Youth Solidarity Summer (YSS)
Workbook
Introduction
Youth Solidarity Summer was started in 1996 in response to the growth of the
Hindu right in the United States and its growing influence on South Asian youth in
schools and colleges. This workbook is an attempt to document the last seven
years of YSS and its political growth. Thus, its intent is not prescriptive, but
rather an extension of its political project to share information and resources with
other such organizing efforts and to build a larger radical movement. With this
intent, the workbook is divided into two parts. The first part is a detailed overview
of the history of YSS, mission statement, collective functioning, as well as
ideological and structural changes over the years. The second part’s focus is on
the YSS week itself with a detailed overview of how the week is structured and
what has changed over the years and why. This section includes schedules of
the YSS week from 1998 to 2002 as well as a breakdown of each workshop. For
questions on the workbook please email us at: yss-info@proxsa.org
PART I
I History of YSS
Youth Solidarity Summer (YSS) was started in February 1997, as a project of the
Progressive South Asian Exchange Net (ProXsa). ProXsa began in 1992 by a
group of progressive South Asian activists and academics at the annual South
Asian Studies Conference at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. ProXsa was
formed in response to the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya that year.
The destruction of the mosque visibly marked the rise of the Hindu right wing in
India to political power, and was a result of building religious, caste-based, and
economic tensions throughout the 1980s and the early 1990s. After Ayodhya,
the struggle to define the nature and boundaries of Indian nationalism, and the
struggle to define the nature of Indian identity, were placed clearly within religious
and communal contexts.
Whereas ProXsa’s work was initially informed by these kinds of political
developments in India, organizers in ProXsa and YSS saw the need to expand
their analytical and strategic purview to include similar developments all over
South Asia. The rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the nuclear bomb tests in
India and in Pakistan, the struggle over Kashmir between India and Pakistan in
the Kargil War, the Pakistani coup in the mid-1990s, the Singhalese-Tamil civil
war in Sri Lanka, and massive labor migrations from Bangladesh and Nepal that
were reflective of growing South Asian diasporas within and outside the region
were all increasingly debated within the context of neo-colonial economic
globalization. More recent events within South Asia, such as the genocide
against Muslims in Gujarat in March 2002 and the violence against Muslims and
immigrants of south Asian descent in the United States since the September 11th
2001 attacks, clearly and immediately impacted the South Asian diaspora.
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As migration from South Asia continued in the 1980s and 1990s, communal
conflicts in the subcontinent were interpolated into ongoing regional and religious
factionalisms among South Asian communities in the U.S. Right wing
organizations like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India began massive
fundraising campaigns in wealthy and affluent Indian communities settled in the
U.S. Immigrant nostalgia for an idealized homeland has funded the lion share of
right wing political campaigns, and has led to the founding of right wing Hindu
youth organizations like the college-based Hindu Student Councils (HSCs).
HSCs in the U.S. are supported and organized by regional U.S. branches of the
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and include
Hindu summer programs that foster a fundamentalist ideal of Hindu philosophy
and Indian nationalism among its participants. YSS positions itself as
progressive response and an alternative to all of these fundamentalist, South
Asian movements by providing a space where fundamentalism can be seen in its
historical and economic contexts. Organizers of the program explicitly use the
‘South Asian’ frame to acknowledge the specific ways in which various South
Asian identities become implicated in the process of immigrant racialization in the
U.S., and to call for a response to these regionalized processes with a unified,
proactive, ‘South Asian’ community-based strategy.
II Progressive South Asian Exchange Net (proXsa) www.proxsa.org
Mission and History: The progressive south Asian eXchange net (proXsa) is an
organization of first- and second-generation South Asian Americans who share a
common interest in and wish to act on issues related to their communities, both
here and in the subcontinent. The bulk of our current membership of 397 is
located in the United States with more than 20% of members located in NYC.
The organization is open to all (irrespective of nationality, race, religion, gender,
sexual orientation) who identify themselves as progressives and are committed
to combating social inequality and oppression. Our goals are as follows:
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Fighting all forms of discrimination (racism, sectarianism, sexism,
classism, and homophobia) in South Asian communities in North America
and in South Asia itself.
Working with progressive South Asian youth in defining new political and
cultural spaces.
Opposing the onslaught of global capitalism, especially in its garb of
"economic liberalization".
Supporting and joining hands with all struggles for social justice,
anti-imperialism and the liberation of oppressed people.
ProXsa has initiated and sustained six projects: YSS week, Information
Dissemination and Media Fairness/Presence project, the Internet and Web
Resource project, the Speakers Bureau, the Pamphlet Series, and Ghadar
magazine. We also worked in consultation with South Asian activists in Boston
to establish SASSY—South Asian Summer Solidarity for Youth. The network of
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progressive South Asian activists and organizations brought together by proXsa
has been able to mobilize and demonstrate progressive support on key issues,
such as nuclear proliferation in South Asia, the New York Taxi Workers’ Alliance
strikes in May 1998, and the exclusion of the South Asian Lesbian and Gay
Association from the annual India Day Parade, and since September 11 th on
issues of racial profiling, INS detentions, and anti-war efforts.
Organization Structure and Decision Making Process: proXsa is a nonhierarchical organization comprised of distinct project areas with each project
coordinated by a volunteer collective. Teams of project volunteers make all
project decisions. With larger projects, one person functions as a coordinator for
a one year period. While each individual area makes most project decisions, a
given project team often takes issues up to the larger proXsa collective. The
larger proXsa membership has decision making capacity only on such occasions
as when, e.g., a press statement is being made in the name of the entire
organization. For such cases, where the whole organization is involved, a voting
procedure has been set up. This procedure is as follows: every vote is preceded
by a period of discussion regarding the proposed issue. At the end of the
discussion period, a vote is called. The rules for passage of the proposal are as
follows: 1. A minimum of 25% of the membership should participate in the vote.
2. The proposal for passing should be voted in by a majority of 75% of the cast
vote - the number of dissenting votes should be less than 5% of the total
membership.
Membership and Composition: Our current membership is 397. Our
membership is mostly South Asian, with 349 members being South Asian. Some
non-South Asians who have strong ties to South Asia are also members. Many
of our members work in educational and other non-profit organizations. More
than 20% (approximately 81) of the membership are students in undergraduate
and graduate programs. Gender parity in the organization is a priority. At
present, approximately 203 women belong to the organization. The organization
has made many proactive efforts to recruit queer members, and has made efforts
to incorporate queer activists into its decision making structures. All members
have endorsed the vision statement, which construes queer politics as
fundamental to the organization’s progressivism.
III YSS Mission Statement
Each year the YSS mission statement is modified and changed through
ideological and political debate within the collective. The mission statement
developed in 1997 remained relatively unchanged through to 2000 and was
modified again in 2002.
2000
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Youth Solidarity Summer's mission is to provide radical education for young
activists who identify as desi or South Asian in North America. The summer
program offers:
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Progressive perspectives for organizing around issues of
class, race, gender and sexuality.
Information on and access to a wide variety of
progressive resources.
Training in organizing skills necessary for progressive
social and political activism
Support, solidarity and comradeship through a network of
fellow activists.
YSS aims to elaborate upon ongoing struggles for social justice that have
engaged young activists, equip them with strategies to take back to their
communities, and to provide support for ongoing political work. The long-term
goal of the program is to build a network of youth activists who work for social
and political change and to create solidarity among activists fighting for social
justice.
2002
Youth Solidarity Summer's mission is to provide radical political education for
young activists of South Asian decent. YSS aims to build a movement of youth
activists engaged in anti-oppression work, and to create a forum to share
organizational and political strategies. The long-term goal of the program is to
create solidarity among a new generation of activists fighting for social justice.
IV The Political Context for YSS
The South Asian community in North America is overwhelmingly constituted by
middle class professionals, although in recent years, families that identify as
lower middle class or working class are increasingly visible. The community is
very diverse, culturally rich, and maintains strong ties to South Asia, as well
diasporic ties across the world. However, the self-image of the community is
increasingly conservative, with a few adherents of the religious and corporate
right perceived as our sole and legitimate representatives. There is an urgent
need to strengthen progressive presence within our community, and to foster
radical politics opposed to class exploitation, religious intolerance, and race,
gender and sexual oppression.
South Asian youth in the U.S. are coming of age in a specific time, marked by the
recent histories of second and third wave South Asian professional and middle
class migration of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. As a consequence of that
history, and its representations, South Asian young people are racialized as a
model minority. In fact, South Asians have experienced an economically and
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geographically complex set of immigration histories. However, South Asian
youth have been offered relatively few ways of understanding and relating to
these histories and their political significance, outside of right wing institutional
attempts to create a sense of community based unity through conservative
religious and political ideologies. YSS provides an alternative to the Right wing
rhetoric of cultural ‘authenticity’ and social conservatism by creating a space for
debate, critique, developing organizing skills, community building, and political
growth. YSS is committed to providing a safe space for South Asian youth of all
backgrounds who are interesting in working for progressive social change. The
YSS week each year reflects the political concerns within the diaspora as well as
issues of concern occurring within the South Asian subcontinent. For Instance,
in 2002 the week’s specific focus reflected issues of racial profiling and immigrant
detention following the violence against Muslims and people of south Asian
decent following September 11th attacks, as well as the state sponsored pogrom
against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002.
V The YSS Collective, Meetings, and Work
YSS is an all-volunteer collective of first and second-generation South Asian
organizers working in a variety of movements for progressive social change. The
YSS week-long summer program is run autonomously by the collective, currently
based in New York City, with strong affiliations to other similar projects (SASSY
in Boston, and plans for school programs in New York as well as other
progressive organizations committed to social justice in NYC.) YSS draws
financial and organizational resources, as well as inspiration and support,
through its links with the nationwide ProXsa network (please see the “Funding”
section in this Workbook for details.)
The principal focus of YSS is a week-long summer program, held in August, with
seminars, workshops, field-trips, meetings with progressive organizations and
opportunities for personal interaction amongst organizers and participants. Apart
from planning and facilitating the summer school, we also organize and
participate in workshops, fundraisers and media outreach events. Most collective
members live in New York City, where monthly meetings and events are held. All
YSS members are committed to working at least until the next year’s summer
program, to attend at least three of any four consecutive meetings, and are in
agreement with the general principles outlined in the mission statement. This
statement itself is revisited at the end of each summer program to ensure that the
program is dynamic, and that this statement reflects our work. The organizers of
YSS are committed to social justice, to ending the exploitation of working people
and the poor by globalization, and to opposing the oppression of all peoples by
bigoted social structures and ideas. We are ecumenical in faith, but drawn
together by a social vision that precludes systemic injustice.
Collective Recruitment
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The YSS collective consists of 15-20 active members working in a range of
progressive social movements and organizations, including labor rights groups,
the lesbian/gay/bisexual/ transgender/two-spirit movement, anti-domestic
violence organizations, feminist groups, organizations working on issues of racial
and economic justice, environmentalist organizations, immigrant rights
organizations, the movement against the prison industrial complex, radical youth
organizations, radical spoken word, performance art, and dance. Each year, the
YSS collective invites former YSS participants, as well as South Asian organizers
from the growing progressive community, to an orientation meeting where the
previous year’s collective members present YSS and its work, time
commitments, goals and mission. The orientation meeting is organized in order
to expand the collective through targeted outreach, and to clearly communicate
the needs and expectations of the program to new potential members, and to
involve youth who have participated in previous years’ programs to actively
organize and shape the direction of YSS. Because YSS offers a unique
organizing space for multiple movements to coexist and exchange ideas,
analysis, organizing skills, and information, the collective’s recruitment of new
members is also seen as being an important part of building a truly integrated
movement for progressive social change.
Collective Solidarity
Within the collective, solidarity is a commitment to the political process, intent,
and mission of YSS. Solidarity in the collective is not about forced agreement or
adherence to any one political position, but rather the commitment to discuss
political positions. Over the years, we have agreed through a long process of
debate that during the week of YSS, collective solidarity will be held sacrosanct
and not compromised. By this our intent is that no one in the collective should in
any way compromise collective solidarity through a breach of confidentiality or
act alone in a manner that jeopardizes the political process and intent of the
week, despite disagreements. Solidarity within the collective is built throughout
the year in meetings, committee work, as well as at retreats. We also
understand solidarity as constituting confidentiality between the collective and
other political groups we work with as well as between the collective and the
participants during the YSS week. YSS requires considerable time and effort
through the year and during the week. Thus, we understand solidarity as
commitment to and respect for labor of all kinds – intellectual and physical.
Meetings’ process
The YSS collective meets ever three weeks beginning in late October. The first
of the meetings following the YSS week entails a debrief of the week by looking
in detail at the evaluations, what worked and didn’t work with each workshop,
breakout group, panel, the benefit, and expenditure and budget as well as other
miscellaneous issues from the week. Subsequent meetings decide who from the
collective will stay for the next year and how many new members need to be
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brought on board taking into consideration specially if new projects are being
initiated such as the schools project, then recruitment of new members will reflect
these additional needs. The recruiting strategy has predominantly been to invite
members of the community involved in political work that some one in the
collective knows. We also invite past YSS participants to join the collective. In
fact the collective at present is composed predominantly of past YSS
participants. The recruitment meeting is a full day retreat with new members and
the existing collective. At this retreat the collective divides into various
committees that will then have the task to spearheading particular tasks (see
committees below).
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Outreach
Finance
Benefit
Publicity
Web and registration
Housing
Starting January the three week meetings resume with a time line being
established for outreaching participants. Our deadline corresponds with the end
of the spring semester for colleges. Within this time period, we have to create
and distribute flyers and brochures, make this material available to people that
will be at conferences and talks of interest to south Asian youth, outreach events
at NYC colleges. Fundraising is also initiated in the spring, with applications
made for grants from the Northstar fund, as well as a YSS benefit event.
During the spring the effort also is to plan what the week will look like, make
changes to the week from the previous year – these meetings are places for
some of the political and ideological discussion that are crucial to the collective’s
building of solidarity. The way in which the week is structured, the workshops
are created, and the goal and mission of YSS envisioned emerges from these
discussions. The end of the spring is the weekend retreat where the YSS week
is created and the collective divides to take on different workshops. During the
summer committee members as well as workshop groups meet during times
outside of the collective meeting times. Closer to YSS week, the second
weekend retreat is where each workshop group shares the workshop outline with
the collective. The breakout groups and panels are also discussed. Additionally
some of the logistical issues are also worked out as to who will be the
‘mogambos’ for each day. Mogambos are two collective members who are not
responsible for the workshop that day or for organizing the panelists. The
mogambos are responsible for bringing breakfast, dealing with the panelists,
responding to emergencies, handing out evaluations for the day, keeping time,
and clean up. Additional smaller meeting closer to the week are schedule as
required.
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VI Recruiting participants
YSS accepts up to thirty youth aged 17-23 who have filled out our application
form on a first-come, first-served basis. We keep a rolling waiting list of five
people, and have generally been able to include all of the interested participants
in the week, as many youth change their plans over the course of the summer.
Application forms may be filled out on paper or through our web site
(www.proxsa.org/yss). The form, which is a detailed questionnaire, has three
main parts. The first simply asks about the participant’s history of thinking and
organizing around political issues. The second queries the participant regarding
what kind of political issues/skills they would like to learn about during the week
and what they plan to do after the week concludes. The last part is geared
towards breaking them up into small groups where they learn organizing
strategies and skills. This has worked slightly differently each year (see section
on breakout groups in Part II).
Over the years the majority of participants to YSS have come from elite schools
and have for the most part therefore targeted participants from middle and elite
class backgrounds. In response to this trend, more recently the YSS collective
has made a decision to make a concerted effort to outreach to participants from
state colleges by giving priority to working class students by targeted outreach as
well as budgeting by offering stipends to students that find it financially prohibitive
to come to New York for the week. Additionally the effort has also been to recruit
more participants locally from the New York metropolitan areas. Our discussions
from the inception of YSS has also acknowledged that not all participants that
would like to come to YSS have access to college and thus to think of ways to
invite those that are not within the college system. This entails not only where
and how we outreach but also how the YSS week – workshops, breakout groups,
and panels – are themselves structured that are biased towards those that have
access to particular kinds of knowledge. The school’s project is one effort that
hopes to address the concern that YSS is available to a particular constituency of
participants. Other concerns have been that the majority of the participants are
from the Indian diaspora and to a much lesser extent from other parts of south
Asia or the extended diaspora such as Africa and the Caribbean who trace their
ancestry back to the south Asian subcontinent. The on going effort is to think
through ways in which we may be able to outreach to these different
communities through the way the week is organized as well as in the manner in
which we outreach.
VII Funding
YSS is not an independent tax exempt (501 C (3) status) organization. Our
attempt has been to keep the YSS budget deliberately small and not receive
grants and funds from organizations, funding agencies and corporations whose
policies and politics we disagree with. This continues to be a deliberate and
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politically conscious decision of the collective. The funding for the week is
derived from three sources. The first is from progressive funding agencies, such
as the Northstar fund and Resist foundation that gives small grants for politically
progressive projects. In the last few years grants from Northstar and Resist have
accounted for the largest portion of our budget. The funds are managed through
the SINGH foundation, our fiscal sponsor. The second source of funding for YSS
is a registration fee we collect on a sliding scale from the participants.
Participants for whom coming to YSS is financially prohibitive can have their
registration fee waived and are given small stipends to help defray costs during
the week. The third source of funding is from 1-2 benefits during the year. The
first typically is at the end of the spring while the second is at the end of the YSS
week. Both benefits are used to raise funds for the YSS week.
Funding for the week is applied towards the following categories
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Rent of Brecht forum space
Emergency Cell Phone
Printing YSS T-shirts
Duplicating brochures, flyers etc.
Office Supplies butcher paper, pens, markers etc.
Renting Equipment for the benefits
Stipend for Participants
Honoraria for artists and panelists
Food – daily breakfast and One YSS dinner
VIII History of Ideological and Structural Changes in the YSS Collective and
Week
Over the past six years of YSS’ existence, the collective and the program have
undergone major ideological and structural changes. (The structure of the week
and the composition and recruitment of collective members will be discussed
further in later sections of this Workbook). An emblematic ideological tension
within the program’s development has revolved around the curriculum of the
week, and specifically around which workshop to use to begin the week’s
programming. The first three years of YSS began with different versions of a
workshop that focused on South Asian identity, and the ways in which people
identify themselves vis-à-vis their own or their families place of origin. The
identity workshop was used to begin the program because the YSS organizing
collective understood that identity is a shared and deep-seated issue among
South Asian youth who are racialized according to a specific mode (e.g., “model
minorities”) in the U.S. The workshop was intended to help participants rethink,
recontextualize and historicize South Asian identity within a progressive political
mode.
While the workshop was somewhat successful in achieving this goal, a decision
was made to prioritize beginning the program with a more explicit discussion of
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power and privilege, and to discuss ethnic and racial identity constructs within the
context of South Asian immigration history in the U.S. The fourth and fifth years
of YSS have begun, instead, with a workshop entitled Power and Privilege, which
introduces and critiques the ways that power is and is not shared within an
organizing context. The Power and Privilege workshop applies the principles of
analyzing and deconstructing power to YSS itself in its goal of acknowledging
dynamics of both personal and structural power in progressive political analysis
and strategy.
The Power and Privilege workshop served to highlight the intersectionality of
structural oppression. It also helped to initiate discussions of identity in
subsequent workshops in a way that facilitates political action, by contextualizing
the idea of ‘identity’ within sexuality politics, gender politics, and histories of
class, race and immigration. The process which led to emphasizing the
discussion of power and privilege, and shifting the discussion of identity to other
workshops, represents a critical ideological forum for the collective. Because the
YSS collective is a unique coalition of people working with a variety of different
movements, the discussion of identity has become key to forming and
maintaining important political alliances and tensions within the YSS organizing
space. The political motivations of the various movements represented by
collective members create productive tensions within which to envision the
merging of identity based political perspectives with those that emphasize the
primacy of class in movements for social change. The discussion of identity,
both individual identities and ‘identity’ as a framework, is ongoing. The powerinflected ways in which people of various South Asian immigration histories,
class backgrounds, sexualities, religions, and genders do and do not access
South Asian identities is problematic, and maintains the need to continually
discuss, contextualize and critique the notion of ‘South Asian identity’ as an
organizing rubric for the YSS summer program.
IX Present and Past Collective Members.
2003 collective
Miabi Chatterji
arvind grover
Anjali Kamat
Sonia Matani
Ali Mir
Tejasvi Nagaraja
Rupal Oza
Prachi Patankar
Fareen Ramji
Ashwini Rao
Sonali Sathaye
Ragini Shah
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Past collective Members
Mona Ahmad Ali
Shomial Ahmad
Sonia Arora
V. Balaji
Jason DaSilva
Debanuj DasGupta
Trishala Deb
Sharmila Desai
Chitra Ganesh
Surabhi Kukke
Sangeeta Kamat
Sunaina Maira
Ally Mathew
Biju Mathew
Raza Mir
Nidhi Mirani
Monaumi Mullik
Ananya Mukherjea
Swati Prakash
Vijay Prashad
Raju Rajan
Kavita Rajanna
Prerana Reddy
Sujani Reddy
Pranitk Saha
Hema Sarangapani
Svati Shah
Gopi Shastri
Amita Swadhin
Marian Yalini Thambynayagam
Saba Waheed
X Looking Ahead: The Schools Project – Reaching Out and Organizing
Towards Solidarity (ROOTS)
Why is project ROOTS necessary right now?
In the post-9/11 United States, immigrants' rights are under attack. Many South
Asian students have been the victims of racial profiling in the "War Against
Terrorism," and many have experienced hate crimes in their schools and
communities. However, many South Asians do not have allies outside of their
ethnic and/or religious communities, having been touted as a "model minority,"
and thus pitted against other communities of color for generations. Moreover,
many do not realize the importance of being allies to other marginalized
communities.
All of this is occurring against the background of rampant religious
fundamentalism in South Asia. India, especially the state of Gujarat, is perhaps
the best example: Hindu fundamentalists have taken control of the government,
and have incited anti-Muslim violence on a large scale. Young South Asians in
America are directly affected for a number of reasons. First, many Hindu
fundamentalists reside in the United States, and financially support
fundamentalist efforts in India with money made in the U.S. These individuals
have formed summer camps targeting Indian American youth as a population
ripe for conversion - necessary to maintain the financial support of Hindu
fundamentalist activities in the next generation. Additionally, the Indian
government is trying to appeal to the United States for support in its clash with
Pakistan, playing into George W. Bush's "anti-terrorist Axis of Evil." South Asian
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American students need to be aware now more than ever of the relationship
between their country of origin and their country of residence.
Objectives:
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Counter right-wing Hindu and Muslim fundamentalists' efforts to spread
nationalist, communalist ideologies to South Asian American youth.
Educate students about the histories of popular struggles in South Asia and
North America
Help young South Asian Americans realize their common ground and the
importance of forming communities beyond religious or nationality-based
identities.
Educate young South Asian Americans about their civil rights in the post-9/11
United States.
Educate young South Asian Americans about links between their own
community, other immigrant communities, and people of color in general.
Empower immigrant youth to advocate for themselves: in their communities and
in public policy arenas.
Create an arena for students to meet with experienced community activists.
What do we hope to achieve?
The Project ROOTS aims to be experiential, utilizing theater and interactive,
discussion-based workshops to convey ideas of power, privilege, immigration
history and civil rights to high school-age South Asian American students. We
hope to strengthen ties not only between South Asian students of different
religions, regions and nationalities, but also between South Asian students, other
immigrant communities, and other communities of color.
To achieve our goals, the collective is creating a curriculum of interactive
workshops that can be used in classrooms and in after school leadership
programs. We hope to forge ties with teachers and after school educators in
New York City and Jersey City, NJ who will allow us to present one workshop a
month to their students. Each workshop will include a handout that students can
keep for their reference. We also plan to make the curriculum available to
schools with a high South Asian student population, in the hopes that teachers
will incorporate the workshops into their lesson plans.
In addition to presenting workshops for students and creating a curriculum, our
volunteers will be available to conduct staff development sessions for teachers.
The objective of these sessions is to educate teachers about the needs of South
Asian students in the current political climate, and equip them with the tools to
meet these needs.
How are we compiling our curriculum?
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Our collective is composed of academics, artists, interactive theater experts
(trained in the techniques of Augusto Boal), community activists, and after school
educators. Beyond drawing upon our collective expertise, we are learning from
existing curricula and have hired a Train the Trainer expert to instruct us on
workshop development and facilitation techniques for a high school-age
audience. We are also strengthening our ties to after school programs like South
Asian Youth Action (SAYA!) that have existing programs in New York City high
schools with large South Asian populations.
When do we plan to implement Project ROOTS?
We are currently compiling the curriculum for Project ROOTS, and hope to pilot it
before the end of the 2002-2003 school year in at least one in-class and one
after-school setting. We will use the summer to fine tune the curriculum and
secure sites for our program, and hope to have our once-a-month workshop
schedule up and running by the start of the 2003-2004 school year.
PART II
I The YSS week
The YSS week is thematically organized beginning with workshops in the
morning followed by group work, (called “breakout groups”) panels and finally
various evening events around the city (look at the YSS schedules section for
each years’ schedules).
Workshops
The thematic workshops are organized and run by different members of the
organizing collective. Typically the workshop portion of the day is relatively more
‘didactic’ where the effort is to understand and relate with concepts such as
political economy, sexuality, race, etc., what they mean and why these are
central to political organizing. While relatively didactic, the workshops are
interactive with an effort to integrate examples of political organizing, concrete
skills and theoretical issues and concepts.
In addition, the workshops use theater techniques, role plays, and interactive
activities to spur discussion about topics and to illustrate the complexity of certain
economic or social systems. These interactive activities are vital to keeping the
workshops interesting and keeping the participants engaged with the material.
Each year the order of workshops during the week changes as a consequence of
participant feedback, adding more workshops, and a desire to foster more
conversation amongst the participants. For instance, by 2000, the workshop
based on identity politics was replaced by a workshop on power and privilege.
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The reasons for this change emerged directly from discussion about identity
politics within the collective. We felt that there were particular ways in which
identity politics became an end point in thinking about collective political
organizing rather than a place from where to begin. Some of these discussions
reflected the frustration with identity politics movement we saw emerging in other
politics organizing circles. Our concern with the YSS week was to present a
systemic structural analysis of the political, economic, and cultural context of
South Asian youth in the contemporary political context of the US. While identity
politics offered a place to come together, thinking through its critique clarified the
goals that the YSS week hoped to achieve and initiate.
In 2001, a workshop on religion and progressive political change was explicitly
formulated as part of the YSS week. In part, the debate with the religion
workshop stems from the reasons YSS began and its efforts to create an
alternative to the conservative religious right in North America. For many South
Asian immigrants, religion plays a significantly political, economic, and cultural
role in their lives. In 2001, the YSS organizing collective felt that there was a
need to respond to the growing political power of conservative organized religion
both in North America and South Asia as well as the role religion plays in the
lives of some of the participants and the larger diaspora. Our effort was to take
on religion and offer critical political ways of understanding the role it plays in its
conservative and violent manifestations as well as the role that liberation
theology for instance has had in Latin America. The question we sought to
grapple with was, how might we engage with religion with a radical critical
perspective in the face of very conservative organized religions? How is religion
connected with the political economy and with race, gender, and sexuality?
Since 1997, the YSS week had followed a set pattern with workshops each day.
While the order and intent of the thematic workshops changed each year, the
pattern of a workshop each day based on a particular theme did not vary. In
2002, the workshops were completely rethought. This change came in direct
response to the political context after September 11th and the need to think
through strategies to respond to a new set of exploitative measures justified in
oppressive terms. Rather than a workshop each day there were three main
workshops spread over 2 days during the week. The week began with “M.E.”
(Meticulous Examination), followed by “what the fuck is the system” and ended
with a workshop on “resistance and revolution”.
Break Out Groups
After lunch following the workshops in the morning, the afternoon is dedicated to
small group work where the emphasis is on skill building. Break out groups work
seek to address the specific interests of the participants. There have been two
ways in which groups in the past few years have been formed – based on
content and based on medium. Groups divided on the basis of medium have
focused on different organizing techniques such as art, media, union organizing,
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education, service organizations etc. While content based groups have focused
on formulating fictitious organizations that participants are part of for the duration
of the week. The fictional groups deal with issues such as creating a mission
statement as well as political ‘crises’ to which the group must formulate a
response. In the past, we have found that the content based group work has
worked better than the medium-based groups primarily because it provides a
more comprehensive structure within which to deal with issues of skill building
and ideology. Each break out group is facilitated by at least two members of the
organizing collective, but role-play and group coalition exercises create
opportunities for communication amongst groups and group facilitators.
Participants have usually been divided into their groups prior to the beginning of
the week, based upon the information they have provided in their applications. In
2002, participants were asked to list their preferences on the first day of YSS and
were assigned to groups according to their preferences. We generally do not
move participants to other groups, and firmly suggest that they can learn
something useful no matter which break out group they are in, as they all
address intersectionality amongst issues.
Panels
Each day of the week ends with a set of panels that are thematically connected
with the workshop of that day. While the entire organizing collective agrees on
the topics for each panel as well as provides ideas for potential panelists, two
organizers who are not facilitating workshops that day are assigned to confirm
panel participants. The panels introduce participants to political organizing efforts
by different organizations, not only South Asian based, that are working on an
entire range of issues. For instance, in 1999 the workshop on immigration, race,
and ethnicity was followed by a panel from Chinese Staff and Workers
Association. The panels not only provide examples of campaigns in action, but
also have functioned as resources for the participants to make connections with
different organizations that they call on for help in the projects that they pursue
after YSS.
List of organizations that have been on YSS panels
This is not a comprehensive list and the groups we work with continue to grow as
political struggles expand.
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Al Awada
Asian American Arts Alliance/Arkipelago
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
Asian Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS
Blue Triangle Network
Brecht Forum
Chinese Staff and Workers Association
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Coney Island Avenue Project
Cultural workers like DJ Siraki, DJ Rekha and the crew at SOBs
Desi’s Rising Up and Moving
Diaspora Flow
Forum of Indian Leftists
Forum of Progressive Artists
Global Kids
International South Asia Forum (INSAF)
Jews Against the Occupation
Manavi
Mango Tribe
National Labor Committee
National Mobilization against Sweatshops
New York Taxi Workers Alliance
Prison Moratorium Project
Sakhi for South Asian Women
Sangat Review
South Asian Action and Advocacy Collective
South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association (SALGA)
South Asian Magazine for Action and Reflection (SAMAR)
South Asian Women’s Creative Collective (SAWCC)
South Asian Youth Action (SAYA)
South Asians Against Police Brutality and Racism (SAPBR)
The Audre Lorde Project (ALP)
The Policy Institute, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
WBAI – Pacifica Radio
Workers’ Awaaz
II Alumni Retreat
One of our aims for YSS participants is that they not only have enriching and
challenging experiences during the actual week, but that they stay in touch with
one another and with program organizers, and work together on future projects.
Also, we hope that taking part in YSS week inspires participants to become
involved in progressive community organizations and/or political campaigns in
their communities and campuses.
After the YSS week, all participants and organizers join the YSS listserv so that
they can continue to communicate, inform, and support each other. Follow-up
questionnaires sent to the listserv in the month following September 11, 2001
indicated the need for a short retreat to renew the networks among fellow
alumnae, connect people from different years, and to discuss strategies for
progressive organizing as South Asians in response to the new political climate.
This was particularly important for past participants in the light of the racism?
faced by South Asians in an increasingly polarized environment. Many expressed
16
frustration regarding their participation in post-911 antiwar organizing coalitions,
which they felt to be both ageist and unwelcoming to people of color.
Furthermore, most people were either new folks or were themselves the victim of
racist verbal and/or physical attacks. In order to respond to the psychological
fatigue and new political considerations that South Asian activists were facing,
we organized a retreat in January 2002 attended by 30 past participants. The
occasion also allowed the organizing collective to re-evaluate the structure and
mission of the YSS project.
The retreat was held in two cabins in the country just outside of New York City,
and money was raised to subsidize some of the travel expenses of those who
wanted to participate. The event included both organized discussion sessions
designed for people to share their experiences, frustrations, and organizing
strategies around North America, as well as more informal activities designed to
facilitate group cohesiveness and sharing.
While our first Alumni Retreat was a resounding success, for the future, we
encouraged alumnae to organize their own regional reunions to minimize travel
costs and to lessen the burden of logistics planning for the YSS organizing
collective.
III YSS Schedules 1998-2002
Youth Solidarity Summer 1998
Saturday, August 15th
9:30
Noon
1:00 pm
4:00 pm
4:30 pm
7:00 pm
Orientation
Lunch
Workshop: Like Guava for Chutney: Deploying and living Desi
identities
Break
Youth Activism Panel
Night out
Sunday, August 16th
12:30pm
1:45pm
3:00pm
5:30 pm
6:30pm
Orientation to the India Day Parade
India Day Parade
Desi Dhamaka
Discussion and Writing
Pizza and Video Films
Monday, August 17th
17
9:00am
9:30am
12:30pm
1:30pm
2:00pm
3:00pm
3:30pm
5:30
7:30
Breakfast
Workshop: Capital Ideas: Work, Careers and the Economy
Lunch
Journal Writing
Project Workshop
Break
South Asian Lesbian and Gay Alliance
Taxi Workers Alliance
Video – Che
Wednesday, August 19th
9:00am
9:30am
12:30pm
1:30pm
2:00pm
3:00pm
3:30pm
4:30pm
5:30pm
6:00pm
