Chapter 1: Introduction to the Challenges Facing Street Level Bureaucrats in the

Inner-City Immigrant Workers Community

The Challenges

According to the 2000 U.S. census, there are 3.69 million people in the city of Los

Angeles, of which 10% are Asian and Pacific Islanders (Chinese, Japanese, Korean,

Vietnamese and Asian Indian), and 46.5% are Latino27. Depending on income and social

status, recent immigrants can be classified according to a two-tier system.

Those who are wealthy and educated will be living in upper-middle class neighborhoods

of places like Burbank, Pasadena, or the San Fernando Valley, working in high paying

professional jobs or owning their own businesses. However, if a person lack English

skills or are poor, or are a refugee who has come to this country empty-handed, chances

are you’ll be living in the inner-city poor neighborhoods of Los Angeles such as

Macarthur Park, Pico-Union or Chinatown, and working at low-paying jobs sewing

garments, cleaning offices, or busing tables. These workers face extreme exploitation,

including the absence of a living wage, very long working hours, and poor working

conditions with winked-at health and safety hazards. There are no definitive figures

tallying up the number of immigrants working in sweatshops, but there are at least

hundreds of thousands within Los Angeles County. There’s no doubt that they need help.

In Los Angeles there are several anti-sweatshop organizations which support immigrant

workers’ rights. Sweatshops Watch and the Los Angeles Garment Workers Center have

been helping downtown garment workers since 1999. The Coalition of Humane

Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) supports Central American immigrants and

labor rights in and around the Macarthur Park area. Korean Immigrant Workers

Advocates (KIWA) supports Korean and Latino workers in the Koreatown area, and has

recently launched a massive supermarket workers campaign. The Filipino Workers

Center supports Filipino workers’ rights in the downtown Los Angeles area. These

organizations provide desperately needed services to the Los Angeles inner-city

immigrant workers community.

Yet there is no Chinese immigrant and anti-sweatshop organization in Chinatown to meet

the low-income and moderate-income population's needs. Such a Chinese immigrant

service center, with a focus on building bridges between Chinese and other ethnic groups

and an anti-sweatshop labor support organization in Chinatown, would fill a critical need

in the community. Los Angeles does not have a Chinese-speaking immigrant labor

community center to help the tens of thousands of new Chinese immigrants in Los

Angeles.

The post-September 11 political environment has made many immigrant families in the

United States fearful, while the new anti-terrorist policies of the Bush Administration

have severely limited the rights of immigrants29. Additional policy proposals threaten cuts

in both the number of new immigrants allowed into the U.S., and immigrant eligibility

for services necessary to successful transition once they have entered30. Furthermore,

more and more immigrants are forced to work at low-paying jobs, even in inhumane

sweatshop conditions.

For example: a Los Angeles company, the J.H. Design Group, employing primarily

Latino workers, sews jackets for USC, UCLA, and universities in Michigan, Wisconsin,

Kentucky, Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee, Notre Dame, Indiana, and Florida, as well as for

Nike, Reebok, Disney, NASCAR, the NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL. According to a

Sweatshops Watch recent investigation35, J.H. employs its workers in sweatshop

conditions, including: working seven days a week, 10-12 hours a day; working full days,

then being forced to take work home, working until midnight and on weekends to meet

quotas; receiving sub-minimum wages, often without overtime pay; illegal firings for

speaking out about sweatshop conditions; and inhumane treatment, including verbal

abuse and subjection to racial slurs.

For these new immigrants, coming to America does not promise a better life, but rather a

hell on earth. Organizations such as Sweatshop Watch help workers to recoup unpaid

wages and damages through lawsuits, fighting for unfairly denied compensation and for

punitive damages against gross offenders.

There is a glaring need for an immigrant workers center that could play an important role

in empowering the immigrant workers' community to fight for its labor rights and

political rights -- a role a government-funded service agency would not be able to fulfill.

However, it is to be hoped that policy makers and street-level bureaucrats can understand

the dynamic needs of the immigrant workers community and set future projects

accordingly. According to the report “Mapping the Immigrant Structure”11 by the Applied

Research Center, these recommendations could help achieve this objective:

1. Expand the capacity of the immigrant and refugee infrastructure to advocate effectively on state and national policy issues;2. Support multiracial coalition efforts that include immigrants at the local, state and national levels;3. Provide financial resources to initiate cross-training opportunities for immigrant and refugee organizations to discuss best practices, exchange experience, evaluate approaches, and build relationships;4. In determining how to most effectively support immigrant and refugee families, philanthropic organizations should consider the scope of work to be done in immigrant communities, as well as the myriad forms that immigrant advocacy takes;5. In order to develop a public voice for immigrants and refuges, philanthropic organizations should provide financial support to efforts that publicly and consistently communicate how immigrants feel about and respond to the policies and programs that affect their lives.

The following sections will focus on how street-level bureaucrats and public policy

officials can use different models and techniques to better interact with the immigrant

workers community as they strive to meet their needs and provide them with services.

Some key challenges include: the challenge of understanding those who speak different

languages, the challenge of intercultural communication, and the challenge of

overcoming immigrants’ cultural resistance to outsiders.

The Challenge of Understanding Different Languages

It is common knowledge, among those who work with immigrants, that language and

culture barriers impede effective interaction between street-level bureaucrats and the

immigrant communities they serve. For example, within the Chinese immigrant

community several dialects of Chinese are spoken, including Cantonese, Mandarin,

Hakka and Hokkien28. Although from a Chinese speaker's perspective these are thought

of as dialects, when spoken they are mutually unintelligible in the same way as languages

such as English and Russian.

The term “street-level bureaucrats”17 is often used to refer to various human service

bureaucracies, such as schoolteachers, court officials, and social service and welfare

agencies, who work directly with the people. In this article, street-level bureaucrats are

the officials who mainly work with and provide services to inner-city immigrant workers.

Ethnic immigrant communities speak a different language and live a daily experience

quite different from the ones experienced by the typical public administrator or street-

level bureaucrat. If the administrators or bureaucrats are not themselves from this

community, they will find it very difficult to communicate and work with its members.

Policy makers should facilitate self-help programs to train street-level bureaucrats to

speak the language used in the target community.

The dearth of experienced community organizers and social workers serving their own

ethnic community seriously affects the levels of service provided to inner-city immigrant

workers. Historically, first generation immigrants who have English as their second or

even third language have been less likely to get jobs in public administration to serve

their community. This is due to low levels of language (English) proficiency and to the

fact that academic/working experience from an immigrant's own country is discounted in

the hiring process. Ironically, second generation immigrants who receive education in

this country, though they are not formally educated in their mother tongue and have no

community experience, are more likely to get the jobs that are available in the area

of serving their community than more highly educated first-generation immigrants whose

qualifications were earned in other countries in the language of that community.

The generation gap between first generation immigrants and their descendants is

exemplified by the lack of a common language/vocabulary (encompassing political

ideology, cultural experience and lifestyle) shared between members of the immigrant

community and the street-level bureaucrats hired from second- or later generation

natives. This cultural chasm results in the widespread failure of social workers and public

administrators to help the immigrant workers community.

Challenges of Intercultural Communication

According to James Leigh18, human behavior is striking for it is the same yet different.

Many common behaviors are displayed by humans around the world, whatever their

ethnic heritage. And yet there are also unique culture-specific behaviors particular to

certain people--that is, behaviors that are bound to a particular culture or ethnic group in

their locale or milieu. Of course the interaction of different cultures may lead to common

cultural phenomena and behavior across various human groups. Human behavior is

largely rooted in one or both of the following: biological heritage and cultural heritage.

It can be useful to apply the “nature vs. nurture” debate to the anthropological and

sociological study of the behavior of groups. From this perspective, universal behavior—

that is, behavior shared by humans around the world--is based on a human biological

inheritance common to the ancestors of all of mankind. Alternatively, behavior that is

different among the various groups of mankind is learned from our social and physical

surroundings.

If we look from this vantage point at the variance in behavior of groups, we should not be

surprised to see that the interaction of diverse culture-specific behaviors across cultural

borders often leads to misunderstanding and conflict. Some examples of this are language

barriers and different interpretations of body language.

