eastern Washington. Chicanos and Mexicanos in eastern Washington are certainly oppressed nationalities faced with economic, political and social inequality. Many have lived in the Chicano Nation, and/or have family there. But with the northern edge of the Chicano Nation some 800 miles away, how could they act on self-determination and separate in any practical way?

In the same way Asian Americans, while certainly oppressed nationalities, cannot be considered to be a nation with the right to self-determination. As communists, we fight for the full equality of the Asian American nationalities, including language equality, political power, etc. in areas of concentration.

We also fight for working-class leadership of Asian Americans and other oppressed nationalities in their fight against national oppression and for full equality. This includes both struggling against reformism, such as promoting voting as the answer for all issues, and narrow nationalism, which sees other oppressed nationalities as the problem (an example of this is opposing affirmative action).

Our strategy for revolution is a united front against monopoly capitalism – against the rule by the billionaires and massive corporations. At the core of this united front will be an alliance between the working class, on one hand, and oppressed nationalities, on the other. Asian Americans will play a growing role in this, both as the fastest growing oppressed nationality, and as a rapidly growing part of the working class.

Masao Suzuki is chair of the Joint Nationalities Commission of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and a former member of I Wor Kuen.

#SanJoséCA #AsianNationalities #Socialism #MarxismLeninism #AsianAmericans

San José, CA – 40 years ago, on June 23, 1982, Chinese American Vincent Chin died after being beaten by a Chrysler plant supervisor and his stepson. They ended up being sentenced to a $3000 fine, causing an uproar in the Chinese American community. Evidently the killers thought that Chin was Japanese American and blamed him for the success of Japanese carmakers in breaking into the American car market. This racist killing was another of a long history of violence against Chinese and other Asian Americans.

100 years before the death of Vincent Chin, in May of 1882, the U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act which was signed into law by President Chester Arthur. Racist violence before and after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act – such as the massacre of Chinese Americans at Rock Springs, Wyoming in 1885 where at least 28 Chinese Americans were killed and had millions of dollars (at today’s prices) of damage to their property – drove Chinese Americans to urban ghettoes in larger cities.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was the only immigration law that ever explicitly excluded a single nationality. Because of this act, and the racist Page Act of 1875, which basically barred Chinese women from coming to the United States, the Chinese American population went into long-term decline. From a peak population of over 100,000 in the 1880s, the Chinese American population shrank by more than 40% to just over 60,000 in the 1920s.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed at a time of reaction against oppressed nationalities in the United States. In the U.S. South, there was the betrayal of Reconstruction and the restoration of planters’ rule backed by the Ku Klux Klan that led to the formation of the African American nation in the Black Belt South. In the Southwest the theft of the Mexican Americans’ land, the violence of the racist Texas Rangers and the formation of what became the U.S. Border Patrol also marked the birth pangs of the Chicano nation, Aztlán.

But for Chinese Americans there was no formation of an oppressed nation within the United States. Stalin defined a nation as “a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological makeup manifested in a common culture.”

Chinese immigrants at that time almost all came from the southern province of Guangdong speaking similar dialects commonly referred to as Cantonese, from the old Western name for Guangzhou, the largest city and capital of Guangdong province. Over time, the American-born second generation began to speak American English, like many other immigrants to America.

While immigrants from Europe were able to move up from the worst jobs that were low-paying, demeaning, and/or dangerous, Chinese Americans, like Chicanos and Mexicanos as well African Americans, did not. Up until World War II, Chinese Americans worked as laborers in western mines, as farm workers and as domestic servants. Chinese American “houseboys” were common among well-to-do white families in the western U.S. Chinese Americans also did industrial work. Chinese workers made up the majority of factory workers in San Francisco as well as a majority of the laborers building the transcontinental railroad. By the 1880s Chinese Americans were spread across the western United States, often making up a majority of workers in many towns and cities as well as in rural areas.

But not all Chinese Americans were workers. A minority of them were businesspeople in ethnic niches, such as businesses serving the Chinese American community, laundries and restaurants. There were also a number of Chinese American professionals such as doctors who served Chinese Americans.

Chinese American culture was not simply a mix of Chinese and American cultures, but one of a new oppressed nationality in the United States. While some aspects of Chinese culture, such as language and clothing, faded rapidly with the second, American-born generation, other aspects, such as food, did not.

Chinese Americans were molded into an oppressed nationality in the United States, with a common language, economic life and culture. As an oppressed nationality in the United States, Chinese Americans fought many battles for equality and against national oppression. All-round equality means equal political rights, equal economic opportunity, equality of languages and cultures.