Breakfast
Workshop: Hennaed Women, Hysterical Men and Heterosexual
Tendencies: Gender and Sexuality
Lunch
Journal Writing
Project workshop
Break
Manavi
Workers Aawaz
Reception
Self Defense workshop
Thursday, August 20th
9:00am
9:30am
12:30
1:30pm
2:00pm
3:00pm
3:30pm
7:30pm
Breakfast
Workshop: Does the left have a prayer? Community, Ritual,
Religion
Lunch
Journal Writing
Project Workshop
Break
Arts and Activism Panel
Black Radical Congress Youth Caucus
Friday, August 21st
9:00am
9:30am
12:30pm
1:30pm
3:00pm
7:30pm
8:00pm
Breakfast
Project Presentations
Lunch
Project Presentations
Farwell and feedback
Performance setup
Celebration YSS! An evening of performances
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Youth Solidarity Summer 1999
Saturday, August 14th
9:30 – 10:00 am
10:00 – Noon
12:30 -- 1:30pm
2:00 – 4:00 pm
4:30 – 6:30 pm
6:45 --- 7:30 pm
Registration
Orientation
Lunch
Workshop: Identity
Youth Activism Panel
Journal writing or Mural
Sunday, August 15th
10:30 – Noon
Noon --- 2:30 pm
3:00 – 4:00 pm
4:00 – 5:00 pm
7:00 pm
Orientation to the India Day parade
India Day parade
Reflections
Journal writing or Mural
UNTOLD: YSS Benefit
Monday, August 16th
9:00 – 9:30 am
9:30 – 12:30 pm
12:30 –1:30 pm
1:30 – 2:15 pm
2:30 --- 4:00 pm
4:30 --- 6:00 pm
6:30 – 8:00 pm
8:00 --- 9:00 pm
Breakfast
Workshop: Immigration, Race and Ethnicity
Lunch
Journal Writing or Mural
Project Group
Feminist Activism Panel
Dinner in Chinatown
Chinese Staff Workers Association
Tuesday, August 17th
9:00 – 9:30 am
9:30 – 12:30 pm
12:30 –1:30 pm
1:30 – 2:15 pm
2:30 --- 5:00 pm
6:00 --- 8:00 pm
Breakfast
workshop: Political Economy
Lunch
Journal Writing or Mural
Project Group
Labor Panel over Pizza
Wednesday, August 18th
9:00 --- 9:30 am
9:30 --- 12:30 pm
12:30 --- 1:30 pm
1:30 --- 2:15 pm
2:30 --- 4:00 pm
Breakfast
Workshop: Gender and Sexuality
Lunch
Journal Writing or Mural
Project Group
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4:00 --- 6:00 pm
7:00 --- 8:30 pm
Queer activism panel
Video Screening
Thursday, August 19th
9:00 --- 9:30 am
9:30 --- 12:30 pm
12:30 --- 1:30 pm
1:30 --- 3:00 pm
3:30 --- 5:30 pm
6:00 --- 8:00 pm
Breakfast
workshop: Reclaiming Public Spaces
Lunch
Project Group
Droppin’ Science
Arts and Activism Panel
Friday, August 20th
9:00 --- 9:30 am
9:30 --- 10:30 am
10:30 --- 12:30 pm
12:30 --- 1:30 pm
1:30 --- 4:30 pm
4:30 --- 7:30 pm
8:00 pm
Breakfast
Urvashi Vaid
Project Presentations
Lunch
Project Presentations
Life on the Left
Farewell Dinner
Youth Solidarity Summer 2000
Sunday, August 13th.
Noon Registration.
100–300
Introduction.
300–400
Tea Break.
400–700
Breakout Groups.
700–
YSSers of the Past.
Monday, August 14th.
900–1230
1230–230
230–400
400–500
500–700
Workshop: Power & Privilege Workshop.
Lunch.
Breakout Groups.
Tea Break.
Panel: War on Public Space.
Tuesday, August 15th .
900–1230
1230–230
230–400
Workshop: Gender & Sexuality Workshop.
Lunch.
Breakout Groups.
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400–500
500–700
730–
Tea Break.
Panel: Hate Crimes.
Summer Stage.
Wednesday, August 16th.
900–1230
1230–230
230–400
400–500
500–700
PM
Workshop: Class & Globalization Workshop.
Lunch.
Breakout Groups.
Tea Break.
Panel: Nature/Capital.
Nuyorican Cafe.
Thursday, August 17th.
900-1230
1230-230
230-400
400-500
500-700
PM
Workshop: Borders/Immigration/Race Workshop.
Lunch.
Breakout Groups.
Tea Break.
Panel: Immigration.
Basement Bhangra at SOBs.
Friday, August 18th.
900-1230
1230-230
230-400
400-500
500-700
Workshop: Life on the Left Workshop.
Lunch.
Breakout Groups.
Tea Break.
Panel: Privatization.
Saturday, August 19th.
900-1230
1230-230
230-400
400-500
500-600
700-
Workshop: Arts & Activism.
Lunch.
Arts & Activism.
Tea Break.
Arts & Activism.
YSS OK: a party.
Sunday, August 20th.
1000-- India Day Parade. Meet at the Brecht Forum.
Return to BF after the parade to debrief and say al-vida
Youth Solidarity Summer 2001
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Sunday, August 12th
11am
12-1
1-2
2-4
4-6
Registration
Introduction to YSS
Theater exercises
Breakout groups
Salgado exhibit ICP
Monday, August 13th
9:00-9:30
9:30-12:30
12:30-2:30
2:30-4:30
4:30-5:00
5:00-7:00
7:30-
Breakfast
Workshop: Power & privilege
Lunch
Breakout groups
Chai break
Panel: Power & Privilege
Chinatown dinner
Tuesday, August 14th
9:00-9:30
9:30-12:30
12:30-2:30
2:30-4:30
4:30-5:00
5:00-7:00
7:00
Breakfast
Workshop: Immigration
Lunch
Breakout groups
Chai break
Panel: immigration
Film night
Wednesday, August 15th
9:00-9:30
9:30-12:30
12:30-2:30
2:30-4:30
4:30-5:00
5:00-7:00
9:00
Breakfast
Workshop: Gender & Sexuality
Lunch
Breakout groups
Chai break
Panel: gender & sexuality
Nuyorican Poets Café
Asia Pacific Forum
Thursday, August 16th
9:00-12:30
12:30-2:30
2:30-4:30
4:30-5:00
6:00-8:00
Workshop: Political economy
Lunch
Breakout groups
Chai break
Panel: religion
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8:30
Basement Bhangra or
SISTA Speak (7pm)
Friday, August 17th
9:00-12:30
12:30-2:00
2:00-4:30
4:30-5:00
5:00-7:00
7:00
Workshop: Religion
Lunch
Breakout groups
Chai break
Panel: religion
Diaspora Flow
Saturday, August 18th
9:00-12:30
12:30-2:30
2:30-4:30
4:30-5:00
5:00-7:00
9:00-
Workshop: Life on the left
Lunch
Panel: arts & activism
Chai break
Poster making
YSS TIME PASS
Sunday, August 19th
Noon Brecht Forum
1:00 India day Parade
3:00 Brecht Forum
Youth Solidarity Summer 2002
Sunday, August 11th
11:00-12:00
12:00-2:30
2:30-3:00
3:00-6:00
6:30-
Registration
Introduction to YSS
Break
Workshop 1: Meticulous. Examination. (day 1)
Dinner at Jackson Heights
Monday, August 12th
9:00-9:30
Breakfast
9:30-12:30 Workshop 1: Meticulous. Examination (day 2)
12:30-2:30 Lunch
2:30-4:30
Breakout groups
4:30-5:00
Chai break
5:00-7:00
Panel: Striking back at the Empire!
Shomial Ahmad and Kasif Akhtar, NY Taxi Workers Alliance
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Deepa Fernandes, Free Speech Radio News
and more…
7:00
TBA
Tuesday, August 13th
9:00-9:30
Breakfast
9:30-12:30 Workshop 2: What the fuck is the system? (day 1)
12:30-2:30 Lunch
2:30-4:30
Breakout groups
4:30-5:00
Chai break
5:00-7:00
Panel: The G_D complex
D’Lo, Jolt of creative and comedic energy, spoken word artist, poet
Kamala Visveswaran Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia
Campaign for Justice in Gujarat; Yusuf Nuruddin Brecht Forum, Broadcast
journalist, Socialism and democracy journal
7:30
Show and tell!
Wednesday, August 14th
9:00-9:30
Breakfast
9:30-12:30 Workshop 2: What the fuck is the system? (day 2)
12:30-2:30 Lunch
2:30-4:30
Breakout groups
4:30-5:00
Chai break
5:00-7:00
Panel: Art rebel warriors
Rekha Malhotra: DJ, Basement Bhangra, Sangament Entertainment
Bushra Rehman: Teachers and Writers, Poet and author
Pradeepa Jeevamanoharan and Chamindika Wanduragala: Diaspora Flow
Andre Lancaster: Science fiction writer and cultural artist.
9:00
Nuyorican Poets Café (236 East 3rd Street, between ave. B and C)
Thursday, August 15th
9:00-9:30
9:30-5:00
5:30-6:30
7:008:30-
Breakfast
YSS Liberation Hunt
Debrief at the Brecht Forum
SAWCC meeting (Diaspora Flow)
Basement Bhangra (Sounds of Brazil, 204 Varick Street)
Friday, August 16th
9:00-9:30
9:30-12:30
12:30-2:30
Breakfast
Workshop 3: Resistance and Revolution (day 1)
Lunch
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2:30-4:30
Breakout groups
4:30-5:00
Chai break
5:00-7:00
Panel: Working against violence
Amita Swadhin and Roksana Mun:Global kids
Mir Ali Raza: FOIL/INSAF/SAMAR
Liz Clarisier Prison Moratorium Project
7:00
TBA
Saturday, August 17th
9:00-9:30
Breakfast
9:30-12:30 Workshop 3: Resistance and Revolution (day 2)
12:30-2:30 Lunch
2:30-4:30
Breakout groups
4:30-6:00
Working Chai break- parade preparation and Poster making
8:00YSS DEPARTURE LOUNGE
LYRICIST– Julie Dulani
HIP HOP - Abstract Humanity
MUSIC Satish Konakkal (INDOFUNK) and Devaughn Williams
POETRYSarah Hussain
ARTChamindika Wanduragala and Chitra Ganesh
PERFORMANCE- Mango Tribe
PLUS DJ PRAN, DJ ANG (including a set with DJ TORO)
AND MUCH MORE……
Sunday, August 19th
Noon
1:00
3:00
Brecht Forum
India day Parade
Brecht Forum
IV First and Last Day of the Week
The first day of the YSS week usually begins mid-day with registration of
participants. Participants are given a registration packet containing a detailed
schedule of the week, a schedule, miscellaneous information on restaurants in
the area, a subway map, and contact information of all collective members. After
all the participants arrive, we begin by introducing all the participants and the
collective, followed by an overview of YSS history, our mission, and the structure
of the YSS week.
The first day is important for building cohesion and trust amongst the participants
and collective members. Over the years we have used theatrical techniques as
ice breakers, including “name games” and “claiming the space games,” since the
Brecht Forum is a new place for most participants. You can refer to Augusto
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Boal’s “Games for Actors and Non-Actors,” which provides a compilations of
workshops based on a technique called “Theatre of the Oppressed,” pioneered
by Boal in Sao Paolo, Brazil.
We also establish ground rules for the week. The collective suggests guidelines
that we believe are essential for the week to run smoothly, followed by
suggestions from the floor. We then agree by consensus as to which guidelines
will apply to the week and which (if any) will not. The agreed-upon guidelines are
then written up and pasted on the wall to remain visible throughout the week.
The rules address logistics as well as how to create a safe space and methods of
communicating that allow for all participants to feel that they can voice their
opinions. We stress that a safe space is not synonymous with non-challenging
space; there will be times during the week where one will be uncomfortable with
the ideas or discussion or opinions voiced in the room. We hope, however, that
the discomfort is productive in questioning one’s political positions or
assumptions. For instance, some participants who have not been exposed to
gender and queer politics have made homophobic comments without being
aware of their heteronormative privilege. In this context, we have made clear
that the collective holds primary responsibility to expose homophobia and
educate about queer liberation, rather than put queer participants in the position
of ‘teaching’ straight folks.
The YSS week usually ends with going to the India day parade. In New York
City, the India Day parade is held the first weekend after August 15th – the Indian
day of Independence. The following weekend is the Pakistan day parade. YSS
usually only goes to the India day parade because the Pakistan day parade is too
close to the opening of the fall semester for colleges for participants to be back to
school in time. The day prior to the parade is an orientation to the parade. The
India Day parade is organized by the Federation of Indian Associations
(http://www.nationalfederation.org) which is a politically conservative group of
Indian businesses with ties to the Hindu right wing. In the past the FIA has not
allowed progressive South Asian groups like SALGA (South Asian Lesbian &
Gay Association) to march in the parade claiming that the parade was a ‘cultural’
rather than ‘political’ space for Indians, not South Asians in general. Over the
years there have been several instances where progressive groups have not
been allowed to march in the parade, guaranteeing that particular political
positions do not gain visibility in the community. YSS thus has chosen to
participate in the parade in an effort to claim the parade as a public space that
should allow for multiple positions and expressions.
The orientation to the parade includes a brief history of the FIA and YSS’ past
participation in the parade. Typically, theYSS contingent wears the same YSS Tshirts (each year, YSS creates a new T-shirt for participants) and stands on the
sidewalk with banners and colorful posters made the day prior to the parade.
The posters and banners are explicitly political. Prior to attending the parade, we
discuss safety issues, particularly with regard to avoiding confrontations with
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police. We are especially careful to stress that our participation should not
jeopardize the safety of other participants. The parade is a huge gathering of
several thousand South Asian community members. Since the event is also
covered by the local and national South Asian media, we emphasize that
participants who do not want to be visible to members of the community and their
family have the option of standing elsewhere, not wearing the YSS T-shirt, and/or
not carrying placards. Each year, some YSS participants choose to join political
groups that march in the parade, such as SAKHI for South Asian Women (an
anti-domestic violence group) or Desis Rising Up & Moving (a group to empower
working-class South Asians). After the parade we gather back at the Brecht
Forum and end the week with a debrief of the parade, closing activity and
exchange of contact information.
V Evaluations and Responses
Evaluations
YSS provides three channels for participants to provide comments and
critiques during the week.
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Anonymous daily evaluation forms (see examples). For the past three
years, YSS hands out forms for the previous day’s activities for
participants to fill out over the course of their 2-hour lunch break. This
allows folks to have time to digest the previous day and also does not ask
them to fill it out when they are really exhausted at the end of the day. A
final evaluation for the week is also given out for more general comments
and feelings.
Anonymous suggestion box. Participants can use this at any time of the
day and in any way they see fit.
Talking to one or more of the YSS organizing collective. On the first day
we stress that this method of providing comments or suggestions is NOT
ANONYMOUS. This is because it puts the organizer(s) that are
approached in a difficult position when they report back to the whole
collective, especially when this involves critique of individual organizers in
some way. We have made a decision that maintaining collective solidarity
is more important than maintaining anonymity, especially when two other
forms of providing anonymous critique already exist.
Evaluation Questions from YSS 2002
First Day: August 11th 2002
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Registration: Did you receive adequate information from our mailings and
the web?
What further information would you have liked to receive?
Introduction: did you feel sufficiently oriented by the session?
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Workshops 1, 2, and 3: August 12th –17th 2002
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Was the first part of this workshop informative?
Did the style of presentation work for you?
Were the exercises meaningful? What was missing?
What did you enjoy the most? Why? What did you enjoy the least?
Why?
Did the workshop make you examine yourself in a new and different way?
If so, what did the workshop bring to light and what was your reaction?
Breakout Groups: would you have preferred to be in another group?
Is there some thematic group you can suggest for the future?
Please include any other comments or suggestions.
Evaluation for the YSS week August 11th – Aug 19th 2002
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YSS Week Evaluation: Has the YSS week been productive and fun?
What are some themes, topics, workshops that could have been included?
Would you like to be part of the YSS collective and help organize a similar
week?
Are there any concerns, comments, suggestions that you have?
Responses
YSS organizers review the daily evaluations and suggestion box entries during
the two-hour lunch and make notes about salient issues that should be
addressed in constructing future YSS weeks. However, we all agree that no
major structural changes to the present week’s schedule will be sanctioned by
the organizing collective, out of respect for the collective decision-making
process that culminated in the final schedule as well as the labor that individuals
have invested in producing the presentations.
One issue of on-going concern is that participants make less and less use of the
evaluations as the week goes on. Whereas the first two days will be thoroughly
evaluated, the last day will have a only three to four evaluations. Because of this
and because we realize that it is important for participants to “blow off steam”, we
do provide time and space after a couple of panels for participants to make
presentations of their work and talents (political or otherwise) and interact with
organizers in more informal ways to discuss how the week is running. A daily 30minute tea/coffee break between break out groups and panels is another time
available to participants to utilize as they wish or to present things to the large
group.
Despite these many channels, organizers should expect and should not feel
defensive when participants attempt to exercise their own agency with regard to
how they spend their time during the week. We recognize that many participants
come with a wealth of experience and knowledge, and try to encourage them to
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make constructive and respectful interventions. The YSS space however is not
one where there are no power differentials, as organizers have spent
considerable time and effort preparing and conducting the week, whereas
participants have not. This should be clear from the outset.
It’s a difficult thing to know when a critique is valid and when it reflects the
privilege of a few participants. And even when a critique is valid, it’s hard to
know how to address all it adequately at the moment. Not all organizers will
agree about the merits of certain suggestions, nor the proper way to address
them. When such decisions get rushed, divisive dynamics are introduced into
the collective and the participant groups. All we can do is suggest that given the
diverse backgrounds and levels of experience, not everyone will get everything
they want at every moment during the week. We encourage folks to be patient,
as the point of the YSS experience is a willingness to work towards a collective
analysis of injustice and collective struggle for justice. Most participants do learn
new things and make important relationships by the end of the week, and many
even join the organizing collective!
VI Workshops
Introduction
Each workshop is facilitated and developed by two to three members of the YSS
collective. While the workshops form the didactic part of the day, they are
usually interactive, often using theatrical techniques, films, and small group
exercises. While each workshop have been different throughout the years, we
have attempted to present all of the past workshops in a uniform structure below.
Every workshop outline begins with its objective: what the workshop sought to
achieve. This is followed by overall notes, which explain the particularity of each
workshop. The Modules are particular exercises and sections within the
workshop. Each module contains: the module objective (lays out the goal to be
achieved by the particular section), the module plan (sets out the way in which
the goals will be achieved), and the exercises and tools section (details the
games, theatrical techniques, etc. that were used in a particular module). Finally,
in the module narrative, the facilitators reflect on what worked and what did not
work. The number of modules in each workshop varies. A concluding narrative
at the end of each workshop reflects on the whole workshop with a report of any
issues that came up, evaluations, and suggestions of how to improve the
workshop.
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Power and Privilege Workshop (2000)
Workshop Objectives:
To examine the ways in which power and privilege function consciously and
unconsciously in our lives, in terms of institutional and individual dimensions to
power and privilege, and in terms of social and political manifestations. This
should be done with a critical awareness of our own positions in dynamics of
power and privilege in our organizing efforts.
Overall Notes:
This is a four part workshop designed to get people talking and thinking about
how power and privilege – their own and that of others – manifests in their
organizing work. During YSS 2000, this workshop was conducted first, in order
to make sure that everyone was ‘on the same page’ in thinking through these
issues, in relation to the power dynamics of the week with the YSS organizers, in
relation to the ways in which participants related to one another, and in relation to
how participants might conceptualize their organizing work in the future. Each
module builds on the other; the bulk of the workshop time is taken by the
“Scenarios” module, in which people try to think through an organizing scenario
in terms of the issues of power at play within and between various community
based groups.
Module 1: Introductions/Icebreaker
Module Objective:
As this was the first workshop of the week, the objectives were to start getting
participants comfortable talking openly with each other, and to start thinking
about power and privilege in terms of their own daily lives.
Exercise / Tools:
Ask all the participants to say their names, where they come from, and one place
in their lives where they have power because of privilege and one place where
they are aware of their lack of power because of less privilege. Just name them.
No materials required yet; each participant just gives a brief verbal answer to the
group.
Narrative / Content Definition:
No need to discuss or comment on participants’ responses at this stage. We are
asking folks to think about power and privilege in relation to themselves for now.
Facilitators should note the responses for use in discussion later in the workshop.
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Module 2: Definitions exercise
Module Objectives:
To get the group to generate definitions that they agree on so that we can refer to
these meanings through the course of the workshop. Also an opportunity to
dispel some myths and educate on how these words are (mis)used.
Exercises / Tools:
Write the following words on a piece of butcher paper or on a black/white board:
power, privilege, normative. Ask participants to brainstorm definitions for each
terms, and discuss as a group. Supplement definitions with some overall
analysis of how the concepts fit together.
Narrative / Content Definition :
This module is designed to ascertain that participants and facilitators are using
the same terms to mean the same things, and to give participants an idea of
what, conceptually, will be important to think about in the course of the workshop.
Module 3: Scenarios
Module Objectives:
This two-part module (30 min. each) is designed to simulate an organizing
context in which power and privilege must be considered within and between
various community based groups in order to mount successful coalitions and
campaigns, especially when conflict arises between groups.
Module 3, Part 1 Objectives:
To assign people to one of four community based organizations, and to ask
people to think through how they would handle power and privilege–related
issues in thinking about their organizing strategy.
Exercises / Tools for Module 3, Part 1:
Divide the group into four random groups (by, e.g. asking them to count off “one,
two, three, four” around the circle, until everyone has a number, and assigning
each “number” to its own group), assigning an organization to each one. Hand
out the first part of the scenario (below), which describes the missions of each
organization to each group. Give them 15 minutes to discuss in their own group,
ask them to list the strategies they come up with, and then to come back and
discuss briefly with the everyone in the larger group.
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Module 3, Part 1 Scenarios:
Group 1: OGWR – Organization for Garment Workers’ Rights
Your group consists of low wage garment factory workers in NYC who are
organizing together to pressure their employers for higher wages. The workers
are mainly recent Bangladeshi immigrant women, many of them without a green
card. This Organization for Garment Workers’ Rights (OGWR) has been meeting
for a number of months in the city and also has been outreaching for support.
Discuss among yourselves how best the group can enlist the support of other
political organizations.
Group 2: PPOCC – Progressive People of Color Collective
You all are a group of 2nd generation South Asian immigrants (mainly recent
college graduates) that work for the Progressive People of Color Collective
(PPOCC), an organization dedicated to building coalitions among like-minded
people of color activist groups. Many of you are beginning to feel that the
solidarity towards South Asian and other immigrant causes are a little lacking, but
then you hear of the struggle of the OGWR. Discuss among yourselves how the
PPOCC can get involved and help in this struggle.
Group 3: FSC – Feminists for Social Change
You all are a group of South Asian feminist activists that join the FSC, which
consists mainly of white Americans. This organization has, notably, been
conscious of their white predominance, and many of the long-standing FSC
members are feeling very positively about the growing diversity in the group. A
number of you are concerned about the oppressive conditions of the factory
workers in the city and learn of the OGWR. Discuss what strategies you would
use in order to facilitate closer ties between the FSC and OGWR in such a way
as to move the cause of the OGWR forward.
Group 4: APIOHA – Asian Pacific Islander Organization on HIV/AIDS
You are a HIV/AIDS service organization currently targeting immigrant
communities from Asia and the Pacific Islands for a testing drive. This program
was initiated because the statistics on morbidity and mortality rates due to
HIV/AIDS among immigrant populations, especially women, have been rising
steadily in the past several years. You have heard about the work of OGWR and
are interested in reaching out to them not only to offer support for their cause but
also to encourage its members to get tested. Discuss strategies to do outreach
to members of OGWR so that they can get adequate health care, timely
treatment and necessary support in case they test positive for HIV.
SHORT BREAK…5 min
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Module 3, Part 2
Objectives:
To use the information and strategies that participants have gathered about their
organizations and the organizing context in the first part of the exercise to work
through potential conflicts between groups in the second part.
Exercises / Tools:
Hand out the second part of the scenario, the conflict (see below). Ask them to
dramatically represent how they will deal with the situation. Allow 15 minutes for
conference. Discuss OGWR’s decision.
Module 3, Part 2 Scenarios:
Group 1: OGWR
Your outreach efforts are beginning to pay off. Support for your cause is steadily
growing – two groups, the FSC, the PPOCC and APIOHA would like to meet with
all of you. At the next OGWR meeting, representatives from these groups will
offer their support and some specific promising suggestions. Listen to the
presentations from these groups and decide how you will respond.
Group 2: PPOCC
As representatives from the PPOCC, you all meet with the OGWR, and convey
to them your passion in fighting the oppressive conditions that these workers
face. The OGWR is particularly happy that 2nd generation South Asian
immigrants, long thought by them to be focused on the concerns of the upper
middle class, are showing their support for their cause. You all decide to offer the
following suggestions as strategies to further their struggle, strategies that are
considered time honored traditions that the PPOCC has become famous for:
holding public rallies and conducting civil disobedience actions. Formulate and
give a presentation that will “sell” this message to the OGWR.
Group 3: FSC
The annual 3 day radical feminist conference that is held in Washington DC
happens to be coming up. The conference serves to educate and galvanize
feminist activists from throughout the country about various struggles. The focus
for this year will be on equality in the workplace – at a recent FSC meeting in
NYC, it dawns on you that involving OGWR in the conference in some way could
help their struggle. In order to facilitate the participation of as many groups as
possible, the organizers of the conference have decided to waive the conference
33
fees for any groups that demonstrate financial need and would like to participate.
Although it is too late to formally include the OGWR in the conference program,
you have spoken to the co-chairs of the conference, and they have promised to
allow OGWR representatives to speak at the conference regarding their struggle
if they decide to come. Formulate and give a presentation that will convince the
OGWR that they should go to the conference. Discussion
Group 4: APIOHA
You have just received a $50,000 grant from the Department of Health to
continue the outreach you have been doing in immigrant communities, but this
time the grant is earmarked for targeting women immigrants. The only condition
on the grant is that you must refer all clients to the testing site in the DOH
building downtown. This is a great opportunity for APIOHA, particularly to be
recognized by the DOH for your efforts. From APIOHA’s experience, you know
that increased testing in a particular population is directly correlated with
improvements in the health and well being of that population. It becomes
apparent that expanding your outreach efforts on the OGWR, and organizations
like it, would not only be beneficial to their members but also to fulfill the mandate
of the grant. Formulate your “pitch” to get OGWR members on board with your
testing drive and present it to the group.
Narrative / Content Definition
More conflict-related scenarios based on these fictitious organizations can be
introduced into the discussion. This is very optional- based on whether the group
has caught on to immigrant issues. If the OGWR decides to go along with any or
all of the proposals, pose the possibility that the OGWR does not follow up with
either the PPOCC, APIOHA, or the FSC. Think about why this would be so.
What are the key issues of “power and privilege” that the PPOCC, APIOHA, and
FSC missed in their efforts to support the OGWR? Are there issues such as
these that have complicated political or even social situations that you have been
in, either as an organizer or just as an observer?
Module 4: Role Plays
Module Objectives
This module is meant to end the overall workshop with an explicit conversation
about how normativity works in relation to power and privilege.
Exercises / Tools
Facilitators do a quick role-play with a third person. The scene is situated at a
water-cooler where one person is talking at length about their weekend plans
with spouse and kids. The third person listens intently and garrulously engages
34
with this person, heartily sharing his past similar experiences. After several
minutes, they both turn to the second person and earnestly ask her what her
plans are for the weekend. She pauses, and says she is planning on attending a
radical queer activist conference at the Audre Lorde project. The tempo of the
conversation abruptly slows and becomes awkward.
Divide the group into smaller groups of four or five and give them 15 minutes to
devise short scenarios or movement pieces that depict social situations where
power, privilege and normativity are at play. What kind of privilege is at work
here? How does normativity play a role? Presentations and discussion.
Narrative / Content Definition
This module includes a brief discussion of normativity in relation to power and
privilege. The issues of gender and sexuality brought up through this role play
can be referred to in other workshops throughout the course, e.g. in workshops in
which sexuality is more specifically addressed.
Concluding Narrative:
In this workshop we have tried to illustrate the ways in which power and privilege
function consciously and unconsciously in our lives. There are institutional as
well as individual dimensions to power and privilege, juts as there are social and
political manifestations. Being sensitive to the many ways that power and
privilege work to create situations is difficult and often requires a certain amount
of introspection and self-analysis. Critical awareness of our own positions is
invaluable in organizing and in our growth as individuals. Sometimes the
unconscious forms of privilege that we wield do the most harm in our organizing
efforts if they go unchecked. Are there any other questions? Thoughts about
these topics that we haven’t covered?
35
Power and Privilege Workshop (2001)
Overall objectives:
Define the terms power, privilege, oppression in simple language. Examine how
power and privilege operate consciously and unconsciously in our personal lives.
Examine how power and privilege operate at a structural level. Look at how we
can negotiate our personal privilege in organizing efforts
Module 1: Introduction/Defining Power & Privilege
Objectives
Since this is the first workshop of the week, open dialog between participants
about their organizing interests and how they define power, privilege, oppression
etc. Become more comfortable with the group.
Exercise/Tools
Theater game, Colombian hypnosis: do a simple demonstration of the game with
one person; then ask participants to pair up with another participant and do the
game; finally ask two volunteers to be leaders and have all participants follow.
Brief introduction and organizing interests. Word association for Power, privilege,
oppression
Narrative
At this point brief discussion about how it felt to lead and follow in the Colombian
hypnosis game. The introduction exercise will help describing the organizing
interests of the group. The word association will hopefully serve to bring out, in
simple terms, the common themes in power and privilege.
Module 2: Structural Expression Of Power/Privilege
Objectives
Examine how power and privilege operates at a structural level. Examine the
intersectionality of race, gender, sexuality, class, immigration, religion, economic
status, etc. in creating power/oppression
Exercise/Tools
1. Circle and Squares Game- This was the first exercise to examine how power
and privilege is maintained at a structural level. The game demonstrates the
difference between income and wealth, and how wealth is accumulated across
generations only for a certain group of people. Participants are divided into 4
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groups. Two groups become circles and two groups become squares. Each
group is given a table that they have to fill out. The squares start out with a cash
asset while the circles begins with no cash- in fact they are owned by squares.
The game proceeds through six generations- even though the circles win
freedom, obtain education and have an income by the fifth generation, they are
significantly poorer because they do not have assets handed from generation to
generation.
Following the game, we facilitated a discussion on income and wealth, what the
game demonstrated, who the circles and squares likely represented in our
society. This discussion was framed in the context of the article “The black-white
gap: Net worth, more than any other statistic, shows the depth of racial
inequality.” By Daltom Conley.
Narrative
The basic purpose of this section is to examine how power and privilege (access)
is maintained structurally through legislation, housing rights, wealth and estate
taxes for rich white Americans whereas African Americans are struggling to keep
their incomes above expenditure without accumulating any wealth from
generation to generation. In addition, we discussed how gender, sexuality,
immigration status etc. affect privilege or the lack thereof.
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Module 3: Personal Power/Privilege
This module attempted to connect structural construction of oppressions to
personal, by examining how individuals are implicated in these larger structures
through their attitudes and actions.
Exercise/Tools
Reading and discussion of Peggy Macintosh’s article on “ White Privilege:
Unpacking the invisible knapsack”. This article focuses on how being white
accords a number of privileges that are taken for granted that are not available
for African Americans for example.
Following this discussion, we attempt to connect how we as South Asians are
located on the power/privilege ladder. This discussion was facilitated through a
survey exercise. The participants were asked to walk around the room, freeze
when the facilitator signaled and then paired up with the nearest participant and
filled out a survey.
The survey asked participants to fill out information on
 The neighborhoods they grew up in
 The kind of schools they went to
 How they would describe their family’s financial and social status
 How they were similar or different from their peers at school
Following this informal survey, the group discussion examined the common
themes that emerged from the surveys. (perhaps participants grew up in similar
neighborhoods, went to similar schools etc.). In addition, we examine the
differences that among the group. The module ended with a discussion on how
we as a group were positioned within society, on the fact that south Asians are
not monolithic but have different privileges depending on gender, class etc., and
finally on the myth of south Asians as a model minority.
Module 4: Negotiating Power/Privilege
Objective
This was the concluding exercise of the workshop. The objective was to explore
different means of negotiating with oppression.
Exercise/tools
Image theater game: divide into four groups. Each group creates an image of
oppression (may or may not be based on the scenarios). The next step is to do a
“parade of images”, where each group demonstrates their image. From all the
images, the group votes for one representative image that resonates best with
everyone.
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While the group is preparing their image, the other participants are prepared on
different interventions, such as leaflet campaign, protest, direct intervention,
street theater, etc. Once the group presents its image of oppression, the other
participants are free to step into the image, one by one, and try and alleviate the
oppression by changing the image. The idea is to discuss each intervention and
its potential influence. We try at least 3-4 interventions until a majority of the
group is agreed on the potential success of the intervention.
Narrative:
Following the image theater exercise, we had a discussion on the use of Image
Theater and other mediums as intervention within community activism. Briefly
presented how its founder, Augusto Boal used such techniques with community
groups in Brazil, Europe to deal with various issues such as racism, gender
inequality etc.
39
Political Economy Workshop (2000)
Workshop Objective:
The workshop served as a general introduction to contemporary capitalism.
Terms and concepts were deconstructed. The aim was to arrive at a shared
understanding of capitalism, and principally to understand that we participate in
making and sustaining it. This understanding allows us to suggest that we can
also critically intervene in the political economy.
Overall Notes:
The workshop was approached with the aim of leaving participants with the main
idea that people actively participate in the construction of the political economy.
The exercises were structured to arrive and explore this basic theme.
Module 1
Module Objective:
Deconstructing concepts. This part of the workshop entailed taking word
associations of the economy such as meritocracy, profit, selfishness etc. ,and
deconstructing them. The point is not to negate these concepts, but to suggest a
more complex view of these ideas, whereby both, for instance, selfishness and
unselfishness exist.
Module Plan:
Group participation of the word associations to the economy followed by a
discussion of the concepts and deconstructing them.
Exercises:
The workshop was started by playing the machine game where everyone stands
in a circle and one participant enters the middle doing a repetitive sound and
movement impersonating a machine part. Others join the machine, guessing
what the machine is, and adding their portion of the machine. This continues until
everyone has become part of the machine. This is followed by a discussion of
guessing what the machine was, and explaining what your individual part was in
it. Following the machine game, the participants are divided into groups where
each group writes the words associated with the economy on large charts, which
leads into the discussion.
Narrative:
40
Ended the module with the film ‘Island of Flowers’ to reiterate the point that
human agency is central to the economy.
Module 2
Module Objective:
This part of the workshop entailed building an understanding of the political
economy. Here our objective was to come to a common understanding of
particular concepts such as the difference between income and wealth, and
oppression and exploitation. The major concept we wanted to get across is that
class differences arise in the political economy as a consequence of the
difference in the ownership to the means of production.
Module Plan:
Get into groups and work discussions within the groups and then report back to
the full group for further discussion of concepts.
Exercises:
We used a made-up story to illustrate exploitation and oppression and handed
out a copy to each group. We asked the groups first to discuss the story and
then to embellish the story with more detail – fill in with issues of race, sexuality,
gender, drawing from the previous workshops. Lastly the groups were to work
on intervention strategies to resist the oppression and exploitation.
Narrative:
Towards the end of the workshop as part of the larger group discussion, we
talked about exploitation and oppression as relational and worldwide. Here we
talked about globalization and the role of the large organizations such as the
World Bank, MAI, NAFTA, GATT etc.
Module 3
Module Objective:
To leave the workshop with concrete points where people can intervene. If we
suggest that we are agents in the political economy, then where can we
intervene to make change?
Module Plan:
This was done through large group discussions and suggestions from the
participants about intervention strategies. Suggest different levels of intervention.
41
Exercises:
Large group discussion.
Concluding Narrative
The workshop worked well to deconstruct issues such as meritocracy and free
trade. It provided a way to enter into the discussion of participation in the
economy, and that the economy is made – it doesn’t just exist. The discussion
on globalization is complicated because of all the different international agencies
involved and how they work in conjunction with each other. The game worked
well to illustrate how race and gender oppression is used in the exploitation by
capitalism.
42
Political Economy Workshop (2001)
Workshop Objective:
We wanted explore how individuals participate and constitute the economy, to
understand more fully the concept of labor. The workshop looks at how capitalist
globalization exploits existing race/class/gender oppressions.
Overall Notes:
The point is to illustrate our participation and implication in the capitalist economy
as well as to deconstruct justifications/myths that sustain capitalism.
Module 1:
Objective:
The economy is not something that is ‘out there’, but is made up of actors who
participate with specific aims and specific things to offer. The economy is
relational, that is every level is supported and made possible/ subsidized by the
labor of others.
Module Plan:
Using theatre of the oppressed techniques as well as small group brainstorming
exercise to identify different segments of the economy and how they
interconnect.
Exercise 1:
Machine Game. Participants stand in a circle; the first person enters the circle
assuming a repetitive sound and motion of a machine/part of machine.
Subsequently other participants join one by one, connecting their own sound and
motion to some part of the machine. The game shows us that different elements
can be incorporated without full awareness of the connections. We make (often
mistaken) assumptions about what other participant’s roles are and fit our selves
in accordingly. The games ends with discussing what each participant thought
their part was in the machine ultimately to the first person who began the game
and what machine or part of machine s/he was imitating. (15-20 minutes)
Exercise 2:
Personal exercise designed for folks to reflect on their place in the economy.
Divide participants into groups of 6 persons and have them answer the questions
below after which they share their reflections with each other. (30 minutes)
43
The questions were open ended and participants were asked to contextualize
and specify in any way.