Such misunderstanding may occur because the received meaning of the various exotic

behaviors’ messages is found to be offensive, even if they were not meant to be so. In my

work with multi-ethnic organizations, I am constantly reminded by people of the

importance of watching what I say, because it would be very detrimental to our project if

I were accidentally to say something offensive to other ethnic groups—even if it were an

honest mistake.

Language Barriers

For street-level bureaucrats who must constantly deal with cultural tension arising

between different ethnic groups, the “art of conversation” is very important. Professor

Noam Chomsky18 is a linguist who writes about the concept of universal human behavior.

He suggests that although the surface structure (or apparent structure) of different

languages may seem very different, the deep structure of meaning is the same across all

languages. This universal deep structure, according to Chomsky, depicts the universal

pre-programmed (from within our biological heritage) language orientation and ability in

all humans.

While there may be much that is similar in languages, obviously different languages do

not have uniform surface structure. Many colloquial expressions are unique to a

particular language. Imagine the difficulty of a Chinese emigrant deciphering even the

variants in English as it is spoken about the Pacific basin. Some examples:

- Hang in there (an Americanism meaning: “Keep trying and don’t give up.”)

- Belt up! (an Anglicism meaning: “Shut up!”)

- Piddling around (another Americanism meaning: “not doing anything much”)

- She’ll be right, mate (an Australianism meaning: “Everything will be OK.”)

- Bob’s your uncle (an Anglicism meaning: “arriving, succeeding or accomplishing”)

As these examples of expressions from a common language in different cultures show, it

is not possible to be sure of the meaning unless one is conversant with the expressions of

that culture. Therefore it is necessary to relate human behavior to the context of its source

to gain a complete understanding of actions and comments.

The following examples18 illustrate that culture-specific language reflects the type of

adaptation necessary for survival in the physical and social surroundings of each culture:

- Japanese can speak to another using a selection of many different address forms to

indicate explicitly any one of a whole range of relationships; for example: intimate,

familiar, neutral, polite, deferential, authoritative. This illustrates the importance of the

hierarchy and ceremony of interpersonal relationships in that society.

- The Hunanoo, a tribe in the Philippines, have an incredible 92 different names for the

many varieties of rice in their surroundings. Rice is a staple food for them and obviously

very important for their survival. The Hunanoo also have forty different linguistic

categories for soil quality and mineral content, distinguish 1500 types of plants and

cultivate over 400 of them, and recognize over 450 animal types.

- The Hindi language has separate words for: my sister’s husband (Behoni), my

husband’s elder brother (jait), my husband’s younger brother (deva), and my husband’s

sister’s husband (nandoya). Kinship vocabulary is an indication of the nature of the more

significant family relations in a culture. The single word brother-in-law in English

indicates that one behaves similarly towards all the men in those different kinship

statuses. The variety of words for this concept in Hindi indicates that each of these

categories of people may be treated differently.

Understanding, appreciating and respecting different languages and acknowledging

cultural pride is a very important first step for street-level bureaucrats to take, in order for

them to be accepted by the communities in which they are to work.

For example, when I go to Chinatown (my native community) I will only speak Chinese.

By using Chinese, besides overcoming the language barrier, I am also making a political

and cultural statement that “I am one of you.” This helps me to break the ice with

strangers quickly.

Cultural Difference in Body Language

We also need to be very careful about the use of body language when we are talking with

members of different ethnic groups. Even a small gesture such as eye contact can mean

great differences in the ways two societies view the world and express this view. For

example, the use of the middle finger in Chinese culture does not carry any offensive

connotation. I know this; and yet, because I live and work within a culture in which the

middle finger is charged with strong associations, I sometimes feel very strange when

Chinese use their middle finger to show me directions or to indicate something.

According to Leigh18, there are many examples of body language that occur universally,

crossing ethnic lines of all cultures. For example:

- Smiling when happy or when greeting another;

- Raising eyebrows or hand waving when greeting another;

- Laughing when amused;

- Crying when sad or in pain;

- Slumping when dejected or tired.

However, there are also many different body language expressions which are contrasted

in different cultures. A street-level bureaucrat must take caution and be tentative in

interpreting body language, and must allow for the influence of individual and cultural

differences.

For instance: for a foreign male to engage in sustained eye contact with a Sri Lankan

woman connotes things that the foreigner probably does not intend, such as a proposition

to engage in sexual activity. So it is important to get the whole picture from a person’s

complete body language cluster, which is best understood with a view to that person’s

individual and cultural background.

In Chinese culture one never bends one's index finger upward or whistles to summon

people: these methods of beckoning are used for dogs in Chinese culture, and to use them

for people makes a statement that the user considers those beckoned to as no better than

animals. Because it’s a great cultural and political offense in China to summon people in

this way, it symbolizes arrogant racist western imperialist attitudes.

In each of the above cases, we can understand much about the particular group from the

way its language has developed and is used now, and how this usage affects the group's

cultural and worldviews. A street-level bureaucrat tasked with cross-cultural

communication and support may find it impossible, without such inter-cultural

awareness, to avoid potential cultural and language landmines that create cultural

misunderstandings.

Immigrants’ Cultural Resistance to Outsiders

Another challenge facing street-level bureaucrats in the immigrant community is that

many newly arrived immigrants, due to cultural and language barriers (even if they speak

good English), generally will insulate themselves from the new culture and resist any

outside influences, locking themselves up within their own community,

According to Lum20, immigration often involves drastic changes in an immigrant’s

communication environment and therefore presents a threat to her sense of cultural

continuity and identity. The experience of being uprooted and having to adjust to a

mostly unfamiliar social ecology, lack of language skills, institutional racism, legal and

social discriminations against immigrants can be particularly traumatic for those who

cannot integrate, even minimally, into the host country.

The trauma which is an unavoidable part of the immigrant experience, and the natural

distrust the immigrant feels against the host country, while the results of different

attempts at legitimizing and maintaining one’s sense of reality and identity, are also both

part of the struggle between haves and have-nots. The host country typically wants

immigrants to adapt in some way to the dominant culture, political ideology and social

norms (assimilation and pluralism). Should they be unable or unwilling to do so, they will

end up clinging to their own culture or system of communication, thereby failing to

assimilate.

Lum says the two most commonly observed immigrant or ethnic adaptation processes are

assimilation and pluralism. Assimilation characterizes a thought adoption process

whereby an immigrant or immigrant group acquires the traits of the dominant society and

is ultimately absorbed into that society. On the other hand, pluralism suggests a partial

adaptation process whereby immigrant groups both maintain their own cultural norms

and participate in the dominant society.

The issues of assimilation and pluralism in the context of the immigrant experience are

intimately related to the notion of cultural identity, which is often manifest in how one

communicates. The key concept here is that of “us” as opposed to “outsiders”. That is

one of the main reasons why immigrants create their own communities, such as

Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Koreatown and so on. Street-level bureaucrats and service

providers often face immigrants who need their services but in their hearts will never

trust them. While historically racism in America has forced immigrant communities to

build their community into a fortress to support and protect themselves, it has also been a

convenient way of excluding people from different ethnic backgrounds in order to serve

the dominant community's own political, social and financial purposes.

For example, the northern strip of Los Angeles' Chinatown used to be controlled by

rightwing, conservative elders of the Chinese community. For more than 70 years these

elders would prevent people from outside the community from getting anywhere near

their “turf,” and anyone from inside the community who dared to work with outsiders

was considered a traitor to the community. In this way the community factions

controlled their turf and protected their financial and political interests. But starting in the

late 1990s, when many of these elders had either retired or passed away, members of

these factions began quietly to sell off properties within their turf to wealthy white

Westside artists for development as galleries or boutiques. It’s ironic that the same people

who for so long had used the threat of violence to prevent white people from invading our

community are now the very same people selling out and gentrifying our community.

Chapter 2: Challenges of Organizing in the Inner-City Immigrant Workers

Community

In order to understand Southern California’s immigrant communities, first we need to

understand the demographic profiles of these communities and the social problems the

communities are facing. Then we need to discuss the key challenges--both internal and

external--facing the street-level bureaucrats who are going to work in the immigrant

workers community.

