Uplifting young Asian women's experiences in the 99%

By Mai Doan

 

Following last week’s police raid of Occupy Oakland, SAFIRE young women came in with a wide variety of opinions and perspectives. They came in with opinions on the role of police, the encampment in Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza, and the tactics and strategy of protestors. But despite an awareness of how they and their families are impacted by money, they came in unsure of how the Occupy movement was personally connected to their lives and experiences. It is something happening in their community but how are they related to it? What’s at stake for them?

It is our responsibility as people with access to information, language, and experience to facilitate critical, educational and honest spaces for our young people to dialogue, ask questions and connect their lives to the conversations happening about them, often without them. SAFIRE young women have shared stories with us that connect their families’ experience of working long hours to the experience of being an immigrant family; their experiences of feeling the pressure to succeed in school, get a career and support their family while being expected to clean and take care of children after school. With our focus this session being on gender, sexuality, bodies and healthy relationships, it has been necessary to create ways for our young people to explore their experiences of class and capitalism as colored by both their race and gender.

It has been the uplifting of these stories that has allowed SAFIRE to force the complexities of their experience into the slogans they walk past on the way to our office. It has been these stories that empowered our youth to show up to the General Strike yesterday and participate in one of the largest mobilizations since the Viet Nam war and the first successful general strike since 1946. And as we saw yesterday, when we strengthen our young people by connecting them to the broader context of all of their struggles, we deepen our impact and the reach of our change.

Resources:
Teach Occupy Oakland

We are the 99%