In what ways do you participate in the economy?
What power do you directly have?
What power do you indirectly have?
Who has power over you?
Where do you feel you don’t have power?
What issues / causes / policies do you align yourself with?
What issues / causes / policies do you not align yourself with?
Groups had 15 minutes to answer.
In larger groups discussion, we ask participants to respond and share anything
that came up for them in the small groups with the larger group. We initiated the
discussion with some of the following questions:



What other forms of labor could we identify and connect with in our small
groups? What additional forms can we think of?
Do we think that all or most human beings are intrinsically selfish and will
therefore do things that primarily benefit them? (Our attempt here is to
move from personal reflections to contextualzing ourselves within the
larger economy.)
Are there multiple economies? Does globalization mean there is now one
economy? Are there people who fall outside direct participation in the
economy? Who directly benefits from the economy and who does not?
How? Why?
Here we provoke them to think about who constitutes the service industry. Is it
only those folks that are part of the wage labor? what about home makers? who
else can also be considered part of the service industry? What about the illegal
sector and the blackmarket ? How do sex workers fit into the economy?
Narrative:
This part of the workshop can feel somewhat leading to participants because we
push them towards issues we want to address e.g. What does labor mean? etc.
It allows for talking about the economy in personal rather than an abstract way.
Here we want participants to get to questions of how particular kinds of labor
(doctors, engineers, homemakers, nurses, janitors) are given value. Further,
how do factors of gender and race impact the socially assigned value of labor?
Module 2
Objective:
44
The previous section dealt primarily with identifying different segments of the
economy and this section deals with how the different parts work together.
Module Plan:
Here we use film and small group exercise to build on the complexity of the
economy. In our effort to build back a complex idea of the economy we also
consider how oppression based on gender, sexuality, race, and immigration
function in conjunction with economic exploitation.
Exercise 1:
Show the ‘Island of Flowers’ film (dir: Jose Furtado, Brazil) (20 minutes) followed
by brief discussion.
Exercise 2:
This exercise involves dividing participants into groups based on the following
scenario. The scenario outlines the role of international institutions, national
governments, different labor pools, and labor unions in constructing global
political economy.
Scenario
Mexico is going through a major economic crisis and is in desperate need of
funding and aid. It appeals to the World Bank and the IMF for loans, however, as
a result of the SAPs attached to the loans, the Mexican government was forced
to devalue the Peso in 1994 and 1996. 2.3 million Mexicans lost their jobs.
Wages dropped between 40 – 50% while the cost of living climbed 80 %. 20,000
small and medium businesses went bust.
‘Heinous T-Shirts Inc’ has run into trouble because the bleaches and dyes they
use are being investigated by the EPA due to complaints of pollution of a nearby
river. Also, several workers are threatening to sue for respiratory damages
caused by fiber inhalation which may lead to costly law suits, resulting in
decreased profits and share price. Consequently, Heinous T-Shirts is considering
relocating it’s manufacturing to Border Town, Mexico from its current location in
Texas.
Drawing on the motivations of the groups you all came up with before, how would
the following groups respond to (entice or prevent) Heinous T-Shirts Inc’s
relocation? How would your group justify these responses to your constituency?