Demographic Profile of Asian and Pacific Islanders in Southern California

According to the recent report by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center30,31, Asian

Pacific Islanders (APIs) stand out as the region’s most diverse group. The API

community includes 45 ethnic groups of varied cultural, social and economic

backgrounds. Over 28 languages other than English are spoken. For a street-level

bureaucrat, understanding this diversity can be a daunting task.

Some key findings of the report are:

1) APIs are the fastest growing major group in the United States. API population growth

outpaces that of African Americans, Latinos, and Whites in southern California.

2) Population growth is occurring in both established and emerging API communities.

Established API communities in places such as Westminster doubled in size from 1990 to

2000. New API communities are emerging throughout suburban Southern California in

places like La Crescenta-Montrose, Aliso Viejo, and San Marcos.

3) APIs are more likely than other ethnic groups to be linguistically isolated.

API language speaking households (those using languages such as Chinese, Japanese,

Vietnamese and Korean) are linguistically isolated to a greater degree than comparable

Spanish-speaking households in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. Over one-half of API

language speaking households in El Monte, San Gabriel, Garden Grove and Rosemead

are linguistically isolated.

4) API communities in Southern California cities experience high rates of poverty.

One in five APIs in Long Beach, Rosemead, Pomona and El Monte live below the

poverty line.

According to the Asian Pacific American Legal Center30, given the considerable API

population growth in Southern California, government agencies and others serving API

communities must allocate greater resources to programs that attempt to meet their needs.

In particular, service providers must recognize the critical role language plays in the

delivery of assistance to an increasingly linguistically-isolated population.

API Communities in Los Angeles County

Dating back to the formation of Chinatown (the “old” Chinatown) in the 1860s, Los

Angeles County has a rich history of API communities. Little Tokyo was established in

the early 1900s; Koreatown, the biggest Korean community outside Korea, became a

local presence in the 1960s, followed by Little India in the 1970s. Thai Town was

officially named in 1999, and in August of 2002 the oldest and best-known Filipino

settlement was formally recognized as “Historic Filipinotown.” As of this writing (2004)

these older and longer-established communities continue to grow and expand into the

suburbs, whereas members of more recent inner-city API immigrant communities such as

Chinese tend to cut off and move away entirely from the city center (the Korean

community is a notable exception to this trend).

Language

Among those who speak an API language at home (such as Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean

or Thai), more than half list themselves as speaking English less than “very well” and are

considered “Limited English Proficient” (LEP)31.

§ Over 80% of Asian households speak a language other than English at home.

§ API language speaking households make up to 10% of the households in Los Angeles

County.

§ While a majority of the API population speaks only English or speaks English very

well, fully 44% speak English less than “very well.”

§ Nearly half the API adult population (46%) and two-thirds of API seniors (65%)

speak English less than “very well”; whereas only 25% of API children speak English

less than “very well.”

Linguistic Isolation

API language speaking households have the highest levels of linguistic isolation of

Southern California immigrant groups.31

§ Over third of API language speaking households (35%) are linguistically isolated.

§ API language speaking seniors make up a disproportionate share of linguistically

isolated seniors. While API language speakers make up only 20% of the population in

linguistically isolated households, they make up 36% of the seniors in such

households.

Economic Indicators

1) Income30:

APIs lag behind Whites in all measures of income.

§ Median household income in 1999 was $47,631 for Asians and $42,363 for

Pacific Islanders, both lower than $53,978 for the White population.

2) Poverty:

APIs have higher poverty rates then the White population.

§ 14% of APIs lived below the poverty line in 2000; the child poverty rate was 13%

and the senior poverty rate was 12%.

3) Education:

A large number of APIs do not have more than a high school education.

§ 18% of APIs have less than a high school degree.

Demographic Profile of Los Angeles’ Chinese Community

An instructive example of the characteristics of many API immigrants is the immigrant

Chinese community. Every year thousands of Chinese immigrants come to Southern

California. Since 1970, an increasing number of Southeast Asian immigrant Chinese have

arrived, some as refugees.

The Chinese origins of many of these people, who have migrated at least twice in their

lives, are the regions of Guangdong, Chieu Chow, Amoy and Fukien. In addition, there

are many recent arrivals from Hong Kong, Taiwan and all parts of China. Many have low

to moderate incomes and many are elderly. They choose Chinatown as their entry

community because of language and culture. The more affluent settle and conduct

business in the suburban centers of the San Gabriel Valley, Palos Verdes, Cerritos and

Orange County. The next chapter will describe some of the salient characteristics of the

Chinese immigrant community.

Challenges Facing Would-Be Organizers of the Chinese Immigrant Community

Chinatown has a unique social and cultural structure different from that of mainstream

WASP society. Unless you are a first-generation Chinese immigrant fluent in Chinese,

you would find it difficult to understand how we think, work and operate. While the

differences between Western attitudes to work and those of Chinese immigrants are not

insurmountable, stereotyping and cultural ignorance prevent many social workers and

service providers from understanding our community, greatly increasing the challenges

facing those outsiders determined to work with the community19.

The following are the key issues regarding internal political and social dynamics that

street-level bureaucrats need to consider in order to provide good service to the citizens

of LA’s Chinatown:

§ Language barrier and cultural dynamics

§ Social environment, economic disadvantages and vulnerability

§ Distrust due to racism and segregation

§ Lack of community resources

§ Internal politics and social dynamics

Language Barrier and Cultural Dynamics in the Chinese Community

Lum’s study20 of Chinese immigrant families within the social environment of New

York’s Chinatown found that, in order to understand the issues of cultural assimilation,

pluralism and insularity among immigrant communities, we need to examine

contemporary immigrants' use of the media within their community.

Lum argues that, for different reasons, certain immigrants are more readily assimilable

into the dominant society of their host country, while others may remain isolated from it

in varying degrees. Lum found that most immigrants feel themselves practically engulfed

in an alien media environment while having constantly to negotiate their way through the

cultural landscape of their host country. Before a longer-term adjustment is achieved, the

only familiarity, stability, and security recent immigrants have are the norms and

practices they have brought from their homeland; and their community newspaper often

plays a key role in shaping their cultural/political views of their host country.

Social Environment, Economic Disadvantages and V uln erability

The Social Environment of Chinatown

Although there are at least a dozen Chinatowns in the United States, the key social,

cultural, political and economic centers for Chinese-Americans are New York, San

Francisco, and Los Angeles, each with distinct characteristics.

Since the 1980s, the sheer numbers of new Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong, China,

Taiwan and Southeast Asia (that is, countries such as Malaysia and the Philippines),

together with their capital and diverse professional and occupational expertise, have

helped Chinese-American communities evolve intro a vibrant and more self-sustaining

economic group. There is a two-tier system within the community: wealthy Chinese

immigrants (mainly from Hong Kong and Taiwan) enjoy high social status within the

community, obtaining the best education and housing, whereas poorer Chinese migrants

(mainly from China) occupy the lowest rung of the community's economic and social

ladder, facing constant discrimination and working at the lowest-paying jobs such as

those in sweatshop factories and restaurants21.

While many wealthy and second-generation Chinese immigrants move out of Chinatown,

many new arrivals choose to stay under Chinatown’s social and economic umbrella

because it provides them with economic opportunities that would be unavailable

elsewhere. Like many other immigrant communities, Chinatown is a country within a

country. Political and social hierarchies within the community determine the politics of

Chinatown, and how they deal with the host country, and even influence the politics of

their mother country.

For these reasons, if a Chinese immigrant were to be “expelled” or “condemned” by the

community, s/he would lose the social and economic umbrella that the community

provides—becoming a person without a soul, suffering a political death sentence and

personal humiliation.

Economic disadvantages and vulnerability

Economic disadvantages in the immigrant workers community are very clear. The

substantial initial earnings disadvantages of immigrant workers are often a result of lower

levels of human capital when arriving in the United States. They need to be constantly

working in order to get enough money for their family. Therefore, although many

migrant workers might hate their employers for being sweatshop operators, they are not

likely to consider activists and service providers as allies, because these are not the ones

paying their wages.

