Today’s Student Organizers

API Movement hosted a group of Asian American student organizers this summer who discussed the state of organizing on their campuses. These organizers give a cross section of the ongoing organizing work continuing on campuses nation-wide. A new generation of student activists is trying various methods of organizing APA students.
 
The students came from Stanford, UCLA, Rutgers, Brandeis, Boston University, Tufts, and Harvard. Current organizing efforts include:
 
Innovative projects such as a progressive newspaper and an anti-sweatshop campaign have created progressive poles on their campuses amongst the generally social and cultural issues that dominate Asian American student activity. Native Tongue, a recent student newspaper project at Rutgers, established a focal point for activists at Rutgers. While its coverage is broad, Native Tongue also raises numerous issues such as the need for Asian American Studies, history of Asian American activism, racist caricatures at Abercrombie and Fitch. A coalition, lead by Stanford Asian American Activism Committee, has conducted multi-year anti-sweatshop campaign at Stanford. During the past year, it has prodded the University to join the Workers Right Consortium and Designated Suppliers Program. With a patient, persistent campaign, it has won broad support from a number of student groups, including the undergraduate senate and Graduate Student Council.

There are a number of conferencing efforts that seek to introduce issues to students. BASIC in Boston is an East Coast conference that, among other principles, looks at political, economic, and social issues affecting our communities at both local and national levels and works to develop long-lasting partnerships between students, community activists, and scholars.
 
While the 30 year old ECAASU conference was rooted in political activism, recent ones has become more mainstream. Rutgers in New Brunswick NJ will host ECAASU this year and hopes to broaden its scope this year. Other efforts include NAASCON, which sees itself as a forum for activist, will hold its conference in Atlanta this year.
 
A key issue is sustaining their work since there is high turnover among student activists. Unlike the height of student work, students today, because of the high cost, typically spend the minimum time in college. One path can be seen in Stanford’s Alternative Spring Break, where veteran student activists spend concentrated time with newer activists seeing issues in communities, visiting community organizations. Another method is focusing efforts on working with newer activists early on. Another may be linking student organizing with a community base of support.
 
Since the student organizers found the network postive, API Movement will continue to organize such gatherings and is planning for the winter.