Employees in Heinous T-Shirts Inc in Texas. (Managers are mostly white
men, but still stand to lose jobs. Stitching is done by mostly women, both
45





documented and undocumented Mexican immigrants, as well as white
women).
Workers of Border Town, Mexico (High inflation following NAFTA means
that cost of living is higher and that the government cuts subsidies for it
citizens on basic foodstuff. Labor organizers have been encouraging you
to demand fair wages, if the factory decides to relocate there.)
National Government of Mexico (Free Trade Agreements & IMF provisions
stipulate that you must open your market to & encourage foreign
investors, so that you can pay back your $150 million debt in hard
currency)
Local Government in Texas (Heinous T-Shirts is largest tax revenue
generator in the city, and their CEO is large campaign contributor to
current mayor)
Labor organizers in Mexico (You’ve met with resistance from workers
because many of them are going hungry and are scared to demand fair
wages. Many of the workers in the area became landless peasant
following the privatization of communal lands. No longer self-sufficient in
food production, workers must earn currency to buy basic foods imported
from the US. Workers also were recently intimidated by government
armed forces.)
Labor Organizers in the US (Union is concerned with workers in Texas
losing their jobs. There has been strong anti-immigrant sentiment not only
in your state, but also amongst the white workers, resulting in difficulties in
your organizing efforts.)
Each group presents their argument while other groups responded with
comments and challenges based on the interests of the group they represented.
We ended the exercise by drawing attention to the following issues:
Globalization – what it means – bringing down wages and conditions to the
lowest possible level to increase profits/bottom lines. Environmental degradation
results. Tax incentives benefit the rich at the expense of the poor.
Exploitation and oppression – using the system of patriarchy, female labor is
exploited in a particular way. Governments lose control over their economies
and their ability to provide social services for their citizens.
Border Control/Limiting worker movement across borders -- allows wage
competition to favor corporations.
Narrative:
The Island of flowers film is a wonderful example of the workings of the economy
but does not necessarily produce extensive discussion. The scenario works well
to make the connections and draw out the complexity of the exploitation and
oppression.
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Module 3
Objective:
Deconstruct some of the myths about the economy and to provide talking points.
Module Plan:
Talk about some of the myths that are associated with the economy and lead to a
discussion about why these myths persist, what they justify, and how can they be
challenged.
Myth1. Bill Gates’ wealth is justified because Windows was his innovation/ skill/
idea.
Response: Windows was not his innovation. Even if it was, the success of
Windows cannot be attributed to Gates alone since thousands of people work to
make Windows a monopoly. But while they participate in the production of
millions of dollars, they are excluded from receiving a commensurate share of the
profit generated. The following is from the website:
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/catalog/index.shtml
Myth 2. But didn't Bill Gates invent DOS/Windows/the Internet?
Response: No. Bill Gates ‘invented’ none of these things.
MSDOS – was bought from a small software company for $50,000 and originally
called QDOS Windows. Windows95 - stolen from later versions of Mac
Operating System. WindowsNT - Windows grafted onto Digital Equipment
Corp.'s VMS (an early challenger to UNIX that ran on refrigerators); Microsoft
hired away almost the entire VMS team from DEC. Word - stolen from
WordPerfect and AmiPro. Excel - MS bought up a small company that produced
a spreadsheet which eventually became Excel.
The following site has a list of all the small companies purchased by Microsoft:
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/catalog/yrcatalog.shtml
Myth 3. Doctors deserve to earn more money than janitors because of their skills
and how long it takes to acquire them.
The values that are attributed to different jobs are set somewhat arbitrarily, not
related to the time/effort expended to acquire a skill. Otherwise, a doctor’s wages
would be the same in Western Europe or Canada as it is in the US. And if the
value is assigned due to importance placed in the US (more than other places?)
on healthcare, why is nurses’ labor not valued at the same level? Even given the
increased legal liability that doctors assume in the US, it’s still disproportionate.
47
It’s just that over time these wages are assumed to be normal, and nobody
questions them.
The following web site has more information
http://www.zmag.org/Instructionals/Economics/id142_m.htm
But are doctors capitalists?
Well, they might own some capital, but that would be a coincidence, not essential
to their being a lawyer, doctor, or engineer.
If not capitalists, are they workers?
Well, they do sell their labor power - but they have much more in common with
this other type of employee, the manager. They have considerable control over
their own circumstances and they have control over and help define the
circumstances of other workers, as well. They write laws, they do engineering,
they design the conditions of other people's work and lives. They have a
monopoly on certain kinds of knowledge and skill and that is where their
bargaining power comes from, which is why they have so much more income.
They're therefore in this different group.
Myth 4. Socialism failed so capitalism is the best.
Socialism never happened. The world functioned as capitalist with socialist
enclaves that could never be socialist if they had to trade and survive in a world
that worked on very different set of rules. The following also could aid in
debunking the myth:
From a Noam Chomsky speech 6/16/94 at Woods Hole, MA:
"One major issue now which has devastated a good bit of the left and has
caused enormous triumphalism elsewhere is the alleged fact that there's been
this great battle between socialism and capitalism and capitalism won and
socialism lost. And the reason it lost is because the Soviet Union turned out to
be a failure, and that shows that socialism has lost ... [W]hy don't they say that
democracy failed? And the proof that democracy failed is, look what happened
to Eastern Europe. I mean after all, those countries called themselves
democratic, in fact they called themselves "people's democracies," real advanced
forms of democracy. So why don't we conclude that democracy failed? Well, I
haven't seen any article anywhere saying "look, democracy failed, let's forget
about democracy," and it's obvious why. The fact that they call themselves
democratic doesn't say that they were democratic -that's pretty obvious.
Well, in what sense did socialism fail? Certainly it's true that they called
themselves socialist, but they also called themselves democratic. Were they
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socialist? You can argue about what socialism is, but there are some ideas that
are at the core of it, like workers’ control over production and elimination of wage
labor and things like that. Did they have that? There wasn't even a thought. In
the pre-Bolshevik period, there were in fact socialist initiatives. They were
crushed instantly, within months they were crushed. In fact, just as whatever
moves there were towards democracy were instantly destroyed, whatever moves
there were towards socialism were equally instantly destroyed. The Bolshevik
takeover was sort of a coup, which was sort of a counterrevolution. We certainly
understand this easily enough with regard to the claim to democracy, how come
we don't understand it with regard to the claim to socialism?"
Concluding Narrative:
We concluded the workshop with specifically talking about protest and
responses. The following set of questions guided the discussion:



How do we think of our response to the political economy?
Is our response always in terms of consumer boycotts? How realistic and
effective are consumer boycotts?
How do we conceive of groups fighting for gender and sexual equality as
part of a larger struggle that is tied to anti-capitalist struggles?
49
Gender and Sexuality Workshop
Workshop Objective
To explore the continuum of power/ privilege-oppression through the analysis of
gender and sexuality at the personal, societal and organizational (structural)
levels.
Module 1
Module Objective
To create a safe space, familiarity within the room and participants as well as
with the facilitators of the workshop. Initiate an awareness of one’s body as self
perception as well as representations of one’s body.
Module Plan
Once the theatre exercises established some safe space, then have people sit in
a circle with their eyes closed and draw their bodies. These images were then
used to make an impromptu exhibition where participants tried to identify their
drawings and talk about representations of the body.
Exercises/ Tools
Theatre exercises drawn from Augusto Boal’s ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’
techniques. Warm-up exercise: walk around the room; familiarize yourself with
the space, keep eye contact with those you pass. This is a silent exercise.
Continue walking exercises, introduce variations – walk on your toes, heels,
backwards, etc. Drawing the body on a piece of paper with your eyes closed;
awareness of your body and ways to represent it.
Module 2
Module Objective
To explore gender and sexual constructions in society that arise out of sexism,
patriarchy and homophobia. This part of the workshop focused on understanding
of gender/sexuality drawn from personal experience and narratives. The purpose
was to explore the social construction of images that may pervade our thought
depending on our privilege or oppression.
Module Plan
50
The plan primarily was based on dividing into small group to facilitate small group
discussion and then generate large group discussion. Discussion were
motivated by doing word associations.
Exercises/ Tools
All the participants were divided into 6 groups with 5 people each. Each group
then were handed index cards with 5 words to which they were to do word
associations. Some of these words were lesbian, bisexual, transgender,
transsexual, queer, male, female, masculine, feminine, straight, matriarchy,
patriarchy, family, couple, marriage, violence.
Module 3
Module Objective
After having established personal narratives and definitions of gender/sexuality,
move then to talk about societal constructions of gender and sexuality.
Module Plan
Following the viewing of the piece of Grace Poore’s film ‘The Children we
Sacrifice’ lead discussion on what are societal dictates of gender and sexuality.
Exercises/ Tools
Used a clip from the film to initiate discussion.
Module 4
Module Objective
With personal narratives and societal constructions of gender sexuality to then
look at structural constructions of gender and sexuality.
Module Plan
The purpose was to explore the dynamics of gender and sexuality politics within
the mission statements of organizations, and how to intervene in the process
from within the organization. Also allowed a discussion on relationship of gendersexuality politics with class, race politics.
Exercises/ Tools
Participants were divided into five groups with six participants each. Each group
then was given the mission statement of an existing organization such as NOW,
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HIPS, ACTUP, etc. Participants were asked to think of how do these issues fit
into various aspects of the progressive movement (ex: labor organizations being
sensitive to gender issues; sexual liberation organization being sensitive to class
and race issues, etc.)