The following example will show the dynamics of the problem. In a recent report by the

Urban Institute39, children of immigrants are likely to face economic disadvantages:

More than one-quarter (26 percent) of children living in a low-income family—with an income below the poverty level—are children of immigrants. Sixty-five percent of low-income immigrant families with children are two-parent families, compared to only 40 percent of native low-income families with children.

Half of immigrant families with children had incomes below twice the poverty level in 2000, compared to only one third of native families with children.

Between 1995 and 2000, the number of low-income immigrant families grew by only 7 percent in states with generous social welfare programs for immigrants, compared to 31 percent in states with less generous programs.

One in 3 children without insurance is in an immigrant family.

Compared to children of children of native parents, children of immigrants are more likely to: lack health insurance (25 percent compared to 11 percent); have no usual source of medical care (14 percent compared to 4 percent); and be "food insecure" (37 percent compared to 27 percent).

Therefore, when immigrants must choose between fighting back or keeping their job and

the means of supporting their family, they will choose to keep their jobs.

Furthermore, because of the discrimination inherent in American immigration policies,

migrants who want to come to the United States must brave an extremely dangerous

journey in order to be smuggled into the country, plus tens of thousands of dollars in

smugglers fees to pay, mostly promissory notes or IOUs to the smugglers (snake heads in

Chinese terms, or Coyotes in Mexican terms). In the case of Chinese immigrants, they

will be forced to work a long time in order to repay the money (usually with high interest

rates), most often in sweatshop jobs such as in factories or restaurants.

However, as long as the migrants keep quiet and work hard, eventually they will be able

to repay the money and be set free, and possibly even send some money back home. Then

they work a few more years longer, and wait for the next amnesty (to get a green card);

when they get residency and save enough money to open their business, they’ll hire other

new arrivals to work for their business. This has been the cycle within our community for

the past 100 years—as long as you bite your tongue, work hard, and don’t get in any

trouble, eventually you will be able to achieve the “American dream.” Therefore, unless

they have no other choice, immigrants rarely want to risk asking outside forces (such as

activists or street-level bureaucrats) for help, since this is not the best way to resolve their

financial problems.

For example, one of my undocumented worker friends recently got a green card after

eight years of waiting. Despite new laws such as the notorious U.S.A. PATRIOT Act and

the new anti-immigrant anti-terrorism bill, how was it that he had no problem with the

paperwork required for a green card? He simply paid $1000.00 in fines to the

immigration department, which resolved his immigration violation completely. “It’s all

just a game the government and I are playing!” he said.

Distrust due to racism and segregation

Racism plays a key role in the attacks on immigrants.

Jacobs and Landau says during the late 19th century America it was popular belief among

whites that the Chinese were dirty and carried germs and disease40. “BE CAUTIOUS!”

warned a typical food market advertisement against Chinese immigrants in a San

Francisco newspaper in the 1880s.

Furthermore, the U.S. labor movement historically had also played a very negative role in

anti-immigrant campaigns. Instead of fighting against the multinational corporations and

anti-labor government policies, many labor activists go along with right-wing forces in

always looking for a scapegoat to blame. During the 1980's, this was the role of Japan;

from the late 80's to early 90's it was the turn of Korea and Taiwan; and since the late

90's, it has been China.

 

China-bashing campaigns have deep roots in the U.S. labor movement for over 100 years,

beginning with the Chinese Exclusion Act (which was the first major political action

taken by the US labor movement and the AFL). Chinese workers in U.S. historically have

been stereotyped as "job stealing," "union-busting" people (during the labor strikes in the

late 19th century, many bosses would send Chinese workers to replace the striking

workers). All this created huge anti-Chinese feeling within the labor movement, leading

to the American labor movement’s support of the racist Chinese Exclusion Act. Anti-

Chinese race riots led by poor White inner-city Irish workers throughout the U.S. from

the 1880s to 1910 destroyed dozens of Chinese settlements and killed hundreds of

Chinese-Americans.

 

Later, as the basis of the Chinese Exclusion Act, U.S. Congress passed the Tydings-

McDuffie Act of 1934 to exclude all Filipinos from this country, and force them to go

back to the Philippines. Then, in the 1940's during World War II, the notorious U.S.

concentration camps were set up to round up all Japanese-Americans.

Before arriving in the U.S., many migrants were victims of U.S. invasions or covert

actions in their home country, such as El Salvador or Nicaragua. A victim of such activity

has trouble trusting U.S. officials of any capacity, even those such as street-level

bureaucrats whose job is ostensibly to help them improve their lot.

Lack of Community Resources

Kwong25 postulates that  if the Chinese community can develop its own grassroots

organizations based on new political alignments cutting across traditional clan, village,

trade, and tong divisions, then the new community will be able to confront its problems

and pressure government authorities to respond to its needs.

Los Angeles' Chinatown is one of the oldest Asian immigrant communities in the United

States, with a population of 30,577 (2000 U.S. Census for Zip Code 90012)12. Half are

immigrants and approximately 25% are non-U.S. citizens, so a need for an immigrant

service center is very pressing. Since the late 1960s the educated, second-generation

Chinese in the community, which successfully won funding from the government to open

community centers, have led the movement for change within the Chinese community.

However, due to the funding requirements for non-profits (according to the law, non-

profit organizations cannot involve themselves in partisan election politics, which

excludes labor struggles and strikes), and due to class division (most wealthy second

generation immigrants are no longer living in the community, and many do not speak

their ancestors' language or share their cultural values), a community center created by

the second generation will not address the political struggles of the community or help

immigrants in their labor struggles.

According to the Applied Research Center's report11 immigrant service centers and

government welfare agencies have many limitations and challenges, such as:

Little capacity to intervene in policies that affect their constituents;

The criteria for government funding severely restrict organizational options;

Little contact with the wider established advocacy community;

Competition for scarce resources can weaken immigrant infrastructure.

For example, the Chinatown Service Center (CSC) in Los Angeles' Chinatown, funded

by Los Angeles County, the State of California and wealthy residents from the Chinese

immigrant community, offers: (1) social services, (2) counseling, (3) family health, (4)

community economic development, (5) workforce development, and (6) youth

development for the Chinese immigrant community. However, CSC is not a community-

based immigrant workers center or mutual assistance immigrant advocacy organization.

It does not fight for workers' rights or immigrants' rights, and ignores the anti-sweatshop

movement and the ongoing struggle for political rights for our community. These are

vital areas in which no advocacy is being done, while many Chinese immigrants in

Chinatown continue to eke out a hellish living as undocumented sweatshop workers.

Internal Politics and Social Dynamics Within the Immigrant Community

Historically, economic hardship has been the common lot of new immigrants who do not

know English, lack marketable skills, and work in unstable industries. But since many

Chinese are also working for Chinese employers in the underground economy, in jobs

such as the sex industry and sweatshops, they are not protected by American labor law.

Factory owners dodge social security payments for their workers, landlords charge key

money, Chinese-owned banks ignore banking regulations, youth gangs extort protection

money from shop owners, and tongs intimidate—even murder--dissenters.

Nobody dares to complain, because Chinatown is still dominated by a traditional political

elite in which rules with the acquiescence of outside authorities. Chinese immigrants in

America have historically formed family- and village-based associations and secret

societies to defend immigrants against racial attacks from whites. However, these

associations, once established, developed a strength of their own, coming to rule the

working people in the community. Today, this traditional order has been modified, but it

continues to exist. It has adapted to modern conditions to serve a new class of owners and

landlords in Chinatown.

Chinese immigrants confront not only the racism of the larger society but also the

dominance in their communities of a traditional political order.

When a labor or political activist is “condemned” by the community elders, socially it

means s/he will be expelled from Chinatown and banned from returning to the

community for working, living, doing business and even ever coming there to shop. Such

a ban is a political death-penalty: a Chinese immigrant banned in this way is also unlikely

to find any means of economic support outside the community, and will be forced to

skulk around in shame and disgrace for the rest of her/his life.

