This assignment is due by Feb. 6.
This assignment will help
students reflect on what they are learning from our Leadership
Training Workshop and the application of ideas about the concept
of shared leadership to our class projects.
The late Filipino immigrant labor leader Philip Vera Cruz once
wrote:
“Leadership, I feel, is only incidental to the movement.
The movement should be the most important thing. If the leader
becomes the most important part of the movement, then you won’t
have a movement after the leader is gone. The movement must go
beyond its leaders. It must be something that is continuous,
with goals and ideals that the leadership can build upon.”
Philip Vera Cruz’s vision of leadership is rooted in the
concept of grassroots or shared leadership that has long characterized
the movements of Asian immigrant workers. Historically and today,
one of the greatest contributions of Asian immigrant workers
to our community is to expand thinking about leadership. (For
a further elaboration of Philip Vera Cruz’s vision of shared
leadership, refer to the one-page document called “Leadership
Training Workshop” in our Class Reader. I developed this
workshop from Philip Vera Cruz’s ideas to help students
retrieve the vision of shared leadership of past generations
of immigrant workers.)
Philip Vera Cruz’s vision of leadership stands in contrast
to the prevailing concept of leadership in U.S. society that
emphasizes command and management functions, charisma, power
over others, and personality qualities relating to individualist
advancement such as assertiveness. Thus, in the minds of most
Americans, a leader is like a general in the military, a CEO
in a corporation, or the U.S. President. Essentially, leadership
by this very definition is restricted to a handful of people,
usually men. Also from this prevailing framework, Philip Vera
Cruz and Asian immigrant workers are not leaders.
Strangely, when many student activists first learn about the
concept of shared leadership, they interpret it in terms of allowing
others to take leadership. Thus, it’s common to hear student
activists in campus groups (or even in our class) say that in
order to promote shared leadership, they will take a background
role so that others can develop leadership skills. However, Philip
Vera Cruz emphasizes that shared leadership is not the absence
of leadership; shared leadership means shared responsibility.
For this Reflection Journal, write an essay of at least 500
words responding to the following three questions. As resources
to gain additional ideas, read the articles in the Class Reader
by Happy Lim (on the Chinese Mutual Aid Association in San Francisco),
Karl Yoneda (“100 Years of Japanese Labor in the USA”),
and Lilian Galedo and Theresa Quilenderino Mar (“Filipinos
in a Farm Labor Camp”):
1. For your work in your project committee and in our class
as a whole, evaluate how well you are contributing based on the
concept of “shared leadership.” Note: remember that
shared leadership does not mean the absence of leadership but
rather a willingness to follow in the tradition of immigrant
workers by contributing one’s talents and energies to advance
the work of all. In other words, shared leadership also means
shared responsibility.
2. If you are relatively new to student activism, what role
do you feel more experienced student activists in our class should
play? For example, should they hold back and stay in the background
to allow you to develop your leadership skills, or do you want
them to play a different role? What specifically? On the other
hand, if you are a relatively experienced student activist, what
role do you see yourself taking in our class to practice shared
leadership? What specifically do you see yourself doing to help
on class projects?
3. Although we have only met as a class for a few weeks, identify
one student in our class who you feel practices shared leadership
well. Describe what this student does. Be specific.