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

Is the organization’s politics informed by gender-sexuality politics?
What is their understanding of gender/sexuality politics?
Do they articulate the dynamics of power and privilege?
If you were a part of this organization, how would you push the
boundaries?
Module 5
Module Objective
To devise, talk, explore intervention strategies.
Module Plan
Use Augusto Boal’s ‘Image Theatre’ from the arsenal of theatre of the oppressed
followed by discussion in the whole group.
Exercises/ Tool
Divide the participants into five groups of six participants each.

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

Each group was asked to make images, i.e. sculptures that describe a
particular theme of oppression based on sexuality or gender.
Each group constructed their image and one image was chosen for the
intervention
The group is then asked to create an ideal image - the image of an ideal
situation in which an intervention was done, i.e. the oppression has been
dealt with.
Finally we discussed the oppression and the intervention.
Concluding Narrative
The overall objective of this workshop was to examine oppression through the
analysis of gender and sexuality. This was attempted through a series of
modules which focused first on personal constructions of gender and sexual
identities, then examined how sexism, patriarchy and homophobia within society
allows for the social construction of gender and sexual roles. Finally we
examined how we as activists could intervene both within organizational
structures that we inhabit and through those structures.
52
Immigration Workshop
Workshop Objectives:



To ask participants to place their own immigration history within a
historical and political context.
To educate about immigration in the US with specific facts about South
Asian immigration history,
To think through alternative visions for immigrant experience and political
participation in the US.
Overall Notes:
An important element of this workshop is the combination of people’s own
immigration histories with the narrative of Asian immigrant history in the US. This
strategy is used to educate participants about aspects of US history that affect
them directly but that they are presumably largely unaware of, and to illustrate
very clearly how making a personal connection with a historical narrative is an
important organizing tool.
Module 1: Family Migration Histories
Module Objectives:
To ask participants to write the history of their family’s migration to the US or
Canada.
Exercises / Tools:
Participants write down their family migration histories on large pieces of butcher
paper without their names on them. This has been a successful activity in past
years and brings out the diversity in reasons for coming here, paths taken to
arrive here and experiences of migration. The histories are taped on the walls
around the room, and participants spend time walking around and reading
everyone’s histories. The papers are hung out around the hall for
everyone to read for the rest of the week. Names on the papers are optional.
Suggested timings: 20 minutes for writing; 10 minutes for looking around and
reading. Transition: Immigration history of the US (See Extract 2 below) Current
state of immigration (see Extract 1).
Narrative / Content Definition:
Encourage participants to be creative for this exercise, i.e. to use colored
markers, draw pictures, tell stories, etc. This exercise is meant to get students to
tell their immigration history as it makes sense to them, and should try to
accommodate the complexities of each person’s experience.
53
Module 2: Immigration History Crash Course
Module Objectives:
To give an overview of Asian immigration history in North America.
Exercises / Tools:
Workshop coordinators run through a very brief history of immigration based
upon fact sheet (see Extract 6) and overall immigration history of the US. The
history of immigration in the U.S. is given with a focus on South Asian
Immigration to U.S. and Canada.
Narrative / Content Definition:
This workshop is meant to ‘fill in the gaps’ of mainstream education when it
comes to immigration history. The ‘lecture’ on immigration history should include
some brief analysis of why this isn’t taught in most schools, and should
eventually connect with most people’s individual immigration histories. The
actual fact sheet used should reflect the local context, and is modified each year
to incorporate new historical work on South Asian immigration history.
Module 3: Compare and Contrast Different Histories
Module Objectives:
To compare immigration histories and differentials in privilege of various
communities based on gender, race, class, and geographic origin. The purpose
of this section is to understand "the immigrant experience”, while appreciating its
diversity based on national origin, class, gender and sexuality.
Exercises / Tools:
Using privilege within immigration, run through large themes within immigration.
(Extract 4)
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
Natives and Immigrants: U.S., India, Fiji, Gulf, Uganda, Palestine
National Origin (Elian Gonzalez vs. Senthan)
Class – Professionals versus working class
Gender
Sexuality
Race
Positioning of immigrants (Indians as buffer class)
54
Use of media can be incorporated around a larger group discussion (potential
film clips from: Mississippi Masala, Taxiwala, Anand Patwardhan’s A Time to
Rise.
Narrative / Content Definition:
Try to differentiate different experiences of immigration in this analysis – be clear
about how different social and national categories impact the ways in which
different communities access power and privilege.
Module 4: Break and Perceptions of Immigration
Module Objectives:
To give participants a break and to note down ideas for the rest of the module.
Exercises / Tools:
During this 15-minute break, participants will be asked to note down one or two
perceptions of immigration which they have heard/seen/read that they either
agree with/disagree with. They need not put their names on the pieces of paper
so this will be anonymous as much as possible. Suggested timings: 15 minutes
Narrative / Content Definition:
Participants are being asked to note down perceptions of any kind, ranging from
perceptions of immigration statistics (e.g. how many immigrants are on welfare)
to what role they feel Angel Island played, if any, in Chinese immigrant history.
Module 4 (continued): Group Discussion of Perceptions of Immigration
Module Objectives:
To discuss perceptions as a group, to identify facts and to dispel myths of
immigration.
Exercises / Tools:
Participants are read out the group perceptions that participants gave in. The
coordinators will solicit responses to the conceptions and misconceptions on the
flip chart, and supplement them wherever necessary. (Extract 5)
Narrative / Content Definition:
The group discusses myths and facts about immigration that they themselves
have generated. This is an opportunity to clarify misconceptions in a respectful
55
and open way within the group, to make sure everyone is on the same page with
their information, and to ascertain how much information participants have about
immigration.
Module 5: Group Discussion of Alternatives/Visions for the Future
Module Objectives:
To generate ideas for alternatives to current North American/US immigration
system.
Exercises / Tools:
Brainstorm and discuss alternatives to current immigration system. Write down
participant’s ideas on butcher paper as discussion proceeds.
Narrative / Content Definition:
This module is designed to get people thinking about different ways to approach
issue of immigration in the US, including ways to counter or deal with prevailing
myths about immigration/scarcity of resources.
Concluding Narrative:
This workshop was designed to give a crash course on immigration history in the
US and to place participants own histories of immigration within a larger historical
context. The workshop is also designed to illustrate the ways in which personal
experiences can be politicized. This workshop is best place in the middle of the
curriculum, and works best with group members that have already established at
least a minimal level of comfort and trust with each other.
Extract 1: Current Sate of Immigration: Some Basic Facts
A new National Academy of Sciences report, funded by Congress's U.S.
Commission on Immigration Reform, claims that immigrants add up to $10 billion
to the nation's economy every year. While the report was generally supportive of
immigration, flags were raised in some areas. About 800,000 immigrants enter
legally each year, and about 200,000 to 300,000 enter illegally and stay here.
Wages for native workers without high school diplomas may have fallen 5
percent over the last 15 years because of competition from immigrants -- which
would amount to 44 percent of the overall wage decline for this group. While new
immigrant families tend to receive more in government funded services during
their early years here; they pay more in taxes and depend less on government
services the longer they stay. The average immigrant pays about $80,000 more
in taxes over a lifetime than he or she consumes in benefits -- with the taxes by
56
and large going to the federal government and the benefits being paid by state
and local governments. State and local services cost $25,000 more than the
average immigrant pays in state and local taxes over a lifetime, while federal
taxes paid exceed federal services provided by $105,000. If current trends
continue, the U.S. population will grow to 387 million by 2050. That is 124 million
than the population today. Immigration will contribute to two-thirds of this growth.
Source: Perspective, "Immigration's Impact," Investor's Business Daily, June 10,
1997.
Extract 2: Notes On Immigration History


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

First major in-migration from 1840s to 1880s, largely northern and western
Europe and Scandinavia following revolutions and famine. Peaked at 5
million in the 1880s.
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) Suspends immigration of Chinese workers
for 10 years. Bars Chinese naturalization. Allows Chinese elite?
Second wave peaked in 1900 - 1910 (9 million in that decade). Southern
and central Europe were the main sources; Italians, Poles, Eastern
European Jews. This wave was cut off in the 1920s.
Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1924. First numerical limits on
immigration. National origins quota in proportion to census of 1890,
deliberately favoring northern and Western Europe.
Immigration and Nationality Act Amendment 1965. Repeals national
origins quotas. 7 category preference system based on family unification
and skills. Results of civil rights movement. Resulted in a striking shift in
the national origins of immigrants, away from Europe towards Asia and
Central/South America. In 1960, 7 of the top 10 countries were European;
in 1990, 6 of the top 10 were Asian, and only Russia was European.
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Amnesty for over 3 million
illegal immigrants. Successive acts allowed refugees on a non-ideological
basis and established employer sanctions for hiring 'illegals'. 17 million
foreign born - 80% of foreign born are legal immigrants; only 6%
humanitarian admissions, and about 1.1 million arrive each year. About 4
million undocumented immigrants. Estimate 200K increase each year.
Extract 3: Immigrant Diversity
Education. Immigrants are concentrated at the extremes of the educational
spectrum in comparison with natives. They are much more likely than natives to
have very low educational attainment. But they are also more likely than natives
to have advanced degrees. In 1990, 26 percent of the foreign-born over age 25
had less than nine years of education compared to only 9 percent of the native
population. But 20 percent of both natives and immigrants have a college degree
and recent immigrants (24 percent) are more likely than natives to have a college
degree.
57
Country of origin makes a difference in educational attainment. At the low end of
the range, 40 percent of immigrants from Latin America have less than nine
years of education compared with 20 percent of European and Canadian and 15
percent of Asian immigrants. At the high end, 15 percent of Asian immigrants
have advanced degrees versus 9 percent for European immigrants, 4 percent for
Latin American immigrants, and 7 percent for natives. The educational
distribution of all recent immigrants is shaped like an hourglass. Most immigrants
enter with either a college degree or less than a ninth grade education. The
educational attainment of natives, in contrast, is diamond shaped, concentrated
in the middle of the educational spectrum. Thus, there are higher proportions of
immigrants than natives at the bottom of the education range. While the overall
education level of recent immigrants is rising, the average education level of
natives is rising faster, widening the gap between natives and recent immigrants.
This gap, however, is almost entirely attributable to undocumented immigrants
and refugees, not legal immigrants.
Earnings. Not surprisingly, given the larger number of recent arrivals and their
lower average education and occupation levels at time of entry immigrants earn
less than natives on average. But the average conceals a wide range of
immigrant incomes. About 66 percent of immigrants in the labor force had wage
and salary incomes of less than $20,000 in 1989, compared with 57 percent of
natives. Natives are more likely to fall in the middle-income categories, earning
from $20,000 to $70,000. About the same proportions of immigrants and natives
earn $70,000 or more. Notwithstanding these individual earning differences,
households headed by immigrants have virtually the same average income
($37,200) as native-headed households ($37,300), because immigrant-headed
households are larger and have more earners.22
Length of time in the United States and immigrant status have dramatic effects
on the incomes of immigrant households. For households headed by immigrants
entering the U.S. before 1980, household income averages about $40,900 a
year-almost 10 percent greater than native households. But income for
households headed by immigrants who entered in the 1980s averages only
$31,100. Much of this income difference between immigrants and natives
appears to be attributable to the legal status of recent immigrant cohorts.
Households headed by immigrants who entered during the 1980s from the major
source countries for illegal immigration have average incomes of $23,900, 36
percent less than natives (Figure 13); even those who entered before 1980 fall
23 percent below natives. But recent immigrants from the major source countries
for legal immigration have incomes falling only slightly below those of natives
($34,800). Those entering before 1980 have incomes 16 percent above those of
natives ($43,200). The entrants from refugee countries tend to fall between the
other two groups. (Here again, average household incomes of those from
refugee countries who entered before 1980 exceed those of natives).
58
Poverty Status: Rise in Poverty for Recent Immigrants. Notwithstanding the high
average incomes of legal immigrants, one of the most striking trends over the
past decade has been the increase in immigrant poverty. Household poverty
increased for all groups between 1980 and 1990, but the increase was much
greater for immigrant households than for native households. The number of
native households in poverty grew by 11 percent while the number of poor
immigrant households grew by 42 percent. And, a larger share of immigrant
households than native households is in poverty-16.7 percent versus 12.3
percent (Figure 14). Again, this difference is attributable largely to recent
immigrants. The poverty rate of immigrant households that entered before 1980
is less than one percentage point higher than those of natives.
Concentrated poverty (i.e., residence within census tracts where 40 percent or
more of the population is below poverty) is often used as a measure of severe
need. The number of immigrants in concentrated poverty has grown roughly
twice as fast as the number of natives during the 1980s. The percentage of the
population in concentrated poverty areas that is foreign-born rose from 7.2
percent in 1980 to 10.1 percent in 1990.
Overall Socioeconomic Attainment. In the aggregate, immigrants are less well off
than natives on virtually all measures of socioeconomic status. However, data for
immigrants who have been in the country for at least 10 years suggest that over
time immigrants increasingly resemble natives. Furthermore, the recent
immigrant group contains a substantial fraction of illegal immigrants, formerly
illegal immigrants, and refugees-all groups with low average socioeconomic
attainment. Immigrants admitted legally through employment and family
preferences resemble natives much more than the "average" recent immigrant (a
composite of legal and illegal recent immigrants) recorded in census data. And
those legal immigrants who have been here since before 1980 are better off than
natives on a variety of measures.
Extract 4
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