One of the earliest racist laws was the Foreign Miners Tax in California, aimed at Chinese and Latino miners who were a part of the Gold Rush. Many Chinese went on to work on the railroads, where they were paid much less than white workers for doing the same jobs. Chinese immigrant railroad workers walked off their jobs to protest being paid less than white workers for the same work. Later, restrictive covenants in real estate deeds banned Chinese from buying homes in most urban areas, starting in San Francisco. Even though these racist restrictions were challenged in court, they were upheld as legal. Then this racist practice spread throughout the country, mainly targeting African Americans to maintain legal segregation in housing.

Both Chinese and Latinos were hit by a Foreign Miners Tax. Anti-miscegenation laws, which prevented African Americans from marrying whites, were also applied to Chinese Americans. Chinese American children were segregated into all-Chinese public school in areas with large numbers of Chinese people, such as San Francisco.

The Chinese American community waged a legal struggle for citizenship rights. Chinese immigrants were banned from naturalization, or becoming U.S. citizens, while immigrants from Europe were able to do so. Racists also tried to strip citizenship, which was guaranteed by as the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, from American-born Chinese. The community fought this all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, ultimately winning the case in Wong Kim Ark v. United States in 1875. This decision carried over to Japanese and other Asians, and to Chicanos and other Latinos. Indeed, reactionaries and racists for years have called for overturning this case to try to strip citizenship from American-born Asians and Latinos.

But while Chinese immigrants and their children became an oppressed nationality, they did not have a common territory, unlike African Americans and Chicanos. So Chinese Americans did not become an oppressed nation. This meant that there was no struggle for self-determination – which includes the right to political secession from the United States – among Chinese Americans. How could a number of Chinatowns throughout the West be a separate nation? What Chinese Americans did demand was full equality, in terms of equal pay, desegregation of housing and schools, and immigration and citizenship rights.

Chinese Americans also had a long history of supporting revolutionary movements in China. In the early 1900's, Chinese Americans supported efforts to overthrow the Ching (Manchu) Empire. A few decades later, Chinese Americans supported the Chinese new-democratic revolution led by the Communist Party of China. The great leader of China’s national democratic revolution, Sun Yat-sen, was educated in the Kingdom of Hawai’i and spent years in the United States and was in the United States when the Ching dynasty finally fell in 1911.

Despite their heroic struggles, Chinese Americans were generally excluded from trade unions and the socialist party of that time. Even worse, many “mis-leaders” such as Denis Kearny in the late 1800s called for the exclusion of Chinese from immigrating to the United States. It was only the anarcho-syndicalist International Workers of the World (the IWW, commonly referred to as Wobblies) who tried to unite workers of all nationalities, including Chinese Americans. But the ideology of the IWW did not see the importance of the struggle for democracy, up to and including full equality, in the larger society outside of the workplace. It was not until the formation of the Communist Party USA in 1919 that Marxism-Leninism begin to fuse with the Chinese American struggle.

Masao Suzuki is the chair of the Joint Nationalities Commission of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. This is the first of a series of articles on Asian Americans.

#SanJoséCA #AsianNationalities #AntiChinese #StopAsianHate

Saint Paul, MN – On the afternoon of April 2, about 50 people gathered for a protest in Saint Paul’s Frogtown area to “Stand up against hate” and demand justice for Asian people who have been targeted in hate crimes, discrimination and violence.

The action was organized by Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) and Minnesota 8 (MN8) and was called in response to the recent attacks on the Asian community in New York City as well as commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Atlanta spa shootings. The Atlanta Young’s Asian Massage victims include: Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Soon C. Park, Hyun J. Grant, Suncha Kim and Yong A. Yue. One additional victim, Elcias R. Hernandez-Ortiz, was injured in the shooting. Recent New York hate crime victims include Yao Pan Ma, a Chinese immigrant, Michelle Alyssa Go, Christina Yuna Lee and GuiYing Ma.

The group gathered at the corner of the Sun Foods parking lot on University Avenue in Saint Paul to hear speeches, do chants and then set off on a march. Speakers included Brooklyn Park City Councilmember Xp Lee, Reverend Jenny Sung, Rebecca Chang from MN8, and Diana Hernandez and Louie Tran, organizers with MIRAC.

Councilmember Xp Lee spoke first, asking the crowd, “Who wants to see their grandparents beaten up? Who wants to see their family members murdered and harassed? Also, who wants to see their people deported who have been here long and have built a great life here for themselves in this country? I don’t want to see that. You all don’t want to see that. But we are going to continue to see that if we don’t fight for the changes that we need to see happen.”

Between speeches, the emcees read out the names of victims of Atlanta spa shootings and the most recent victims of hate crimes in NYC and the crowd responded with “Presente!” to say that they are still here with us.

