Asian Americans and the Struggle for Social Justice

In 1868, in the largest strike that America had ever seen, ten thousand Chinese workers struck Central Pacific Railroad. One hundred and fifty years later, Asian Americans, now stereotyped as the “model minority,” are rendered invisible in current struggles for social justice. Yet as railroad workers, laundrymen, farmworkers, draft resistors, sewing women and nurses, Asian Americans have left us a rich legacy of legal, social and political activism. Particular attention will be paid to solidarities across racial, gender, and national boundaries.