Immigrant / Native: Solicit examples of different nations and their politics
of immigrant and native; India, US, Israel, Gulf States, Fiji, etc.
Deconstruct the categories of immigrant and native... What do immigrants
share? What makes their experiences diverse?
Common Experience: All immigrants face stereotypes, prejudice,
humiliation, stories of assimilation (funny or sad), job discrimination, firstsecond generation conflict, and so on. We need to work on putting faces
and anecdotes behind the issues.
Diversity of Experience: We also need to talk about differences amongst
groups of immigrants. This is a good place to intersect with other
workshops -- Power & Privilege, Class, Gender/Sexuality.
National Origin-- Contrast the stories of Elian Gonzalez with Senthan (see
Story below) and ask why is it that one kidnapped child from Cuba could
59
seriously apply for citizenship, while another fleeing for his life from Sri
Lanka would have no such chance? Also lets compare the Cubans with
the Haitians, or the Jews from Central Europe/Russia with Palestinians or
Bosnians....What makes one group privileged versus another? The point
we could stress here is that of immigration as an extension of US foreign
policy -- in this case anti-communism, capitalist interests and racism.
Senthan Mahendrarajah
The Elian Gonzalez case has brought to light many cases involving
unaccompanied juveniles, including the following.
Senthan Mahendrarajah, an 11 year-old native of Sri Lanka, was stopped by the
INS last June when he entered the US without a visa. An aunt and uncle who live
in Columbus, Ohio posted his bond, and he went to live with them. Along with
fighting deportation efforts, the aunt and uncle also sued to gain custody of
Senthan. Quite unlike the Gonzalez family, Senthan's family is united in their
desire that he remain here, and with a court ruling Wednesday awarding
permanent custody to the aunt and uncle they may be one step closer to that
goal.
According to the aunt and uncle, Senthan will likely be killed in Sri Lanka if forced
to return there. Senthan and his family is a member of the Tamil ethnic minority
in Sri Lanka, which is controlled by the Singhalese majority. Senthan was
imprisoned in Sri Lanka on suspicion of being a member of a Tamil group. They
say he was beaten in jail and told that if he did not change sides he would be
killed. After learning that her son was in the US, his mother sent a letter asking
that he be allowed to remain here.
CLASS--Contrast the stories of a young Desi professional couple with that of
their immigrant child care giver. We can talk about "the immigrant experience" of
jobs and pay, which is vastly different based on whether you've had access to
education and cultural resources (English, for example). The basic point here is
that the educational level and income of immigrants is hourglass shaped (i.e.,
concentrated around the extremes) rather than "diamond shaped" as with
natives. This argues for looking at these two extreme groups separately. At the
high end of scale we have European and "elite" Asian immigrants -professionals, technicians and skilled workers. At the lower end of the scale we
have largely Mexican and Central/South American workers. The relative level of
exploitation (as measured by how their wages compare to native born workers
with the same skill level) is also different.
GENDER: Contrast the experiences of an immigrant man who goes to India with
a 3-way ticket, and his bride coming back. Would be good to get broader stats on
education, female headed immigrant households, income, income discrimination
and the like.
60
SEXUALITY: Any one marrying an American citizen gets a green card. Same sex
couples can't marry. In as much as marriage and the family are heterosexist
institutions, so is immigration fundamentally structured by heterosexist
assumptions? Also need to address HIV/Aids and immigration; repression based
on sexuality as a human rights violation.
Extract 5: Debates and Resources to counter myths, stereotypes, and
misinformation
Myth 1: Racist Myths
"Quality of the immigrants is declining"
"The browning of America"
"America will become a house divided"
Current immigrants are more educated on the whole than in the past.
Future projections of populations are based on racist and static assumptions, i.e.,
the Black/White/Hispanic identities will continue to exist; and inter-marriage
resulting in fluid identities ("multi-racial") will not occur.
Racial and Ethnic composition impact of Intermarriage In projecting the future,
this static approach does not take into account intermarriage and the
concomitant increase in persons with ancestors of more than one racial or ethnic
group. New methods developed by the Urban Institute show how intermarriage
and changes in self-definition can affect the future size of racial-ethnic groups
(Edmonston and Passel 1993). The group likely to be most affected by these
trends is the Hispanic population, which has the highest rate of marrying outside
their own group. If the offspring of Hispanic/non-Hispanic unions identify
themselves to the census as non-Hispanic, the Hispanic population could be as
small as 51 million in 2040 (14 percent of the population); if all identify
themselves as Hispanic, this population could grow to 78 million (or 22 percent).
For Asians, alternative assumptions regarding self-identification yield projections
varying from 30 million (8 percent of the population) to 39 million for 2040 (or 11
percent).
White people will be in a minority by 2040. Standard population projections
assume that members of each racial or ethnic group belong to only one group
and have children of that group. This static approach is employed in virtually all
population projections. According to this scenario, minority populations in the
United States will continue to grow over the next 50 years, with the Hispanic and
Asian populations continuing their particularly rapid growth of the last several
decades. At current levels of immigration, the Hispanic population will exceed the
African American population in about 15 years, becoming the largest minority
population in the United States in that 15-year period (Figure 17). By 2040, the
61
Hispanic population will reach 64 million, or 18 percent of the population; the
Asian population will reach 35 million, or 10 percent.
Myth 2: Jobs
"Immigrants take our jobs away"
"Immigrants depress wages"
Different effects on different native workers. Not true at the upper end of the
scale, but true at the bottom end. Point to how immigration policy is
systematically designed to create a group of second-class workers who don't
have access to the same rights and benefits as native workers. Threats of
deportation, anti-union campaigns and the long reluctance (now changing) of the
American labor movement to address immigrants. Amnesty program supported
by the AFL-CIO
Immigration has, on balance, contributed somewhat to the declining fortunes of
low-skilled workers, according to the weight of the evidence (Table B-3), although
the scale of the estimated effects varies from study to study. The largest
estimates in the literature are not the effects of immigration alone, but of a
combination of immigration and trade (Borjas, Katz, and Freeman 1991).
Immigration may contribute to growth in wage inequality. For example, the
President's Council of Economic Advisers recently reported that "immigration has
increased the relative supply of less educated labor and appears to have
contributed to the increasing inequality of income, but the effect has been small"
(Economic Report of the President 1994). The Council's report concludes that "it
seems unlikely that immigration could explain more than a few percent of the
total change" in the expanding college-high school wage gap. Note, however,
that the studies in Table B-3 do not differentiate immigrants according to legal
status.
Native African Americans in areas of high immigration fared better than native
African Americans in low immigration areas in terms of wage and employment
growth. In high-immigration areas, however, native African American wages do
not keep pace with the rising wage trends that immigration brings for Anglos and
Hispanics (Enchautegui 1993). Selected ethnographic studies find that
employers prefer immigrants to native black workers, particularly in low-skilled
jobs (Kirschenman and Neckerman 1991). They also find that employers rely on
informal networks when looking for new hires in immigrant-dominated sectors of
the economy. Use of immigrant networks reduces the employer's recruitment
costs at the same time that it effectively excludes African Americans and other
non-immigrants from the hiring process (Waldinger 1993).
Myth 3: Social Services
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"Immigrants are a drain on the economy"
"Our country is a welfare magnet"
In the US, immigrants cannot/do not go on welfare (exceptions: refugees, AFDC)
In many studies, low wage and illegal immigrants are seen as a drain because
they pay little taxes. Why? Because their incomes are low. Why? Because what
they contribute shows up as someone else's profits rather than as their wages.
It is fundamentally wrong to evaluate people as "human capital", by adding their
monetary contributions to society (in terms of taxes or whatever) and subtracting
their consumption. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his
need."
Myth 4: Exploitation
"Even if they are treated badly here, it’s better than what they face in their
countries." "Why don’t they go back if they don’t like it here?"
"They vote with their feet when they come here"
"Their needs are much smaller than what we are used to."
Fundamentally racist and immoral.
Talk again about immigration policy systematically creating the conditions of
exploitation here -- it does not just "happen", nor is it "natural"
Imperialism and globalization create the conditions that displace tens of
thousands of workers in their countries, and remove social services.
Myth 5 "Immigrants Depress Wages"
Immigration has no discernible effect on wages overall, as a number of recent
studies agree (Table B-2). Wage growth and decline appear to be unrelated to
immigration, a finding that holds for both unskilled and skilled workers (Butcher
and Card 1991). And a study of state-level wage declines over a 13-year period
finds no evidence that immigration is a factor (Vroman and Worden 1992).
Indeed, wage growth is no slower and may be faster where immigration rates are
high than where they are low (Enchautegui 1993).
Economic Benefits: (Labor Notes, Nov 98) : The National Immigration Forum
calculates that undocumented immigrants pay about $7 billion in taxes annually,
subsidizing Social Security and unemployment insurance which they cannot
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collect. Contribute about $45,000 per year to the economy per capita. Almost all
undocumented workers receive wages near or below the minimum wage.
IMF World Bank and Globalization: Global Unemployment (Labor Notes, Nov 98)
150 million people unemployed around the world in 97-98, up from 138 million in
96-97.
Role Of Immigration Law In Creating Exploitative Conditions: (Labor Notes, Nov
98, "Immigration Law is bringing back Sweatshop Conditions") " ... the
enforcement of U.S immigration law has become a key weapon in the
proliferation of (sweatshop) conditions, undermining the ability of immigrant
workers to fight for better pay and treatment, and the effectiveness of unions
which try to help them. The slide backwards got a big push with the passage of
the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which enacted sanctions
against employers who hired undocumented workers. ...The 1986 law has a
strong economic impact--decreasing the wages of undocumented labor and
increasing profit rates in industries dependent on it.
Example 1: Teamsters Union and United Farm Workers organizing drive in
Washington state's apple industry a Stemilt Fruit Co. told workers that union
support would bring on raids. "...with a union, the INS is going to be around.."
This defeated the Teamsters' representation election. The NLRB issued a
bargaining order because of Stemilt's illegal actions.
Example 2: 1990 Shine Building Maintenance in Silicon Valley was facing an
organizing drive by its immigrant janitors. The company told its workers that they
had to provide new documentation verifying their legal status. When workers
could not produce any, they were terminated. ... way to eliminate a pro-union
workforce without violating NLRB prohibitions against terminations for union
activity.
Example 3: The INS has great latitude in the selection of enforcement targets. In
Georgia, the agency began raids in the onion fields outside Vidalia. After growers
protested that the raids were interfering with their operations, the local INS
district director agreed to suspend action until the onion crop had been
harvested.
What is the current status of DoL/INS agreements? AFL-CIOs new policy wants
employer sanctions replaced with a system of "strong penalties against
employers who abuse workers' immigration status to suppress rights and labor
protections."
Extract 6
History of Indians in the USA
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The Early Days:
The earliest recorded Indian in the USA was an Indian from Madras, who visited
Massachusetts in 1790. A number of Indians were brought to the USA by
seafaring Captains to serve in their households as servants. Records of this
period contain references to bright turbaned Indians participating in Fourth of July
parades. In the early and mid-1800's a number of scholars became interested in
Indian culture, history and philosophy. They formed associations to discuss their
interest in India. This is how the terms Boston Brahmin and Pundit came to be
used in American literature.
The Middle Years: "The Trouble Begins"
A number of Indians immigrated into Northwest USA and Canada. Most of them
were from Punjab and were Sikhs. They worked in the lumberyards. A large
number of them worked in laying the railroads in the western states of the USA
as well. The main reason for their being in America was to save money and send
it home to their families. Most of them had to relinquish their farmlands to the
British landlords in Punjab, because they couldn't afford to pay the taxes imposed
on them by the British rulers. Droughts had destroyed their crops, but they were
still expected to pay taxes to the British. If they didn't, their lands were
confiscated. For most of these young men their only escape was as migrant
laborers, because the British had blocked all attempts at gainful employment in
India. The lumber mill owners liked the migrant Indian workers because they
worked long hours for lower wages (about half) than the European workers did.
The workers earned more than they could in India, so they worked hard and
saved money. The US consular representative in India, discouraged Indian
workers from going to the US. Indians were denied permission to immigrate and
pressure was applied to the British to curb the flow. Mormon evangelists were
discouraged from taking Indians back to the USA. The consul said to one of them
that “the Indian is not fit for the American West.”
In the meantime, the number of migrant European workers was growing in the
Northwest. The migrant Indian workers were seen as not really American and a
movement was started to ban them from working in the lumberyards. This was
the beginning of the Asian Exclusion League (AEL). Consequently, a number of
Indian workers moved down to northern California and worked on the farms.
They were skilled farm workers because they came from the state of Punjab in
India, which is mainly an agrarian state.
A number of the Indians had saved enough money to buy some land. They were
sold land that was unfit for the white man's inhabitation. However, they were able
to become very successful farmers. The US government almost never allowed
Indian women to immigrate to the US because that would mean that Indians
could put down roots in the US by marrying and starting a family. The California
State government passed a law, which made it illegal for non-citizens or
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naturalized non-white citizens to own land. The Indians got around this by
organizing co-operatives, which ceded ownership to some Indian children born in
America. Some of the Indians entered into agreements with white persons who
were given a profit share for saying they owned the land. But a large number of
such relationships ended in the white partner claiming, at harvest time, that the
whole crop was theirs.
The AEL gained popularity in Canada and the northwest US. Their meetings
commonly featured songs such as White Canada. The lumberyards were forced
to lay off all Indian workers and were banned from hiring anymore. The living
conditions of the Indians deteriorated drastically. They were forced into slums. A
large number of these workers lived in Bellingham in Washington State. In
Bellingham, the AEL triggered a riot in which a huge mob of around 500 white
men attacked Indian dwellings and work places. While the police stood by and
did nothing, six Indians were injured and had to be hospitalized. 410 Indians
were held in the Bellingham Jail for Protective Custody. By the end of the day of
the Bellingham riot, all Indian workers and businessmen had been forced out of
Bellingham. The mayor of the city proudly announced in the railway station
(where the Indians were herded onto trains to northern California or Canada) that
Bellingham was free of Indians. This happened on September 5, 1907 and was
followed by similar incidents on October 2 at the Canadian-Washington State
border. A month later the Hindus were expelled from Everett, Washington. Three
years later the entire community (including the mayor, the Sheriff and the district
attorney) in Saint John, Oregon (near Portland) conspired in the forced expulsion
of all Indians.
The Modern Years:
A large number of Indians came from Hong Kong and other areas in Asia too.
Some Indians came as students to universities such as the University of
California at Berkeley. It was during this period that the British and the US
government started cooperating to limit Indian immigration. This policy was
tested when the British informed the US authorities that a ship called the
Komagatu Maru was headed to the US from Hong Kong with about 375 Indians.
When the Maru arrived at Angel Island (the port of entry that holds terrible
memories for Asian immigrants) the AEL had organized a huge mob to prevent
the off loading of any Indians. The persons on the ship were denied food and
water for days and were prevented from landing. Finally, in exchange for food
and water, they were turned away.
The Indian population in the US and Canada grew very slowly during this period.
It consisted mostly of students coming to study at universities. These students
organized themselves into a few associations. Some of them supported the
cause of Indian freedom from the British while some were loyalists to the British.
The British stationed a full time secret agent named Hopkinson to monitor their
66
activities and to cajole the US government into deporting the freedom seekers.
The deportees were usually prosecuted by the British in India.
Hopkinson developed an efficient network of spies and was very successful in
deporting a number of Indian leaders on the pretext that they were planning a
revolution in India. It was under these circumstances that the Ghadhar party was
formed in the US to support Indian freedom. They published newspapers for
distribution in India that openly called for a freedom struggle against the British.
An ongoing battle of wits raged between these Indians and the British-American
nexus. Hopkinson was assassinated in an American courtroom, when he was
testifying against an Indian (for deportation).
A number of these Indian freedom groups associated themselves with the
German government during the Second World War because the Germans
promised them help in gaining freedom from the British. Hopkinson exposed a
number of these links and a large number of these people were imprisoned in the
US. After the war, the first war collaborators to be tried and deported were these
Indians. Even the German Nazi collaborators in the US were tried after these
Indians. (In a way it seems like the war provided a nice excuse for the US
government to deport Indians.)
During this period a large number of Indians started to apply for naturalization. At
this point US law only allowed whites to become naturalized citizens. But most
judges couldn't decide how to classify Indians and a large number of them
granted Indians citizenship. A New Orleans judge wrote about how disconcerting
it was to see a dark white man - the Indian - before granting him citizenship. A
number of southern Europeans looked like Indians as well, so Indians benefited
from this similarity.
A number of Indians were also getting married in the US. A few of the farm
workers in California married Hispanic women. However, most of these
marriages ended in divorce because of the cultural and religious disparities. The
children that these couples had constituted a small Indian-Hispanic population
which was quickly integrated into the Hispanic community because the children
usually stayed with the mother after divorce. A few Indians married white women
as well.
At this point the movement to formalize the exclusion of Asians from America
was gaining momentum. The Chinese had already been excluded through the
Chinese exclusion act in the late 1800's. A senator from California mounted a
very popular campaign to exclude Indians. However there was a problem
because Indians were immigrating to the US, not just from the Indian mainland
but from other countries in Asia as well. But the US government was determined
to stop them. Congress passed the Immigration Regional Restriction Act in 1917
over the veto of President Woodrow Wilson. It basically drew a line around the
areas in Asia from which Indians and Filipinos were immigrating and banned
67
them. Of course there was a provision to allow Europeans born in this region to
immigrate.
The exclusionists had achieved most of their goals by now. Asian and Indian
immigration was virtually banned. However, this wasn't enough. A movement
was mounted to deny citizenship to the Indians in the US, take away the
citizenship from Indians who had already been granted citizenship and to apply
the Regional Exclusion Act retroactively to deport all Indians in the US. It worked
partially. A large number of Indians left. Many of them were denied citizenship,
with the Supreme Court upholding one such decision that was challenged. On
February 19, 1923, with Justice George Sutherland delivering the opinion, the
Supreme Court held that East Indians were not eligible for United States
citizenship because they could not be considered white or Caucasian. A few
Indians lost their citizenship. One interesting case was that of an Indian lawyer in
California who had married a white woman. Under the law, if a man lost his
citizenship, his wife automatically lost hers too. He challenged in court that if his
citizenship was revoked his wife would lose hers too and then she would have
nowhere to go because she was a white American. He retained his citizenship.
The 1920's were the period of the most immigration to the USA. Virtually all
immigrants came from Europe. A large number of Americans trace their ancestry
to these immigrants. Asians however, were banned from immigrating by law.
The New Age: The "Iron Curtain" Lifts:
Towards the end of Second World War, President Roosevelt started to lift
immigration restrictions on Asians. The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. The
Indian Regional Exclusion Act was however, stuck in the congressional
committee web. Roosevelt had to send his personal envoy to the hill to lift the
ban on Indians. However, Indian immigration didn't pick up until after the
immigration reform act was passed, making immigration a little less racist and a
little more equitable.
In 1965 the U.S. government passed the Immigration and Nationality Act, the
most important change of immigration policy since 1924. Certain people from
countries outside of Northern/Western Europe would be allowed to immigrate in
more significant numbers, in a time in which the Civil Rights movement drew
attention to the country’s racism while the U.S. was claiming to the world to be
the supreme democracy. In particular, the new immigration system was created
in a Cold War context in which the U.S. needed to import technically-skilled labor
to meet the demands of its urgently-expanding weapons, space, and healthcare
enterprises. India’s engineers, scientists, and doctors were the largest group to
come to the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s under the professional/technical
immigration category.
68
The momentum gained during this time has led to the continuing increase in
Indian immigration through the 1980s and the 1990s. An Indian man was elected
to congress for two consecutive terms (from California) in the 1960s.
Congressman Saund's eligibility to run for congress was challenged in court
because he hadn't been an American citizen long enough. However, the
California Fourth District Court of Appeals ruled that by January 3, 1957, when
Saund would take office, he would have been a citizen for the requisite amount of
time. The Indian congressman's (Dulip Singh Saund) term ended with his death.
During elections in the past, there were a few Indians running that ran for
Congress (Peter Mathews, Neil Dhillon, Kumar Barve, Raj Uppulluri).
Most Indians currently immigrating to the US are either the family of US citizens
or professionals. The Indian community in the US is currently the most well
educated and prosperous. Close to 89% of Indians in the US have completed
high school, 65% have completed college and approximately 40% have
completed Masters or Doctorate degrees. Their per capita income is the highest
in the USA. Their educational and income levels are higher than other Asian
American groups, Whites, Hispanics and Blacks. (US Census figures).
Indians in the USA have ventured into almost every field and occupation, though
most of them are professionals such as doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs and
financial analysts. Indians have held positions such as the sheriff of a county in
Maryland, a member of the coaching staff for the San Francisco 49ers, etc. Zubin
Mehta, as a conductor of the New York Philharmonic, is one of the most
renowned Indians in the US. Ismael Merchant is a well established movie
producer. Freddie Mercury (alias Farhud Balsara) of the rock band Queen was
part Indian. Other established rock bands with Indians include Seven Mary
Three, No Doubt (Tony Kanal-bassist) and Sound Garden (Kim Thayil). The
founder of Gupta Technologies and the co-founder of Sun Microsystems are a
few among a number of other pioneering Indian entrepreneurs. Close to 3000
Indian Americans work in the New York MTA, contributing to the management of
the world’s largest transit system. Miss Teen USA for the year 1994 is Miss
Ratna Kancherla an Indian American from Georgia.
From the 1960s, Asians in the U.S. have been cultivated and culturally classified
as a ‘model minority,’ living proof that non-white people can achieve social
mobility and economic success without government reforms like welfare and
affirmative action or more radical structural changes. This is used to refute
claims that poverty and racism continue to be rooted in the system, and justifies
attacks on other non-whites and their political movements, particularly African
Americans, whose problems are explained as based on biology, culture, and/or
individual factors rather than structural ones. This myth hides the particularities
of immigration (selection of the educated) and specific racialization of different
groups, as well as the actual racism experienced by South Asian Americans. It
also hides the increased poverty and racism experienced by working-class South
69
Asians whose emigration from various countries (particularly Pakistan and
Bangladesh) expanded from the 1980s.
The ‘anti-terrorism’ climate stirred up after the 1995 Oklahoma City federalbuilding bombing brought more changes, especially in 1996 with the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the Personal Responsibility and
Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, and the Illegal Immigration Reform and
Immigration Responsibility Act, which significantly increased criminal repression
and poverty for immigrants. With the events of September 2001, the October
passage of the USA Patriot Act, and other changes since then from the INS, FBI,
Justice Department, and the newly-created Department of Homeland Security,
the ‘war on terrorism’ abroad has been paired with racial profiling and attacks on
civil liberties at home, with a new era of systematic detention, deportation, and
‘registration’ of immigrants, and a sharp increase in hate crimes and economic
attacks on South and West Asians. The year 2001 might be the most important
turning point since 1965 in the racialization of U.S. South Asians, whose ‘model
minority’ status has been complicated by their demonization and repression in
the post-Cold War era of the ‘war on terrorism.’
70
Religion Workshop
Workshop Objective
The objective of this workshop is to discuss the significance of religion to our
political reality. We hope to tease out different opinions about religion itself and
the role that it plays in political and social decisions. We then hope to take those
positions and challenge them with examples of the way religion is used towards
different political ends – both to oppress and to liberate.
Overall Notes
This workshop came out of a long discussion amongst the collective members in
which we discovered that there is a wide range of ideas about religion, its
oppressive and libratory potential and even its significance to politics. The
workshop is therefore designed to address as many of these different attitudes
as possible with the eventual goal of understanding the ways in which it has been
used in the past and present and the ways it could potentially be used by those
who feel compelled to do so. It is mostly a session to acknowledge that religion
has played an important part in the development of South Asia, the United States
and other regions. It is also a session about the ways we can navigate religious
terrain from our vantage points – avoiding it for those who are skeptical, using it
as a means of building solidarity for those who are less so, and using it as a
means of organizing for those who are so inclined.
Modules
Module 1
Objective
To warm up, get blood flowing and spark people’s thoughts about religion.
Exercises
Image theater - asked participants to count off and get in four groups. Each
group makes a tableau to represent the word "religion" (other options are the
words "secular", "fundamentalism") When all groups are done, each group
presents its tableau in succession. After all the tableaus are presented, the
groups discuss the images and what portions of religion each portrays.
Narrative
Facilitators should be sure to ask: Does the image seem libratory? oppressive?
What does each person in the tableau seem to represent? Does a particular
71
religion come to mind? Why? Assumptions about religion will probably come up
and questions about particular images that were shown. These should be
transitioned to the following discussion.
Module 2
Religion as Oppressive and Liberating Force.
Objective
To impart information, to open up minds that are fixed in opinions about religion
as either solely oppressive or solely libratory.
Exercises
Methods used are lecture and some discussion