Fear of such a ban prevents members of the Chinese-American community from working

with activists internally and from asking for help externally to fight for their rights: these

actions will not only cost them their jobs, but will get them expelled from the community.

Chapter 3: Conclusions

This guidebook’s intent is to help street-level bureaucrats and immigrant service

providers to understand the dynamics of the inner-city immigrant workers community,

and prepare them with the necessary skills and information as they are planning to go to

work.

Although these skills are based on an individual’s capacity and ability to understand other

cultures, I want to clearly emphasize that it’s not easy to work in the immigrant workers

community. Due to the history of distrust, the culture of ignorance in American society,

and the internal dynamics within the community, not to mention the problem of

government bureaucracy, there will always be mistrust and hostility from members of the

community towards “outsiders”—unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about it in

the short run. However, if we work from our heart, our sincere intent and honest actions

can narrow the gap of trust between the community and government officials. In the long

run we will build trust if we can show them our application and our respect for their way

of life.

Although I have tried to be as universal as possible, since every culture is different, some

tactics and elements from this guidebook which will work in the Chinese community may

not work in the Salvadoran or Japanese communities: the user must apply concepts in the

guidebook, together with common sense, to design different strategies based on the

particular community you wish to serve.

Street-level bureaucrats must remain conscious that our work in the community is not a

charity nor a free giveaway, but rather is solidarity work supporting empowerment of the

community. Americans should understand that the racial policy of selecting third world

immigrants to fill America’s labor needs is what allows these conditions (sweatshops,

poverty, racism) to develop in immigrant communities in the first place. Exposing the op-

pression within new immigrant communities should therefore be part of the new agenda

for the struggle against racism in modern America.

In conclusion: when they go to the immigrant community, public policy workers and

street-level bureaucrats should keep in mind a powerful statement made by Australian

Aboriginal Elder Lilla Watson:

"If you've come here to help me, you're wasting your time. But if you've

come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work to-

gether."

Reference

1. “Organizing Immigrant Workers: Action Research and Strategies in the Pomona Day Labor Center" by: Jose Z. Calderon, Suzanne Foster, Silvia Rodriguez, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA

2. “Organizing Immigrants: The Challenge for Unions in Contemporary California" by: Ruth Milkman. 2000. Cornell University Press, NJ

3. “Organize for What? The Resurgence of Labor as Citizenship Movement" by: Paul Johnson, Citizenship Project.

4. “Advancing an Asian Agenda for Immigrant Reform" by: UC Berkeley Labor Center, 2002, Berkeley, CA

5. “Immigration and Immigrants: Setting the Record Straight" by: Fix, Michael and Jeffrey S. Passel. 1994, The Urban Institute.

6. “Immigration: The Demographic and Economic Facts & Measuring the Fallout" by: Simon, Julian L. 1997, Cato Institute and the National Immigration Forum, Washington DC.

7. “A 'New Labor Movement' in the shell of the Old?" by: Brecher, Jeremy, and Tim Costello. 1996. Labor Research Review

8. “Just-in-Time Guerrilla Warriors: Immigrant Workers' Centers, in Sweatshop Warriors" by: Ching Yoon Louie, Miriam. 2001 South End Press, MA Hector L. 1993 Temple University Press

9. “Learning about bi-lingual, multicultural organizing" by: Heskin, Allan David and Robert A. Hefner. 1987 Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences

10. “Organizing Immigrants: The Challenge for Unions in Contemporary California" by: Milkman, Ruth. 2000 Cornell University Press.

11. “Mapping the Immigrant Infrastructure" by: Mimi Ho. 2002 Applied Research Center Oakland, CA

12. “Handbook of U.S. Labor Statistics" Sixth Edition, by: Eva E. Jacobs. 2003 Bernan Lanhan, MD

13. “Sweat-Free Campus Campaign Organizing Manual" by: United Students Against Sweatshops. 2004 Washington D.C.

14. “Fighting for Immigrant Rights to Education" by: United States Student Association. 2004 Washington D.C.

15. “Comprehensive Immigrant Outreach Through Building Community Partnerships" by: Children Defense Fund Newsletter, Fall 2000; Washington D.C.

16. “An Oral History Project on Louisville's Immigrant Community" by: National Education Association; Washington D.C.

17. “Surveying Immigrant Communities: Policy Imperatives and Technical Challenges" by: Julie DaVanzo, Jennifer Hawes-Dawson, Robert Otto Burciaga Valdez, Georges Vernez, Christina A. Andrews, Barbara A. Levitan, Joyce E. Peterson, Robert F. Schoeni; 1994; RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA

18. “Implications of Universal and Parochial Behavior for Intercultural Communication" by: James Leigh, PhD FRGS; November 2000; Intercollege, Nicosia, Cyprus

19. “Chinese and North Americans: An epistemological exploration of intercultural communication" by: Ling Chen; The University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK

20. “Communication and Cultural Insularity: The Chinese Immigrant Experience" by: Casey Man Kong Lum, 1991 issue 8 Pg 91-101; Critical Studies in Mass Communication

21. “The Chinese in America" by: Iris Chang, 2003; Penguin Books, New York, NY

22. “The Chinese Americans" by: Benson Tong, 2003; University Press of Colorado, Boulder, CO

23. “Asian Americans" by: Lin Zhan, 2003; Jones and Bartlet Publishers, London, UK

24. “Cultural Wars in America" by: Edward P. Lazear 1996; Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA

25. “The New Chinatown" by: Peter Kwong, 1987; Hill and Wang, New York, NY

26. “How and Where to Research Your Ethnic-American Cultural Heritage-Chinese Americans" by: Robert D. Reed 1979 Saratoga, CA

27. “The Los Angeles Almanac 2001" by: Gerhard F. Thornton 2001, Given Place Publishing, Montebello, CA

28. Chinese American Museum Newsletter, Spring 2004 Issue, Los Angeles, CA

29. Asian Pacific American Legal Center Newsletter, Fall 2003, Volume 3, Los Angeles, CA

30. Asian Pacific American Legal Center Newsletter, Winter 2003, Volume 4, Los Angeles, CA

31. “Demographic Profile of Asian and Pacific Islanders in Southern California Census 2000" by: Asian Pacifica American Legal Center January 2003, Los Angeles, CA

32. “The Diverse Face of Asians and Pacific Islanders in Los Angeles County" by: Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Los Angeles, CA

33. “Crossing Boundaries: An Exploration of Effective Leadership Development in Communities" by: Asian Pacific1 American Legal Center April 2003, Los Angeles, CA

34. “Counseling and Psychotherapy” by: Carl Rogers 1942, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA

35. “Los Angeles Sweatshop Workers Who Sewed University Clothing Demand Justice” by: Sweatshops Watch, Nov 16, 1999, Los Angeles, CA

36. “Report 1: Investing in Innovation: An Assessment of Next Generation Leadership and the Philanthropy Workshop” by: The Center for Human Resources and the Teller Graduate School for Advanced Studies, Rockefeller Foundation, New York, NY

37. “Organizing for Social Change” by: Midwest Academy, 2001, Third Edition, Chicago, IL

38. “Non-Union, Low-Wage Workers Are Finding a Voice as Immigrant Workers Centers Grow” by: Janice Fine, August 2003, Labor Notes, Detroit, MI

39. “Children of Immigrants” by: The Urban Institute, October 1, 2001, Washington D.C.

40. “To Serve the Devil” by Paul Jacobs, Eve Pell & Saul landau, 1971, random House, New York, NY

33

Appendix

34

Handbook: Useful Techniques and Policy Suggestions for Working with Inner-City

Immigrant Workers Communities

35

Chapter 1: Policy Recommendations

We identify the following policy recommendations for designing training programs for

street-level bureaucrats to work with Los Angeles’ Asian immigrant workers

communities:

1) Increase service response to ethnic groups and communities with significant language

needs. (Chapter 2)

Language is an essential tool for navigating the basic functions of the daily world.

Without programs to overcome language barriers, these populations remain vulnerable.