Rebecca Chang of MN8 reminded the crowd that violence against Asians in the United States is not new. She said, “This county has been built on a culture of hate and violence since the start. Since the start of Asians Americans arriving in the United States, we’ve been stereotyped as perpetual foreigners, even though our ancestors and families are in the United States in the first place because of economic inequality and war that the U.S. had a direct part in creating around the world.”

MN8 organizes to end detention and deportation in Southeast Asian communities, and Chang informed the crowd that “over 16,000 Southeast Asian community members currently have deportation orders.”

Reverend Jenny Sung spoke next, thanking the crowd for standing up against hate and reminding them: “We have each other’s back.”

Diana Hernandez from MIRAC ended the first set of speakers with the reminder that, “It would be so easy to blame the entirety of the rise of this wave of violence on Trump’s racist handling of the pandemic, but we must confront the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic only aggravated the xenophobia and racism that already existed in this country.” She then highlighted the link between Asian American immigrants and other non-white immigrants who have confronted discrimination and violence and brought attention to the culture of fetishization of Asians in the U.S., exclaiming: “that's not appreciation, that’s exploitation!”

The protesters then set off on a march down a stretch of University Avenue in the Frogtown neighborhood, home to a significant Asian-American community and many shops and restaurants of various Asian nationalities. They chanted slogans such as, “When Asian people are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!”

The march ended back at the starting point, where one last speaker, Louie Tran from MIRAC, addressed the crowd, saying, “They’re gonna always try to divide us” he said, and then asked the crowd to remember the link between the Asian community, the Black community and other ethnic groups, reminding them to keep coming out to support each other’s struggles. The action ended with a final, energetic chant of: “The people, united, will never be defeated!”

#SaintPaulMN #ImmigrantRights #PeoplesStruggles #AsianNationalities #MIRAc #MN8

San Jose, CA – On Sunday, April 11, at 2 p.m. Pacific / 5 p.m. Eastern, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization is hosting an online program about the wave of violence against Asian Americans; violence which led to the recent massacre of eight people, six of whom were Asian American women near Atlanta, Georgia.

Four community organizers: David Monkawa, Progressive Asian Network for Action, in Los Angeles; Monique Sampson, Freedom Road Socialist Organization in Jacksonville, Florida; Daisy Sim, Tallahassee Community Action Committee, Tallahassee, Florida, and Masao Suzuki, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, San Jose, California, will be speaking on how to fight anti-Asian American violence, understanding its historical roots, and building unity among Asian Americans and solidarity with other oppressed nationalities.

Event details here.

#SanJoseCA #PeoplesStruggles #AsianNationalities #MasaoSuzuki

Chicago, IL – The racist March 16 murders of Soon Chung Park, Juncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue, Paul Andre Michels, Hyun Jung Grant, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng and Delaina Ashley Yaun in Atlanta, Georgia have caused a wave of revulsion and anger among the people, especially in the Asian community. The mainstreaming of extreme right-wing politics in the past decade, as the crisis of monopoly capitalism has continued to unfold, coupled with the bipartisan attacks against socialist China and People’s Korea set the stage for this deadly attack.

The Asian community mobilized quickly to defend itself from racist terrorism. In the Chicago area alone, there have been four mass demonstrations opposing racist violence against Asian women. The first, on March 20, on the northwest side Logan Square neighborhood, drew a militant, multinational crowd of over 300 people, mostly youth. There was a smaller rally of about 100 people the next day, March 21, at Laramie Park in the northern suburb of Skokie. On March 27, a mass rally of over 400 people was held in Chicago's Chinatown on the near South Side. The next day, a smaller rally was held in the North Side neighborhood of Uptown, home to a large Vietnamese and Cambodian community.

At the Chinatown rally, a place was reserved on the speaker's list for the commander of the 1st District police station by politicians who play both sides, saying they help the people with one hand and holding them down with the other by working with the cops. This boss cop tried to pretend that the same police force that murdered LaQuan McDonald and Rekia Boyd would actually protect working-class Asians against attacks. However, Chinese youth kept the mood militant, with signs that read “Fuck your 'bad day'” and “We're not your punching bag.”

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesStruggles #AsianNationalities #AntiAsianViolence #antiasianAtlantaShooting

Tallahassee, FL – On March 27, around 100 activists from across the Tallahassee community gathered in front of the State Capitol building to commemorate the eight victims from the recent Atlanta shooting, and to speak out against Asian American oppression.

The Tallahassee Community Action Committee (TCAC), along with various local organizations such as Asian Coalition of Tallahassee, FSU’s Filipino Student Association, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Dream Defenders and other community members took a stand for the victims of the shooting in grief and healing.

The event started off with Daisy Sim, a Korean American member of TCAC, stating that she hopes the big takeaway for today is how U.S. imperialism functions with the use of the military, ICE and the police. Sim stated, “I hope to call out the true enemy of our community, which is white supremacy and encourage people to further educate, organize and mobilize.”