Examples from South Asia and US:
o India (Rise of RSS/BJP)
o Sri Lanka (Buddhist nationalism of Sinhala majority government)
o US (Religious fundamentalism in Bush Administration – see for
instance the Stop Funding Hate Report)
Examples from Latin America:
o Mexico (Liberation Theology)
Examples from Israel - Hammas/Jewish nationalism,
Examples from South Africa (South African Council of Churches with
Desmond Tutu vs. the Dutch Reform Church)
Leftist ideology (secular bent) as both liberating and oppressive.
Narrative
There are many other examples which could be used here - the basic
point is to get across the ways that religion is used politically by both
revolutionary and oppressive forces and to point out that religious thought has
much influence on mass movements.
Module 3
Objective
To look forward to our ability to understand the significance of religion and its
possible uses as an organizing tool. To critically examine the left’s hesitation to
enter religious spaces.
Exercises
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Targeted questions to get discussion flowing Given that religion is a big player in
world and local politics, what do we do to combat its more conservative forces
and to organize its more radical ones? Is it even worth it?
From the participants, we'll get a whole range of responses ranging from "let's
ignore religion ...they're part of enemy" to "Leftists are too snobbish about
religion" to "Religion is very important in my life". This would call for a whole
range of strategies from "strategic alliances (as over Palestine)" to "infiltration"
into religious organizations to do outreach for leftist activities to the combative
approach against religious right wing forces like counter protests, etc.
Discussing these and assessing the merits of alliance where solidarity with an
oppressed group is concerned, while fighting patriarchy and homophobia, will be
interesting.
If so, how to do it? Ask for examples from the participants here. This may be a
larger section now with the organizing since the Gujarat pogroms and wars in
Afghanistan and Palestine.
Concluding Narrative
The image theater exercise was very helpful as it allowed people to have small
group discussions and to illustrate to the larger group the results of that
discussion. It brought out controversial topics on religion right away and got to
the different religious backgrounds of the participants.
The lecture section was somewhat successful although far too much time was
spent on the rise of the Hindu right wing in India and this took away from the
fullness of the discussion. Some of the points were lost as a result and
participants seemed somewhat bored. Better time management and perhaps a
timeline of events around the world would help this section be more interesting
and less “Indo-centric”
The discussion on ways to use religion was good although a bit strained. Many
of the participants were thinking about this for the first time and did not have
much to contribute. Thus, a section that was meant to make the participants talk
actually was led more by the facilitators. One suggestion is to find a speaker
who has actually used religion in their libratory struggle in the United States to
speak about it so participants have a model to start with before this discussion
happens. It may also be useful to simply foster debate about the significance of
religion and its oppressive and libratory
73
Life on the Left Workshop
Workshop Objective:
The objective of this three hour workshop is to respond to the question: What
does it mean to live one’s life within the Left? The objective is to reflect on what
has motivated us and what it means for each of us, and to build some
understanding of the kinds of things one can expect in everyday life if one was to
actively work within left politics. The workshop is NOT about drawing up a strict
definition of “the Left.”
Narrative on Workshop Objective:
No training workshop for the Left is adequate without a consideration of what it
means to live one’s life within the Left. What is the point of learning about
activism and radicalism without being able to have a discussion about what this
means for oneself, personally? Even if we are all part of structures and systems,
we have to live with ourselves as well, within the networks of our families and
friends, within the choices that we are able to enact for ourselves. The ideological
choices we make for ourselves impinge upon our lives, and we, as Left
educators, facilitators and organizers, must encourage participants to explore the
question of what it means to be on the Left in everyday life.
This module was devised in the mid-1990s in response to the frustration of many
young people with their lives within Left and progressive organizations, both on
college campuses and in the “real world” (where the pay is low, the expectations
are high, and there is frequently little room to interrogate the multiple problems
that exist within nonprofit organizations). Left organizers and those on the Left in
general seem often to be encouraged not to complain and to bust their ass “for
the struggle.” Mark Toney of the Center for Third World Organizing asked at the
National Organizers’ Alliance gathering about the need for an organization for
organizers, about rights for those who fight for the rights of society. In this
context, rights was understood not only as tangible benefits, but also as the
emotional needs of one who takes a risk to be on the Left in an ideologically
Right-focused world.
We first included a Life on the Left workshop in the second YSS (1998), when we
decided to run it as a day-long event. The day opened with an engaging address
by Urvashi Vaid on her own story, as well as a charge to be aggressive with
oneself about rest and relaxation, about emotional health of our community. Most
of what Urvashi said can be found in her article "Inclusion, Exclusion and
Occlusion: The Queer Idea of Asian Pacific American-ness" (Amerasia Journal,
25:3, 1999/2000, pp. 1-16) [need to add this as appendix #1]. The rest of the day
followed a fairly loose format, with discussions about the state of “the
movement,” role-play exercises on how to talk to one’s family about ideology and
74
personal politics, and finally, a worksheet on finances and budgeting for life with
a “Left” income. Much of the framework for the module below comes from this
first year, but with some important changes.
During the third YSS (1999), the workshop was substantially reworked. The idea
was to draw in the entire collective to run the day, rather than just one or two of
us. We planned to talk about our own development as individuals living on the
Left, an addition that has now become part of the module. It was generally felt
that including all collective members in the workshop creation process did not
work too well, because we were not able to prep adequately and there was a lot
of ‘what happens now’ dead-air. The following year we returned to the policy of
workshop leaders. For lack of time, however, the workshop was curtailed to less
than 1.5 hours.
In YSS 2000, Life on the Left was run by two collective members who divided the
time and ran a three-hour workshop along the lines of the other workshops. The
run-through below generally follows from YSS 2000, with some additions from
previous years and with some annotation about how things went.
The Workshop is in four modules:
1: Getting Some Shit Out of the Way: Breaking Down Some Left Myths.
2: Terms/Definitions/Defining Self as Lefty
3: The Left Lens
4: A Working Lefty
MODULE 1: Getting Some Shit Out of the Way: Breaking Down Some Left
Myths
Module Objective:
To get everybody to understand that this is a reflective session and that we are
not passing judgment on each other. To establish a basic comfort with the fact
that there are many ways of being “Left.”
Module Narrative:
The objective of getting folks comfortable with the idea that they can all be
differently lefty was attempted through two exercises. These exercises were
alternatively meant to destabilize in an ironic fashion some of the “holier than
thou” attitude within the Left.
75
Exercise 1: ‘I’m more leftist than you because….’:
We asked everyone to stand up around the room. A few collective members
stood together side by side in the front of the room. Once everyone was
standing, the bunch of collective members began, one by one, right to left, to
finish the sentence ‘I’m more Left than you because..’ After a few collective
members we encouraged each participant to stand to the left of the last person to
respond, and complete the phrase “I’m more leftist than you because…” The
activity continued until everyone in the room was part of the line. Most of us took
it seriously, but since it is an ironic dig at the endemic holier than thou attitude of
bits of the Left, it became somewhat funny. This is just fine.
Exercise 2 – Left Cache:
Drawing from the game, we turned to butcher paper and made a list of elements
that gave people cache within the Left: age, education, experience, gender,
sexual orientation, consumption patterns, number of rallies or actions attended,
etc.
MODULE 2: Terms/Definitions/Defining Self as Lefty
Module Objective:
The objective of this module is to get all the participants to define for themselves
their motivations for being on the Left or how they want to be on the Left,
including their relation to issues of equality/inequality, power and privilege, Left
history, notions such as party, movement etc.
Module Narrative:
This part was done primarily through small group exercises and participation.
Small groups discussed a series of themes starting out from personal ones such
as “why they wanted to be on the left?” gradually to the broadest themes on what
a “socialist ideal” could be. This general discussion led up to a discussion about
the status of the Left in the US/North America today.
Exercise 1
Why You Want to be in the Left: Group discussion on the theme. The discussion
on our expectations and hopes for and of the Left helped clarify our idea of what
the ‘Left’ is. Group discussions were recorded on butcher paper for everybody to
share their thoughts.
Exercise 2
76
What is the ‘Left’ and what is the ‘Movement’: Ask the participants to tell us what
they think of these words. Use flipchart to write down words and associations.
Use this discussion to turn to key structural fault line between Left and Right:
first, that there is a Right liberty (libertarian) and a Left liberty (anarchism).
Secondly, that there is a Left equality (socialism of various strands), but that
Right equality ends with formal equality (and cannot therefore address extant
inequality). The Right ends at equality before the law, and the preservation of
private property (as in Locke and in most contract theory: why is it that in Law
School, in contracts, one always learns of property law before or often without
ever getting to cultural contracts?).
Exercise 3
Getting What You Deserve: Does everyone deserve the same wage? Should we
all get the same goods? Is equality the same as equity? Introduce keywords for
the discussion like ‘inclusive,’ ‘equitable’ and ‘equal.’
Exercise 4
Bad Words such as Socialism: Is totalitarianism the same as Socialism? Often
you may not have enough time to get into the question of the USSR. However, it
is an important theme – whether its collapse meant the end of the socialist
movement? Or of the Socialist ideal?
Exercise 5
Our Times: Can we see the regeneration of an anti-capitalist ethic or is it just an
anti-corporate one? Discuss not only Seattle/A16, but also the ongoing
environmental, anti-heterosexist, labor, feminist, anti-racist struggles and all told
socialist traditions. After this we will need to offer a map of the movement, in
terms of the kinds of institutional locations that exist. Additionally, offer a
reminder that movement members/organizers come from all walks of life.
Handouts: (a) Definition of the Left; (b) Different Left organizations today; (c)
Different Left institutions today; (d) Excerpt from Norberto Bobbio, Left and Right
(Polity, 1996); (e) Excerpt from Randy Shaw, Reclaiming America (California,
1998).
MODULE 3: The Left Lens
Module Objective:
This module is aimed at developing an idea of how one reads the world as a
lefty. Being a lefty entails a critical awareness and reflection from which we build
common positions on the Left and act. This module is aimed at illustrating the
tradition of critically reading the world.
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Module Narrative:
This module is constructed primarily as an exercise in media analysis. The effort
is to work in groups to understand the methods of critically analyzing what we
see/read around us as well as to be able to understand the potentials and pitfalls
of mass media – including its latest form.
Exercise 1 - How does a Leftist read a Bourgeois Paper:
Hand out an article from the day’s newspaper and in small groups folks can
discuss a left position on it. Each group's position is then brought back to the
larger collective for a discussion using a flip chart to record the different points
developed, and then to constitute a collective position.
Exercise 2 - False Utopias: Internet Democracies, Libertarianism, and Pitfalls:
Once again a large group discussion aimed at clarifying the uses of private and
public mass media. Every new mass communication medium offers a utopia
vision of democracy. TV, radio, etc.., emerged with an almost science fiction-like
urge for freedom. Bridge to the 21st Century, and all that mayhem greeted the
Internet. Will the Internet not meet the fate of TV and radio (even though radio
waves are still rented out for free by the state to corporations)? How can we, on
the Left, use the new technologies to our advantage, to build new communities
and publics, to forge our own audiences? Can we democratize the mediums
available to us? What about forming media collectives that provide training and
resources to those who do not have access to them? Does the DiY (or Do It
Yourself) culture resonate with anyone? Who has been a part of anything like
this?
We went over the rich world of alternative media, of independent media, and of
the question of Left media activism (Appendix #3, ‘Media Activism’). This was not
simply an informational introduction, but was also a place to talk about the
monopolization of the media (we had intended to use the handout from The
Nation on the conglomerates). In this workshop, however, we did not do enough
on how to shape publicity in a campaign. We will need to add a workbook on
how to try to manipulate the press to our advantage.
Handouts: (1) The Nation conglomerate charts on the radio, television, and music
industry; (2) Amitava Kumar’s appendix to Passport Photos (California, 2000);
(3) DiY Culture: party and protest in Nineties Britain, Ed. George McKay, London:
Verso, 1998. (4) Rita Kirk Whillock, ‘Giant Sucking Sounds: Politics as Illusion;
(5) Carol Becker, ‘Art of Subversive Image Making,’ Soundbite Culture: the death
of discourse in a wired world. Ed. David Slayden and Rita K. Whillock, Thousand
Oaks: Sage, 1999; (6) Materials from Get Real Comics (collage@green.igc.org).;
(7) The Ruckus Society at http://www.ruckus.org/man/media_manual.html.
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MODULE 4: A Working Lefty
Module Objective:
This module is aimed at building an understanding of the different kinds of active
roles we can play as leftys, the pressures we feel in the process, difficulties in the
workplace and burning out.
Module Narrative:
This module addresses the fact that many YSS participants have not yet worked
outside of a campus on Left-related issues and are also in the process of making
career choices. This module is set to have participants examine the choice of full
time Left activism vs. part-time volunteering, and discussing the attendant
pressures and tensions – (low incomes, inability to meet community/parental
expectations, working within non-ideal work places, and burnout). Again, the
implementation of this module is through a series of group discussions and report
backs – an open sharing of ideas and thoughts worked through a series of
exercises. This section of the workshop is about values.
Exercise 1
How Can I Be Part of a Social Justice Movement: What are the ways in which
one can participate: (1) organizer or full-time for social justice; (2) volunteer time;
(3) work in a non-profit; (4) checkbook activism. But there is a fifth option that
can be linked to #2 and #4: this is to use your skills to push movement values, in
all the avenues you can think this might be possible. We planned to facilitate a
discussion on the nature of “part-time activism” and its necessity in a democracy.
This is followed by a discussion of the skills each of us can bring to the
movement. The idea is to talk about diversity of action within the Left, thereby
introducing us to personal biographical questions. Not everyone can or should
be an organizer, but everyone can be an activist in their own way. This was the
main contribution of the section. We talked about the different ways to be
involved and the different skills that people can bring to the movement. The
movement needs all kinds of people, and no one should feel inadequate in it.
Indeed, our movement is about making everyone feel adequate, so our general
ethos should mirror that goal.
Exercise 2
Coming out to your community as a Leftist: This is best done through role plays.
Break up into small groups, give each group a scenario and ask participants to
build a role play on how the situation could be handled. The scenarios are for
example: (a) Tell your parents/family you want to switch majors from
premed/prelaw to ethnic/women’s’ studies; (b) Tell your parents/family that
you’ve joined the Forum of Indian Leftists (FOIL); (c) Your relatives/parents find a
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picture of you in the paper at a SALGA rally. (d) Tell your friends that you want to
become an organizer.
Chose a few groups (depending on time) to enact their situation for the large
group. There should be little time for them to confer. The facilitator will play the
role of the parents/family/friends in the scene. The situation will generally be
done from the heart, so the facilitator should be careful to guide people through it
(but try to be as tough as possible if you are to be in any of the groups: be a real
adult!). Take at least an hour to conduct the exercises and then discuss what it
takes to form a community, to tell people whom you love things that are dear to
your heart, and then to talk amongst ourselves about the dilemmas that we face.
Discuss how to make public what is often private grief.
Exercise 3
How to Live on the Left, Or New Age Leftism.: This part is done through a series
of discussions on themes such as: Low-income life; Lifestyle changes;
Workplace changes; Burnout prevention.
To lead to the emotional discussion, we begin with money. The participants are
divided into pairs. They are given a budget sheet (appendix #5), which they fill
out. We discuss the problem of salaries and of expenses. The budget sheet is
fairly rudimentary. It could be made more complex if necessary.
A discussion of money leads to the problem of kindness. We discuss the error
made by many on the Left to run our lives as a critique of consumption: don’t buy
this, don’t eat that. The Left should be a critique of production relations and not
the occasional choices we make to keep ourselves sane. In the pairs or else in a
set of larger groups, we exchange strategies for kindness. These are then shared
with the entire group. We create modes of decency, not as ways to regulate
behavior, but as strategies for ourselves to survive. This is counter-posed with a
discussion about being kind to one another and limitations of consumer one-uppersonship.
We intend for the Left to take care of itself, for those of us within it to be good to
ourselves, to indulge ourselves here and there to prepare for the long-haul and to
prevent burnout. We encourage the creation of supportive networks, to leave
pettiness out of our environments and relationships. This is the terrain of New
Age Leftism, or just plain being decent. We have to lean on each other to cope
with the stress of life under advanced capital, and of the Amerikkkan
government. Also each of us needs to make an assessment on how much we
can add to the movement, and what kind of capacity we are in to effect change at
this moment.
Finally, we go back to the opening game: how to not wallow in guilt about not
being Left enough. And so, enough of the Left.
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Handouts: (1) CTWO booklet; (2) Ivan H. Scheier, When Everyone’s a Volunteer,
Chardon Press (www.chardonpress.com); (3) Leigh Dingerson and Sarah Hay,
Co/Motion Guide to Youth-Led Social Change, Alliance for Justice (www.afj.org).
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Meticulous Examination Workshop
Workshop Objective
The goal of this workshop is to have people reflect or "meticulously examine" the
ways oppression and privilege have effected their own lives. It begins from the
position of the personal through the interrogation of people's backgrounds and
experiences in order to build a foundation for future discussions of systemic
oppression. Being the first workshop, the idea is also to build trust amongst the
participants and have them get to know each other through sharing and shared
experiences. By starting from a place of the "personal" the idea is to recognize
one's privilege, power, and oppressions and reconstruct the singular identity into
larger struggles and movements.
Overall Notes
M.E. is a workshop for people to get to know each other better and to begin to
delve into the types of oppression faced by the participants. The workshop
explores personal identity and shared experiences such as immigration (as
almost all participants had a recent history of immigration in their families), linking
those personal experiences into larger issues. In addition, the workshop used a
number of exercises and games to ensure that participants have a chance to
interact with each other in different settings in order to become comfortable with
the language of oppression.
Modules
Module 1 - Star Game
This is the first exercise in the workshop. It asks participants to locate
themselves vis-à-vis common categories of identity. Participants are divided into
groups of 5-6 for this activity. Each group is given a posterboard divided into 9
sections. 7 sections have an identity category such as religion, race, class,
gender/sexuality, etc. 2 sections were left blank, and participants were
encouraged to add categories or refine existing ones. Then each participant was
given foil star stickers in four different colors - the different colors symbolized
areas in which the participant felt a)oppressed, b)privileged, c) empowered, and
d) allied with. Once the participants placed their starts in the boxes, (they could
put more than one star in any box or leave a box blank) they discussed the
choices they made with their small groups. After 10 minutes of small group
discussion, the discussion was taken to the larger group.
Module 2 - reactions to art
Each facilitator shared a piece of art (poem, film, comedy sketch) that raised a
number of identity issues (race, immigration status, gender, and sexuality). Then
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participants were encouraged to respond to the pieces and to speak about
similar/different experiences. The idea is to have the facilitators share, through
their art, personal experiences as a way to build trust with the participants, to
provide a space for them to be open about their experiences, and to speak of
those experiences in broader contexts of oppression. Furthermore, because this
year one of the main focuses of the week was post- 9/11 experiences, and one of
the pieces was about the war, participants were asked to go back to the star grid
and highlight what had changed in their experiences of identity after September
11th.
Module 3 - Immigration histories
Participants are each given a piece of posterboard and asked to express their
immigration histories through drawing, words, etc. Meanwhile facilitators create
a timeline on one wall with small placards tracing events and policies over time
that shaped South Asian immigrant experiences and patterns (opening of visa
policies, Patriot Act, Southhall riots, etc.). After 20 minutes, participants are
asked to place their individual histories on the timeline. Large group discussion
is used to draw out both commonalities and unique experiences. The exercise
helps participants link their immigration to larger immigrant histories.
Module 4 - Freeze Game
This game is designed to bring up issues/experiences that are difficult by utilizing
role-play, and also increases the energy level of participants after the previous
writing exercise. Facilitators demonstrate the game which involves 3 people on
the "stage" in a scenario that should reflect some form of oppression or
experience. One of the audience members yells "freeze" and takes the place of
one of the "actors". Then, the new actor changes the scene and the other two
respond and act based on this new scene. This goes on until everyone has had
a chance to participate. After the game, have a large discussion encouraging
participants to identify key issues brought up during the skits in terms of
oppressions i.e. racial profiling, discrimination, etc.
Concluding Narrative
Workshop went pretty much as planned although the following critiques were
consistently made:


Not enough small group time to discuss the star game. This seemed to be
very effective way for people to express themselves and to discuss what
identity categories mean for them
Not enough examination of the immigration histories and what they meant;
there was some discussion of them but then we moved on too quickly.
Possible suggestion was that each person share their writings/drawings
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

with the entire group or that certain participants are asked to volunteer to
do this.
Ending with the freeze game was fun but focused the discussion on
"cultural" issues such as dating, arranged marriage, etc. We wanted to
end the workshop on a more systematic note which was better
accomplished by the star game. Perhaps the freeze game could be used
for an opening game, followed by the star game.
It seemed that discussion was vigorous in small groups but died when
brought to the larger group. Facilitators then felt pressured to make
crucial points themselves or to ask leading questions.
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What The Fuck Is “The System”? Workshop
Objective
The objective of the workshop is to collectively develop a broad political
understanding and analysis of society. The different activities channel
individual/personal/immediate experiences to expose their larger place in social
organization and social relations: power/wealth structures of
oppression/exploitation (around race, class, gender, sexuality, sex, nation,
country, nationality, ethnicity, religion, age, ability, etc.). The goal is to show why
and how these structures have historically been materially instituted, perpetuated
and changed, and worked with each other to make up the system. We will also
identify and challenge the ideological justifications that help to perpetuate the
system.
Overall Notes
We wanted this workshop to deal with dilemmas of the role of oneself in society,
such as the appeal of feeling guilt about one’s privileges while embracing one’s
oppressions. We wanted people to be able to differentiate between systemic
oppression and instances of unfairness. We work to an understanding of society
as a product of struggles between power and the people, and politics as working
to change the way society is set up (struggling to reduce and ultimately eliminate
oppression and exploitation) rather than changing individual positions or roles
within it. Below is a brief outline of the two days.
Day 1 (three hours):
1. Concepts: oppression, exploitation, etc.
I.
II.
III.
Introduction – discussion of ‘the system’
Group-Activity of circles/squares
Group-Activity of injustice/justification scenarios
2. Structures: each oppression as part of integrated system
A. Group-Activity constructing hotel-restaurant industry
B. Discussion of ‘oppression of privileged’ scenarios
C. Film: Island of Flowers (Jorge Furtado, Brazil, 1989, 12 min.)
Day 2 (three hours):
3. Institutions: How structures are implemented, defended, extended,
enforced.
A. Discussion of global capitalism, neo-liberalism, globalization
1. IMF, WB, WTO – what are they
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2. Case study: compare two countries’ relations with the
IMF
B. Film clips from Life and Debt
Roles of: State, Capital, Religion, Family, Media, Education
C. Repression - Against internal rebels and non-conformists: ‘just
war’
D. Empire – External agenda of imperialism: ‘just war’
4. Resistance, Struggle, Revolution, other popular responses to The System
A. Discussions of ‘just’ and ‘humanitarian’ wars of imperialism
B. Group-Activity of drawing conflict-maps
C. Questions of modernity v. tradition, liberalism v.
fundamentalism; solidarity v. identitarianism: religious
nationalisms, 9-11, war on terror
D. What (values; set-ups) are we fighting for and how do we get
there?
Modules
1. Introduction – Components of ‘the system’
Objective:
To concretely discuss concepts that are often abstract
Plan:
Facilitated discussion/written-list
Exercises/tools:
Brainstorming discussion and write list of what participants think the system is
(patriarchy, WTO, etc.)
Narrative/content:
Introduce objective of the workshop, facilitate open discussion, bring out all the
words that are used to discuss political economy and oppression and let them
know that this workshop is about how all the things work together as the “system”
we experience.
2. How Do The Economy, The Law, And Race Work Together?
Objective:
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show how wage/wealth distribution and inequality is produced and reproduced
(race, also class, family, etc.), due to and despite legal changes over time.
Plan:
Small-group activity/large-group discussion
Exercises/tools:
Circles/squares Game, game-activity sheets, which asks participants to chart
personal wealth over 6 generations for two different groups, circles and squares.
In the scenarios, Generation 1 circles are slaves of squares. Later generations
of circles win their freedom and attain increased educational opportunities and
wage levels. However, the game shows that the differences in assets, despite
legal equality and wage parity in Generation 6, are quite disparate for circles and
squares.
Narrative/content:
Information-share about statistics and realities of Black America’s economic
history beyond slavery and segregation – how/why? How does an expensive
medical bill or a temporary job loss affect those who have wealth cushion versus
those who don’t? How do estate tax cuts unfairly benefit one group versus the
other? How does lack of wealth affect ability to get a loan? Discussion of
power/wealth, surplus value – material organization and ideological justification
for racist oppression
3. What Is Systemic Oppression?
Objective:
Show independent trajectories as well as intersections of various social divisions
and oppressions; look at how inequalities are legitimized as fair.
Plan:
small-group activity/large-group discussion
Exercises/tools:
Break into small groups and hand each one a scenario for discussion:


A Latina receptionist is denied a job at a business due to her 'accent.' The
business considers itself a supporter of 'diversity' in the workplace.
Liberal gay man believes that gay relationships are just like straight ones
(fall in love, gets married, raise kids, collect possessions, and die). He
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

thinks that queer people with multiple sexual partners give homosexuals a
bad name, and detract from the fight for equal rights under the law for
homosexuals.
Two South Asians have a conversation about how they think workfare is a
good idea - after all, they work their asses off and get by.
Married professional couple decides to have a child. They decide that she
should quit her job to raise the child.
Ask them to report back on what is the oppression in each and what is the
justification made for it.
Narrative/content:
Breaking down claims (civilization difference, public-private distinction) to justify
inequality and oppression, and intersection of oppressions (oppressions usually
work well with each other, sometimes contradict, consider historical examples);
dominant ideology emphasizes culture, genetics, individual choice to obscure
political truth.
4. Case –Study constructing hotel-restaurant industry
Objective:
Use solid example to show larger structures
Plan:
Large group mapping exercise/large-group discussion
Exercises/tools:
Ask participants to think of all the different segments of this industry, including
those that supply/support it (small motels to international hotels, from travel
agencies to agri-business), and write down on butcher-paper. Then pick one or
two of these and ask them to brainstorm all the types of jobs within this segment
(for hotels this might include maids, front-counter help, management, etc). Then
ask what kinds of people occupy these jobs (gender, ethnicity, immigration
status, education-level, etc). Have information on hand about the numbers of
people who work the different jobs, what is the average pay, what is their job
security, what occupational health risks are involved?
Narrative/content:
Show role and intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality, etc. in labor and
economy, set-ups and struggles
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5. The ‘Oppression Of The Privileged’?
Objective:
Recognize power relations as structural and not individual/ideological, challenge
claims to subjectivity and contradictory claims of ‘feeling’ oppressed
Plan:
Large-group discussion
Exercises/tools:
Examples (white lawsuits against affirmative action, Brahmin self-immolation
against Mandal recommendations)
Narrative/content:
Shows objective quality of oppression, regardless of individual feelings;
challenge ideological justifications of privilege (entitlement, culture, genetics,
merit, talent, intelligence, hard work). On butcher paper write down the many
things we can agree are not oppression.
Discussion: Consider how many people embrace the ways in which they are or
feel oppressed, but abstract/ignore ways in which they are or feel privileged
(particularly South Asians’ intermediate/complicated racial position) due to
feelings of guilt and defensiveness. Identitarian v. structural, sectarian v.
solidarity, going beyond the self; fighting for a different social set-up v. fighting
certain people within the existing one, etc. Consider U.S.-specific selfcenteredness.
6. The Logic of Capitalism?
Objective:
Show how everything relates to everything, based on social organization
Plan:
Show film, Island of Flowers, an amusing yet disturbing look at human values
through the trope of following the life of a tomato in a southern Brazilian city
where some people get to eat only what the pigs leave behind. Discuss
responses – the film has a devastatingly charged ending, so expect some time
for folks to gather their thoughts. This is one of those moments where silence is
okay…
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Exercises/tools:
Film. Leave them with a question to mull over.
Narrative/content:
Relation of U.S. /‘American’ consumption and culture to Third World production
and material poverty. Producer/worker movements v. individual consumerdecision personal-politics. What values foster a world like the one described in
the film (our world today)? What values do we want the world to operate based
on, for all people, not just some or certain groups?
END OF DAY ONE
7. Global capitalism, neo-liberalism, globalization.
Objective:
Follow from previous discussion about how world should be set-up, based on
what values; show material institution and ideological claims of the international
designs and plans of world order; show hypocrisies/realities with respect to
claims.
Plan:
Presentation, discussion. Start out by giving stats on the increasing gap between
rich and poor not only within the US, but globally. Then present info on the
globalization of financial capital, productive capital, labor, and culture. We used
the Asian Tiger economies’ crash as an example of what happens when money
can move quickly across borders.
Exercises/tools:


IMF, WB, WTO – What are they? What is the logic behind fiscal austerity
policies? (Look at Z net website for good description of their roles and
policies). Hand out printouts.
Case study: Compare two countries’ relations with the IMF. Look at
recent events for examples e.g. why did USA back major loan to Brazil but
not to Argentina, which had previously been the poster child for neoliberalization policies? Why does US prescribe financial policy that it does
not practice itself?
Narrative:
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Information and concepts about production, commerce, finance, national and
international state and capital, ideology v. practice, day-to-day and long-terms
workings.
8. Film clips from Life and Debt
Objective:
Show case studies and human-level causes/effects of international system.
Plan:
Presentation, discussion
Exercises/tools:
10 minute film clip that describes effects of Jamaica’s ‘free trade’ zone.
Narrative/content:
Labor competition causes race to the bottom, gendered labor, and law as
institution manipulated by power and not dispassionate/fair. Also main point is
that globalization undermines a nation’s ability to serve the best interested of its
own citizens. Clips should synthesize much of whole workshop 2 discussion to
show specific examples of how all parts of the system work together, different
oppressions, material and ideological.
9. Discussion of roles: State, Capital, Religion, Family, Media, Education
Objective:
Identify most important institutions of oppression; recognize how they work
together, relate to different oppressions; see how they are normalized as
essential and timeless rather than created and re-created in historical context
Plan:
List, discussion
Exercises/tools:
List, brainstormed additions
Narrative/content:
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Can we consider political organizations without states? Economic organizations
without capitalism? Spiritual life without religion? Kinship relations without
patriarchal family? Communication media without propaganda? Educational
learning without indoctrination? What values, social-setups, requirements?
10. Repression - Against Internal Rebels And Non-Conformists: ‘Just War’
Objective:
Show how non-conformity and resistance to oppressive and exploitative social
orders are met with repression.
Plan:
Discussion
Exercises/tools:
Examples
Narrative/content:
Discuss examples of repression (Haymarket violence and executions,
COINTELPRO and crushing of Black Panther Party, etc.); role of police-courtprison-execution system in society – state violence. Violence and indoctrination
both always used together to control various/all sections of population.
11. Empire – External Agenda Of Imperialism: ‘Just War’
Objective:
Introduce ideology (old and new) of imperial project
Plan:
Presentation, discussion
Exercises/tools:
Examples, quotes
Narrative/content:
Claims of benevolent dictatorship need to challenge not only effects (debt,
poverty, violence) but also reasons and justifications. Imperialism includes and
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promotes nationalism, wage slavery, racism, sexism, homophobia, all
oppressions/exploitations.
12. Discussions Of ‘Just’ And ‘Humanitarian’ Wars Of Imperialism
Objective:
Look at ideologies old and new that rationalize wars of aggression and conquest
Plan:
Presentation, discussion
Exercises/tools:
Examples, quotes
Narrative/content:
Consider role of U.S. today compared to previous imperialist and fascist powers
(similar or exceptional?)
13. Group-Activity Of Drawing Conflict-Maps
Objective:
Understand what conflicts are playing out in the world and relationship to U.S.;
consider both overt/official wars and long-term antagonisms and struggles
concerning all social groups
Plan:
Each group draws global map (battle lines, sides, enemies, alliances)
Exercises/tools:
Art tools
Narrative/content:
Who are allies? Who are enemies? Why? What do some ‘just war’ claims have
in common with others, what differences exist? How are enemies
chosen/identified/characterized? Who should win? Who will win? Why? Who
makes decisions? Power/wealth/material/ideological/moral/political?
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14. Questions of modernity v. tradition, liberalism v. fundamentalism;
solidarity v. identitarianism: religious nationalisms, 9-11, war on terror
Objective:
consider competing, contested claims to superiority and truth; justifications for
violence, especially oppression and conquest; ideology and role of Zionism,
Hindutva, Christian Fundamentalism, Islamism, U.S. imperialism, etc.
Plan:
presentation, discussion, brainstorm
Exercises/tools:
information, idea-share
Narrative/content:
Are some nations living in the past or are we all deeply embedded in different
positions in the ugly present? What were the fruits promised by modernity? What
should those who were denied these fruits do, what do they have to fall back on?
“Fundamentalism” as an inevitable consequence of the system of neo-liberal
global capitalism. A failure of the promise of modernity.
15. What (Values; Set-Ups) Are We Fighting For And How Do We Get
There?
Objective:
Consider, argue about the values and set-ups of existing societies (past and
present), values and set-ups of means of change/struggle/revolution (pastpresent-future), and values and set-ups of ‘another world is possible’ societies
(future, informed by past-present).
Plan:
Discuss, brainstorm, and debate
Exercises/tools:
information, idea-share, argue into the night
Narrative/content:
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We’re in a mess, and have been in various messes over time and across space.
Can we get out? A little bit? Completely? How?
Concluding Narrative
The workshop went well, lot of information to cover and the group did a great job,
but time is always a crunch-factor. Day 2, with much information about neoliberalism and empire, was criticized by participants as too much lecture and not
enough participatory activities. Films and small-group activities are very
effective, large-group is essential too for synthesis and diverse ideas. Some
concrete information is available in short articles and the like, is there a way we
can present informative stuff without ‘lecturing’ so much? Do we tend to
separate U.S.-internal and external, is that good? Do we reinforce a division
between nation-race-class and gender-sexuality, that’s no good?
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Resistance and Revolution Workshop
Workshop Objective
The first workshop of this year addressed how participants reflect or
"meticulously examine" the ways oppression and privilege affects their own lives.
The second workshop examined structures of oppression in detail. In this final
workshop, we wanted to build on the previous workshops and explore the nature
of resistance, different forms of resistance, how to deal with issues of oppression
within the movement, and discuss organizational structures that have defined the
left.
Overall Notes
One primary goal of YSS is to help create an alternative space for building a
progressive youth movement here in the US.
Modules
The workshop was conducted over two days. Each day was divided into three
modules.
Module 1- Imagining Another World
Module objective:
The objective of this module was to address the issue of how we conceive a just
world. More often than not, activists get involved in the struggle for social justice
against one, or at best a few, oppressions. This can lead to a case of reactive
activism, in which we find ourselves responding to oppressions/misdemeanors by
structures of power. Rarely do we find examples of offensive activism, in which
the left organizes with a clear and well defined vision for justice. In this module
we wanted to begin with clear ideas about what we are fighting for, what in our
vision we are unwilling to compromise on. This section also served as a good
example of how one can negotiate within a group to create a cohesive vision of
justice despite differences between individuals.
Module Narrative:
We facilitated this module through a set of three exercises beginning with an
individual exercise, progressing on to a small group exercise, and ending with a
large group discussion.
Exercise 1 (10 Minutes)- Tree Of Life
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Since this was the first exercise of the day we began with a meditative exercise
called the “tree of life” meditation. The purpose of this exercise was to promote
relaxation, claim the space and promote a sense of grounding. Participants were
asked to stand with their eyes closed and pay attention to their breathing. The
facilitator then asked participants to actively relax each body part and visualize
growing roots into the floor. Following this the facilitator asked participants to
visualize when they began on their path of resistance.
Exercise 2 (30 Minutes)- First Inspiration
This exercise was done through small group discussion. Participants were
divided into six small groups. The objective was to discuss their “first inspiration”what inspired them to become an activist, to resist. Each group was given a
butcher paper and markers so they could record each participant’s inspiration.
The record helped in facilitating a discussion around some of the common
themes that emerged in terms of first inspiration among participants. Since this
was the third workshop, participants were comfortable sharing their experiences
with others. After the small group discussion, the common themes on first
inspiration in each small group were discussed in the large group among all
participants. This allowed participants to gain an understanding of the variety of
early experiences that served as the first inspiration to join the left movement,
broadly conceived.
Exercise 3 (20 Minutes)- Conception Of A Just World
Given the preceding discussion on what inspired participants to resist, the third
exercise was designed as a facilitated group discussion of our conception of a
just world. Participants were asked to come up with ideas that they considered
critical to their conception of a just world. In the discussion, we wanted to come
to some consensus of the group’s idea of a just world- in this attempt participants
were forced to think about what ideas they could not compromise on and what
ideas they were willing to compromise on.
Module 2- Forms Of Resistance (1 Hour)
Module objective
In this module we wanted to examine different forms of resistance and discuss
whether all forms of resistance are valid and effective.
Module Narrative
This exercise was done in small groups. Each group was asked to address three
questions

What are the different forms of resistance?
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

Is every form of resistance valid, and if so, is it effective?
What makes a given form of resistance effective?
After the groups had time to discuss these questions, the discussion was brought
into the larger group. Some of the issues that were highlighted in the discussion
were:


notion of personal resistance versus collective action
civil disobedience as a form of protest etc. direct action (lockdown etc.)
Module 3- Resistance: Personal To Structural
Module objective:
In this module we wanted to explore in three issues in detail. These issues do not
reflect the gamut of issues within a discussion of resistance and revolution but
were in fact a sampling of issues that are discussed within the left.



Legitimacy of armed struggle as a valid form of resistance
Demonstrating resistance by modifying patterns of personal consumption
(e.g. not eating meat) in solidarity with other campaigns is an effective
form of resistance
The legal and administrative system are useful tools in combating the
oppression (as an example) of domestic violence (knowing that the legal
and administrative and legal systems are culpable in supporting gender
violence at many levels themselves).
Module narrative
This exercise was organized as a variation on the human barometer game
theme. Participants were divided into two groups. Each group was assigned their
position (for or against) on the three issues being discussed. Thus, one group
was to come up with arguments to support armed struggle as a valid and
effective form of resistance, whereas the other group was to come up with
arguments against it.
Each group was given time to discuss their arguments before presenting it to the
other group. In the discussion that followed, the facilitators summarized the
discussion.
In the discussion on armed resistance, participants were not able to come to a
consensus. However, the debate and the following discussion provided valuable
talking points both for and against armed resistance.
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In the discussion on personal consumption, there was general consensus that
while changing one’s pattern of personal consumption was a personal, perhaps
even a political choice, it did little in the form of resisting oppression.
In the final discussion on the use of legal and administrative tools, once again
there was little consensus among participants. However, the discussion provided
valuable talking points.
-------------------------------------Module 4- Talkin’ Revolution Without Words
Module objective
The objective of this module was to explore some tools of resistance. One was to
provide an example of techniques of theater of the oppressed and how it could
be used as a teaching tool and as a problem solving tool during campaigns. The
second was to explore visual forms of public resistance
Module Narrative
EXERCISE 1- Theater Of The Oppressed
Following the techniques of image theater from the arsenal of the theater of the
oppressed, participants were divided into five groups. Each group was asked to
create a sculpture of an oppression. After each group presented its image, the
participants voted for one image that resonated with the whole group.
EXERCISE 2- Public Resistance
Module 5- Bringing The Left Home
Module objectiveThe objective of this module was to discuss some difficult issues that arise within
the left but are not frequently talked about. But these issues have a significant
negative affect on solidarity building.
Module narrativeWe used three scenarios


How does one deal with finding out that a comrade is being violent
towards his/her partner.
How does one deal with racism within the progressive south Asian
community
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
How does one reconcile one’s left politics with religion- and equally
importantly how do we bring the left into religious spaces. More often than
not, the left has kept away from organizing in religious spaces. In the
meantime, more religious spaces have been taken over by the right wing.
Module 6- Organizational Structures Of The Left
Module objectiveBuilding a movement necessitates a critical examination of the structures that
exist within the left. The goal of this module was to examine different structures
of organizing on the left.
Module narrativeThrough a large group discussions, we discussed the politics, or lack thereof, of
the following:




service organizations
advocacy organizations
mass mobilization
mass organizing
Concluding Narrative
Did the workshop go as planned, what could have been done differently? The
workshop did not go as planned. One reason was that we began very late on
both days as few participants came on time. Secondly, we had planned a section
on examining successful movements for which we did not have time. Third, some
of the discussions were facilitated such that any comment or opinion was left
unchallenged, particularly in the discussion on different forms of resistance. This
could have given the impression that the group was in agreement that any form
of resistance was valid and effective. We as facilitators did not take a position on
the issue, which was problematic.
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