The Asian population continues to experience high rates of limited English proficiency

and linguistic isolation. These persistent language issues need to be addressed by

assisting those who find it difficult to obtain basic services and by offering greater access

to English language acquisition. Street-level bureaucrats, immigrant service providers

and government agencies must recognize the critical role language plays in the delivery

of assistance, as well as in the ability of recipients to participate in education, economic,

and civic life.

2) Identify and respond to changing needs in areas experiencing a rapid growth and

increasing concentration of APIs. (Chapter 3)

The L.A. API community is growing in both size and diversity. As the population

increases, its needs grow and become more complex. With the dramatic growth of the

API population comes an increase in community needs such as English-language

education, translation for government and health services, outreach to senior populations,

sensitivity to cultural differences, and naturalization and immigration services.

36

Government agencies, street-level bureaucrats and others serving the API community

must respond to this growth by allocating greater resources to meet these needs.

The labor movement is part of the social movement, one of the key elements of which is

community support. The 1988-90 Pittston coal miners' strike is an example: the whole

community mobilized in defense of their right to health care, deploying tactics and

discourse consciously adopted from the civil rights movement and the United Farm

Workers union. More recently, the massive Teamsters' strike of United Parcel Service in

1997 also ended in success. Again, not coincidentally, the strikers framed their claims as

a public issue, and again they enjoyed the solid support of an international leadership

renewed through internal upheaval. That the strike in turn emboldened immigrant

workers, the union and the community during the Justice for the Janitors month-long

2000 strike in Los Angeles, in which they showed the massive power of the immigrant

community to shut down downtown Los Angeles. The Justice for Janitors strike received

great public support and won better wages and benefits for the mostly immigrant

janitorial workers in Los Angeles.

3) Increase services available to the most disadvantaged API groups (chapter 3)

There are persistent disparities in well-being among Asian ethnic groups. Southeast Asian

refugee groups experience the greatest barriers to overcoming poverty. Pacific Islanders

continue to be among the poorest and least educated in L.A. County. These groups and

others face obstacles, such as lack of English proficiency, childcare, transportation, and

job training, that keep them trapped in low-wage jobs or dependent on public assistance.

37

Resources need to be directed toward addressing such challenges to help improve the

status of these populations.

Why is an immigrant community center one of the keys to immigrant community

organizing? Calderon, Foster and Rodriguez recount what immigrant workers in the city

of Pomona, CA did when there was no available government resources to help them: they

decided to organize an immigrant workers' center to protect their rights.

Pomona Day Labor Center's experience focuses on a collaborative effort in a city where

college students, faculty members, community advocates, and day laborers joined

together to establish an official site from which day laborers could negotiate employment.

This case study is only part of a larger story that is even now taking place in Los Angeles

and throughout the U.S.: workers and college students are building partnerships and

coalitions to empower workers and defend their rights.

In my opinion, the importance of the center was its focus on improving the long-term

conditions of day laborers by involving them in the policy making process, building their

own leadership, and advancing services aimed at improving their quality of life. This

article, inasmuch as it is about building collaborative relations, is also about the different

strategies that are being used to organize day laborers.

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4) Street-level bureaucrats should act as boundary-crossing leaders (Chapter 4).

A “boundary-crossing leader” is a leader, such as a community organizer, street-level

bureaucrat, or immigrant-service provider, with the ability to work from a multi-group

perspective—one that not only fully understands each group’s needs, but also

successfully bridges these needs and moves towards the goal of producing a greater good

for everyone. The term also refers to a leader’s ability to work across boundaries--

ethnicity, class, religion, sector, geography, sexual orientation--that have traditionally

divided communities.

Chapter 2: Effective Intercultural Communication and the S.O.S. of

Communication

The S.O.S. of communication with an international accent:

§ Speak S-lowly, with pauses.§ Speak O-penly, with a wider open mouth and clear enunciation.§ Speak by saying each word S-eparately.

The following are some guidelines to success in intercultural communication:

§ Above all else be sincere and empathetic§ Avoid blaming others, as communication is a joint team activity§ Encourage and praise, be patient and don’t shout§ Plan carefully, not too much information, but carefully selected. Keep it short§ Use simple sentences (short and simple structure) and words§ Use plenty of pauses and repeat if necessary§ Show and tell—models, illustrations, videos, demos, pictures, diagrams, slides,

cartoons, et cetera§ Reinforce or repeat key points§ Check listener’s understanding—get good feedback, use WH words (why, where,

who, which, when, how, etc.). How will you do it? What do you understand?§ Master the interpretation of other’s universal and culture-specific body language

clusters§ Develop a good style of communication by utilizing appropriate body language

yourself

39

§ Don’t use long strings of adjectives one after the other§ Don’t use idioms, similes, metaphors, slang and jargon unless necessary, and then

only when you are sure that they will be understood§ Don’t change sentences in the middle in order to clarify the meaning§ Avoid simplifying by using pidgin or broken language

It’s very important that street-level bureaucrats and immigrant service providers be aware

of the cultural discrimination new immigrants constantly face in this country because

they speak different languages and come from a different homeland. As one can see in

Hollywood movies, foreigners are typically portrayed as speaking English with funny

accents, strange, inscrutable, unpredictable, rude. We should be very careful about their

emotional stress when they try to speak in English with strong accents; also, we should

not patronize them by speaking English in an exaggeratedly slow way, since we don’t

want to make them feel we are insincere.

Chapter 3: Immigrant Community Center As a Communication Bridge

Immigrant community centers, or immigrant workers centers, are become increasingly

important in immigrant community organizing. We need to build an immigrant workers

center that will pursue the following combination of strategies, including:

Organizing and advocacy: building an association of workers who act together for

economic and political change, and who fight for labor and immigrant rights.

Service delivery: such as legal representation to recover lost wages, English as a Second

Language classes, and job placement.

40

Importance of Immigrant Community Center

The key to success in any immigrant-labor movement is to focus on community issues.

With the dramatic demographic shifts in America's urban centers, many community

originations have had to find ways to accommodate both the language and cultural

differences of immigrant populations. An immigrant community center must have the

following key strengths:

Local focus;

Ability to integrate concerns of established residents and new immigrants;

An internal process reflecting multilingual/multicultural constituents;

A place-based leadership structure enabling new immigrant participation.

An immigrant workers center clearly needs to help the lowest rung of the immigrant

community to fight for their worker and political rights.

This is one of the key differences between a government service agency/immigrant

service center (purely a service provider run by street-level bureaucrats) and a community

activist/empowerment organization.

Key Characteristics of an Immigrant Workers Center

We need to focus on the top five concerns of immigrant communities:

Health services;

Housing services;

Immigration processing;

Economic development;

41

Translation and ESL services.

In addition, we include the functions of mutual assistance associations and ethnically

based service providers:

Locally focused;

Meet survival needs of new immigrants;

Staffed by immigrant constituents;

Grounded in social, familial, cultural values of home country;

Multilingual/Multicultural.

Street-level bureaucrats should understand what the immigrant community needs, and

learn their languages in order to better understand their cultures. We should focus on the

following areas:

Building collaboration among attorneys, service providers, trained translators and

cultural experts to assist coerced migrants;

Developing rapid response teams in local and regional areas;

Creating shelters and other new services for coerced migrants;

Building strategic partnerships with legal and human rights groups in the

countries of origin to educate people about coerced migration and its

consequences.

How to Use the Center to Work with the Immigrant Workers Community

To plan and implement an immigrant worker center in the community (such as a day

labor center) requires public administrators and community activists to be able to bridge

42

the gap. The community must be motivated to join the creation of the center together with

the policy workers and street level bureaucrats, making the community feel “ownership”

of the center, and allowing the community to welcome outsiders into the community

circle.

Because many low-wage workers today are as likely to be struck by lightning as to be

approached to join a union, many community-based efforts around work and wages have

organized outside the context of labor unions.

The bulk of immigrants to the United States today, documented and undocumented, work

in low-wage jobs. These workers toil overwhelmingly in the private sector, at jobs that

are non-union, in industries that present huge barriers to unionization.

Workers centers--a new type of community-based labor organization with the dual role of

raising wage standards and giving low-wage workers a voice in the broader society--are

attempting to fill this void. Most have arisen in communities of newly arrived low-wage

immigrant workers.