Regina Joseph, president of TCAC and one of the Tally19, spoke in solidarity with the Asian community, stating, “There is this idea that if you work hard and keep your head down, then you would be protected and that is not the case.” Joseph continued, “You cannot divide the multinational working class.”

Joseph also explained that it was important for African Americans and Asians to strive for solidarity with each other.

Sharry Solis, president of FSU’s Filipino Student Association, continued this theme, noting, “My home country in Philippines is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in Asia – aid that led to widespread human rights violations.” She also states that “bombings against environmental activists and indigenous people has contributed to them being displaced all over the country.”

Dr. Portia Campos of the Asian Coalition of Tallahassee wanted to share her earliest experience of racism when she was six years old. She ended her speech by chanting “Raise your voice and scream. Raise your voice and shout. Say no to Asian hate.”

Delilah Pierre, vice president of TCAC and member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, pointed out “We have to talk about the extreme devastation the U.S. has brought onto Asian people all around the world. What they did to Korea during the Korean War. One-third of Korean housing was destroyed. They came to destroy your country. And in Vietnam they are still digging up bombs. Still fighting Agent Orange. They came to destroy your country. What’s right about that?! And what they are doing to the Philippines! And what they are doing everywhere to Asian countries! It’s fucked up.”

Activist Roman Le, the communication lead with Dream Defenders, touched on the emotional weight of the loss of the eight victims, stating, “The amount of energy I have spent, silently crying or laughing to create any sense of synthetic happiness so that my body to feel anything, has left my body torn. I often wondered how people cannot be stuck in their bed for days, trying to make sense of the lingering grief. That never seems to leave but instead becomes more layered. I hope no one points out how my dull my eyes were because I don’t have the heart to explain how I spent the previous night trying not to think about how many more white people will murder communities of color while having a ‘bad day’?”

Isabel Ruano, a valued member for the Tallahassee Community Action Committee, sang a song dedicated to the Asian community out of a place of solidarity as a Latina. She mentioned that her husband, who is Asian Indian, faced hardship that mirrored the current state.

Aurora Hansen, founder of Asian Coalition of Tallahassee, told the crowd, “I am so happy that the younger generation is speaking up because when I was growing up we couldn’t say anything.” She continued to share her life experiences coming and living in Lakeland, Florida, and experiencing microaggressions.

Speaking next, Dawn Freo, TCAC Communication Director and FRSO member, wondered about the costs of assimilation for the American Dream. She stated “The American Dream is bullshit. You sell this dream to immigrants searching for better but the reality is that, ‘Is it really that much better?’ I sit here and I don’t think that it is.”

The event closed with Trish Brown, co-founder of TCAC, singing ``If I don’t lift them up, I’ll fall down! and shouting “We have nothing to lose but our chains!”

#TallahasseeFL #AsianNationalities #Antiracism #TCAC #Tally19 #antiasianAtlantaShooting

Los Angeles, CA – A candlelight memorial took place on March 20 for 118 Japanese elders who died of COVID-19 at Pacifica Kei-Ai assisted living facility in Lincoln Heights, which is rated the worst in California. The event was organized by Save Our Seniors, a broad coalition of Japanese American groups. The vigil also brought attention to the alarming threat of evictions of these elders from Sakura Gardens which is located in Boyle Heights.

Centro CSO delegation members attended and have been supporting the fight to stop Pacifica Corporation from converting the Sukara Gardens assisted living facilities to market-rate luxury apartments in Boyle Heights. Carlos Montes, along with Tamlyn Tomita, had an editorial published in the San Diego Union-Tribune and attended the protest. The Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council has also passed a Community Impact Statement opposing the Pacifica project and sent it to the LA City Planning Department.

Stop gentrification in Boyle Heights

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the international real estate firm Pacifica Companies plans to turn Sakura Gardens into a 45-unit luxury apartment building, put at risk the lives of 200 of its most vulnerable residents by forced evictions and transfers. Many of the residents are women in their eighties and nineties. As children, they grew up in U.S. concentration camps during WWII, due to the mass round up of Japanese Americans, and lived in some of the harshest terrains in America.

118 seniors have fallen victim to the negligence of Pacifica. The threat of eviction comes in the wake of the pandemic and shortly after a hate crime against Asian American women in the state of Georgia.

California Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi from Torrance sponsored a bill – AB279 – supported by Miguel Santiago, the assemblymember whose district includes Boyle Heights. Plans are to pass the bill which would stop the Pacifica Companies’ development plans. To join these efforts, follow SOS at https://instagram.com/publichealthequality.

#LosAngelesCA #PeoplesStruggles #AsianNationalities #CentroCSO