Lessons from Activist Students (Part II)

This December, API Movement brought together student activists again from various campuses to share organizing lessons from their work. Among the most important issues was building continuity in the organizing work. Often, a politically aware class will build a new level of activity on campus. This activity fails to sustain itself when these students graduate. The continuity problem is compounded with the prevalence of junior year abroad programs for third-year students at many universities.
 
 
We began with two positive case studies - Rutgers, where activism was created where little existed previously and Stanford that had to cope with activity that stagnated after a group of student leaders left for graduation or took time off.
 
 
Rutgers is a college in New Jersey where a large Asian student body had failed to create any activist groups. Young student activists who came to the campus created Native Tongue, a campus newspaper publication, as a focal point for Asian American activists. During that time, it has
 

1. Published a campus newspaper twice a semester under the slogan, "Not just a paper, but a movement' with about eight pages of content.
2. Initiated a campaign to raise money to build a campus Asian American Library
3. Won a Bid to host the ECAASU ((East Coast Asian-American Student Union) where they will introduce more issues
4. Drafted a proposal for Asian American Studies and asked Professors to write syllabi for classes.

 
Thus this initiative was fairly successful in creating motion on campus but they have questions about what will come after them when the seniors who began Native Tongue graduate.
 
 
Stanford Asian American Activist Committee (SAAAC) faced a similar problem when the student leaders who lead their group and their Sweatfree campaign to rid the campus bookstore of sweatshop-produced clothing graduated or took years off. During the succeeding year, the organization and work stagnated.
 
 
This past year, a new group of students decided to work to rebuild SAAAC. Instead of issues, they focused on the organization. They concentrated on recruitment and working with new students one on one. What worked really well was a project in the beginning of the year to gather activism history, talk to older activists and design a campus tour of activist and issues incidents. It built community, let new students own the legacy of activism and helped leadership skill development.
 
 
They have just finished preliminary planning for the next 2 quarters, and all feel good about the headway we've made this past quarter. Now stronger, SAAAC decided to continue with the Sweatfree campaign at this point. They will also continue Alternative Spring Break - a tour of Asian American community organizations in the region and the issues-oriented "Listen to the Silence" conference.
 
 
Participants also discussed the usefulness of taking responsibility for conferences such as the BASIC regional conference in Boston and ECAASU. People tend to be taken over by the logistics of conferences. Conferences are useful as tool to organize (recruit, get members active, retain, etc.) but this needs to be more conscious and direct. There were also questions about succession of a new group to take responsibility for organizing the conferences in the future. Efforts to institutionalize the organizing to provide continuity included alumni support groups and community-supported entities. One suggestion was to have a BASIC inter-collegiate student group that meets, organizes, is a network, and a resource.
 
 
Participants also discussed the usefulness of taking responsibility for conferences such as the BASIC regional conference in Boston and ECAASU. People tend to be taken over by the logistics of conferences. Conferences are useful as tool to organize (recruit, get members active, retain, etc.) but this needs to be more conscious and direct. There were also questions about succession of a new group to take responsibility for organizing the conferences in the future. Efforts to institutionalize the organizing to provide continuity included alumni support groups and community-supported entities. One suggestion was to have a BASIC inter-collegiate student group that meets, organizes, is a network, and a resource.
 
 
Another suggestion to organizing a website that can blog about the work and events at the their school/region and be able to contact others for questions/resources.  
 
 
They discussed how to best utilize youth groups like CAPAY (Coalition for Asian Pacific American Youth) or CYI (Chinatown Youth Initiative) as youth leadership builders that help funnel young people into active college students. Activist college students should reach into these groups to assure new active students in the entering classes.
 
 
Finally, we discussed continuing the work once the active seniors leave. There aren't enough community jobs to support the number of activist students. However, people can work at mainstream jobs and be active outside of work. There's an activist network such as API Movement as well as volunteering at many community groups.
 
 
Students from Boston University, Brandies, Rutgers, Stanford, University of California Berkeley, University of Massachusetts Boston, and Wellesley participated in the Boston-based discussion.