For example, our project, the Los Angeles Chinese Immigrant Workers Center, will be

the first of its kind for Los Angeles’ Chinatown, a community gathering place for Los

Angeles' Chinatown immigrants, offering immigrant-labor support, meeting space,

community services, film showings and concerts, and training and art exhibit spaces for

youth and the immigrant activist communities.

43

Chapter 4: Boundary-Crossing Leaders and Community Leadership Development

In my opinion, we also need to create a new generation of cross-ethnic community

organizers who can help different ethnic groups while at the same time unifying them,

thereby giving them a stronger voice. Such boundary-crossing leaders will become more

and more important in multi-ethnic communities such as Los Angeles.

Generally, boundary-crossing leaders are those who demonstrate the following traits:

Operate from a sense of “global citizenship” that sees humanity interconnected,

and from a systems-analysis approach to social problems

Understand and fight against racism and other forms of oppression and exclusion

Continuously reach out to other groups and are networked into many groups

Actively acquire new skills to build larger networks

Collaborate on projects or work with diverse partners

Boundary-crossing leaders can link different communities together to fight for a common

cause, while the interests of each community group are represented and respected.

The skills of boundary-crossing leaders enable them to build the scale, breadth and size

of collaborations that are multi-faceted and effective. Equipping street-level bureaucrats

with this kind of leadership skill in Los Angeles immigrant workers communities is a

significant step forward in the process of addressing social problems and empowering

individuals and diverse communities.

44

Why Do We Need Boundary-Crossing Leadership in Los Angeles?

In Los Angeles, the struggle to empower disenfranchised communities is very much

vibrant and alive. However, in my experience, community leaders and organizers often

conduct social justice or community development work while isolated in their individual

communities, and collaboration can be fragmented and reactive—the so-called “turf”

issues. For example, ACORN only works with the African-American community on

housing issues: nothing else. The Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles

(CHIRLA) focuses on helping immigrants only from Central American countries (not

Mexico), because the key organizers of CHIRLA are from El Salvador. While Korean

Immigrant Workers Advocates (KIWA) claims to work with multi-ethnic communities,

their main focus is still the Korean immigrant community.

There’s nothing wrong with immigrant organizations helping their own people; but it

must be recognized that the challenges of community development work are only

exacerbated when each organization isolates itself inside its particular community. In

1992 the Los Angeles civil unrest in the aftermath of the Rodney King beating trial gave

a clear wakeup call to community leaders of the importance of cross-community

organizing. Because we are living in a multi-ethnic society, one community group’s

affairs will affect all the others, and one community group’s misfortune, in the long run,

will affect everyone.

One good example is the Immigrant Special Registration program instituted after the

September 11 attacks. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requires all

foreigners to register with the government or face deportation. Although the initial stages

45

of the program focused on immigrants from North Africa and Southwest Asia, a diverse

group of immigrant organizations from Asia, Latin America and Africa came together in

Los Angeles to protest Special Registration, because, as everyone knows, “an injury to

one is an injury to all!”

In Los Angeles, Karen Bass, executive director of the Community Coalition for

Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment, is a good example of a boundary-crossing

leader. Bass stresses that boundary-crossing is at the heart of her organization’s mission

as it focuses on community problems like liquor stores (drinking problems leads to

violence) or crack houses (drug sales leads to drug problems in the community as well as

drug-related gang warfare) in south Los Angeles that impact African Americans as well

as Latinos and Asian Americans. With the help of this program, traditional rival

communities in south central Los Angeles come together to resolve common problems.

Leadership Development Programs for the Boundary-Crossing Leader

There are numerous ways to categorize formal leadership development programs and

models. Broadly speaking, these programs include fellowship programs, individual skill

building programs, social entrepreneurial programs, community service programs,

pipeline programs, organizational development programs, community service programs,

and issue and/or field based programs. In the following sections, we will list various

leadership development models and show, based on these models, how we can design a

leadership program that will meet the community's needs.

46

A Look at Various Leadership Development Models

The following are general models of leadership development programs. Many programs

do not fit neatly into one category, but are hybrids that contain different components of

different models in their program. Based on the project and the needs of the particular

community's needs, we have the following seven types of community-leadership

development models:

1) Individual Skills/Capacity Building Model

This model focuses on developing the skills of individual leaders with the aim that their

leadership will generate positive social change for the community. Formal training and

experiential learning are usually aspects of such programs. The advantage of this

approach is one-on-one skill training to create a confident leadership. The down side is

that with such a high ratio of mentors to students we are only able to train a small group

of people. Good examples of this model in Los Angeles include Next Generation

Leadership (NGL) and the Coro Fellowship Program.

2) Grassroots Community Model

This model encourages participants to identify and create their own solutions to

community problems. The advantage of this approach is that it can help an organization

build on its own valuable experience to resolve its own problems. The down side is

there’s no guarantee that the organization will able to continue on the same path when the

leadership is changed. Good examples of this model in Los Angeles include the Mexican

American Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s (MALDEF) Parent/School Partnership,

and Leadership Development in Interethnic Relations (LIDR).

47

3) Organizational Model

This model focuses on developing capacities of organizations. Participants are usually

leaders of nonprofits or executive directors. The advantage of this model is that it creates

sustainable leadership for an organization based on its goals. The disadvantage of this

model is that it creates a small group of elite structure. A good example of this model in

Los Angeles is the Eureka Fellowship.

4) Specific Focus, Issues, and Target Populations Model

This model develops the learning of leadership as it applies to a specific focus, issues or

target group. Different types of programs have focused on such topics as healthcare

reform and violence prevention. These programs may also be ethnic-specific programs.

The advantage of this approach is that it helps the organization do well in its special area.

However, one problem with this approach is that the organization may become too

narrow in focus. Good examples of this approach include South Central Youth

Empowered through Action (SC-YEA), Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics

(LEAP), and Women’s Health Leadership.

5) Social Entrepreneurial Model

This model aim to supports the development of new ideas and projects through seed

money. The advantage of this approach is that it helps an organization establish a good

foundation for its future activities. But the flip side is that the program’s seed money is

usually too small (less than a few hundred dollars) to help to build big projects. Good

examples in this category include Community Leaders Fellows and Leadership for a

Changing World.

48

6) Community Service Model

This model is based on experiential learning through serving a community. Oftentimes

the participant is exposed to new culture and concepts through service in a school setting.

The advantage of this approach is that the organizer can learn a valuable lesson in

community organizing. However, training in this model often results in only a small

group of people who are able to have a meaningful impact on the community. A good

example of this kind of program in Los Angeles is Public Allies.

7) Recognition Model

This model rewards individual leaders for their services, usually through a cash award.

The advantage of this approach is that it can create role models for the community,

exemplifying good work and drawing public attention to the work of the leader. The

problem with this approach is that only a few people can be rewarded, and this could lead

to egotism and self-promotion. A community project, by definition, is the hard work of a

group of people, not just the contributions of an individual. Good L.A.-based examples of

this model include The California Wellness Peace Prize and the MacArthur Fellowship

Program (popularly referred to as “the Genius Awards”).

An individual organization can assess its needs and apply trade studies to identify the

pros and cons of each approach, and then decide to adopt one or more models for its

leadership building.

For example, our soon-to-be-opened Los Angeles Chinese Immigrant Workers Center

needs to develop bottom-up community leadership in the Chinese immigrant community:

49

leaders who can carry out their work on their own with our support. We will apply

several leadership development models for our planning, including the Grassroots

Community Model; the Specific Focus, Issues, and Target Populations Model; and the

Community Service Model.

Program Design

An effective boundary-crossing leadership development program should have: (1) a clear

set of goals; (2) cultural inclusiveness; and (3) a well-designed curriculum.

1) Articulated Mission and Goals

Because there are wide ranges of content within boundary-crossing curricula, a clear

mission and clearly articulated goals help determine which approaches best fit the

program and the community impacted. Therefore, it is critical from the start to define a

clear mission and goals when developing a leadership program with a boundary-crossing

curriculum.

In developing goals, community input is vital as it keeps the program tailored to the

needs of the community. This requires a participatory approach where funders and/or

program directors go into the communities and develop relationships with key

stakeholders. I recommend using the Midwest Academy’s Growth Chart as a tool to

analyze and prioritize your organization’s goals.

50

2) Cultural Inclusiveness

In designing a leadership development program for a community, experts from that

community must be invited to take part in the design process, because they manifest and

represent the cultural, political and historical knowledge of the community. If community

members can identify culturally with our program, it will be easier to get their acceptance

of, participation in, and ownership of the program.

One of the key ways to gain trust from the community is through language use and

positive communication skills. Would-be leaders need to speak the community's

language, and should be familiar with its cultural slang and body language.

Furthermore, the program should continuously recruit a diverse set of participants from

diverse class and political backgrounds within the community. For example, Los

Angeles’ Next Generation Leadership specifies in its program guidelines36:

One of the key issues for effective leadership development programs and for fostering creative, multi-sectoral dialogue is to bring the most creative and diverse group of participants possible to the table.

3) Curriculum: Substantive Issues and Skills Training

A good curriculum for boundary-crossing leadership training should include: (a) self-

reflection; (b) awareness of racism, oppression and exclusion; and (c) skills and action.

(a) Self-Reflection

An important aspect of boundary-crossing leadership development is the balancing of the

internal and external development of the leader. External development refers to training

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for specific skills such as: conflict resolution, facilitation, and networking. Internal

development refers to personal individual growth, such as: self-reflection and the

capacity for self-criticism.

(b) Racism, Oppression and Exclusion

Boundary-crossing leaders recognize that understanding racism and working towards its

elimination is a key to achieving social justice. A training program for such leaders

requires a component analyzing racism in its institutional, relational and personal forms.

In addition to racism, other forms of oppression such as classism, sexism, and

heterosexism also deserve in-depth discussion. The issue of class, for instance, is not

always well examined, although class is a key issue in community development. For

example, the two-tier class system in the Chinese-American community is based on

where you are from, and how wealthy you are. At the top are the elite group of highly

visible, wealthy educated people, generally from Hong Kong and Taiwan, who own

businesses or work for high-tech firms. At the bottom are the thousands of undocumented

Chinese immigrants who came from China or southeast Asia, forced to work in

sweatshops and living in slums.

Analysis of the “-isms” ultimately allows for a better understanding of oppression and

how it bars various groups from advancement. Explicit dialogue also identifies the core

issue of power. Though discussion on oppression many times leads to discussion of

power in a negative and abusive way, power as a positive force should also be examined,

especially in a group of leaders interested in social justice and community empowerment.

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(c) Skills and Action

Equipping leaders with boundary-crossing skills may include areas such as conflict

resolution, communication, group decision-making, grassroots organizing,

racial/ethnic/cultural self-identity, history of other groups, and oppression/racism/power

dynamics. Many programs also include a community action or a joint project to give

participants the collaborative experience and the opportunity of working in a diverse

group.

For example, the Los Angeles-based Latino/a student activist group Wise-Up recently has

been working with United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) and United States

Students Association (USSA) to create an alliance of dozens of local community groups

from different social and ethnic backgrounds. This alliance has launched a grass-roots

campaign of letter signing and community advocacy to urge the U.S. government to

support the DREAM Act, which helps youth from undocumented immigrant families go

to state college.

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Midwest Academy Growth Chart- The Six Steps of Direct Action Organizing

When we engage in Direct Action Organizing, we organize a campaign to win a specific

issue, that is, a specific solution to a problem. We have observed that an issue campaign

usually goes through this series of stages.

A. People identify a problem

The people who have the problem agree on a solution and how to get it. They may define

the issue narrowly: "Make our landlord return our rent deposits when we move out." Or,

they may define it more broadly: "Make the city council pass a law requiring the return of

rent deposits."

If the landlord owns only the one building, the tenants may be able to win on their own,

but if the landlord owns many buildings around the city, then building a coalition to pass

a law might be the best way.

B. The organization turns the problem into an issue

There is a difference between a problem and an issue. An issue is a specific solution to a

problem that you choose to work on. You don't always get to choose your problems.

Often your problems choose you. But you always choose your issues, the solutions to the

problem that you wish to change. Air pollution is a problem. Changing the law to get

older power plants covered by the same air quality regulations that apply to newer plants

is an issue.

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C. Develop strategy

A strategy is the overall plan for a campaign. It is about power relationships and it

involves asking six questions:

1. What are your long and short term goals?

2. What are your organizational strengths and weaknesses?

3. Who cares about this problem?

4. Who are your allies?

5. Who has the power to give you what we want?

6. What tactics can you use to apply your power and make it felt by those who can give

you what you want?

D. Bring Many People To Face The Decision Maker

Use large meetings and actions to force the person who can give you what you want to

react. That person is the decision maker. The decision maker is often referred to as the

"target" of the campaign. The decision maker is always an individual person or number of

individuals, never a board or elected body as a whole. Decision making bodies must be

personalized. So, if you are trying to get something passed by the City Council, for

example, you don't say the decision maker is the City Council. Rather you need specific

members of the council to vote on our issue. Who are they? Name them. What is your

power over them. Do you have members in their districts?

E. The Decision Maker Reacts To You

You either get what you want or you have to go out and organize still larger numbers of

people for a second round of the fight. Sometimes it takes several rounds before the fight

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is won. That is why we think of organizing as a whole campaign, not just as a series of

one shot events.

F. Win, Regroup, Go On To Next Campaign

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General Information About the Los Angeles Immigrant Workers Center

Los Angeles Chinese Immigrant Workers CenterTelephone: (626)403-2530 e-mail: CIW@ActionLA.org

General Information

Los Angeles Chinese Immigrant Workers Center (LA CIW), as proposed by ActionLA and several LA area immigrant community activist groups, will be the first immigrant workers center for Los Angeles' Chinatown community, offering immigrant-labor support, meeting spaces, community services, educational programs, and training and art exhibit spaces for Chinese youth and the immigrant activist communities.

Tentatively scheduled to open in early 2005, the center will include: A volunteer-staffed Chinese-speaking labor center for the Chinese immigrant workers community, and a coffeehouse - Cultural Café as a side business, as a way to financially sustain the space and offer several employment opportunities to the community.

Why Chinatown?Los Angeles does not have a Chinese-speaking immigrant community center. Los

Angeles' Chinatown area contains many new Chinese immigrants: the poorest Chinese in

Los Angeles. These immigrants mainly work in sweatshops near Chinatown or in the

downtown L.A. garment district. Yet there is no nearby Chinese-speaking immigrant and

sweatshop organization in L.A.'s Chinatown to help them. Furthermore, more and more

Spanish-speaking immigrants are moving into or near L.A.'s Chinatown, and they also

need help.

LACIW will serve as a bridge between labor unions, immigrant groups and service centers to help immigrant workers in Chinatown to fight for their labor and immigrant rights and create a better future.

Yes! We Need Your Support! We are asking Los Angeles’s labor and immigrant organizers to support the opening of LACIW:

- Endorse the center- Join our planning committee, and - Offer financial or logistical supports.

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Endorsement Form

Los Angeles Chinese Immigrant Workers Center Telephone: (626)403-2530 e-mail: CIW@ActionLA.org

Name of the organization/Union:

________________________________________________

Contact Person:

________________________________________________________

Address:

______________________________________________________________

Contact Phone: ______________________ (Personal)

Contact Phone: ______________________ (Office)

e-mail: _____________________________

URL: ______________________________

Our Organization is formally endorsed by the Los Angeles Chinese Immigrant Workers Center Project (LACIW)

Signature: ________________________________________ Date: __________________

Q1: Are you interested in joining the planning committee to help with the opening of the LACIW? Yes: ___ No: ___

Q2: Could your organization/union contribute some funding or resources for the LACIW? Yes: ___ No: ___

If yes, how and when can we contact you for more details? _________________________________

Please send the endorsement form toLee Siu Hin, ActionLA

1013 Mission St. #6, South Pasadena CA 91030

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Map of Los Angeles' Chinatown