AAS 119: Asian American and Pacific Islander Labor Issues

Winter Quarter 2006
Asian American and Pacific Islander Labor Issues
Asian American Studies 119; class ticket number: 121-414-200

Prof. Glenn Omatsu, 52974 (messages only)
Office hours:  before and after class sessions.
eMail:  gomatsu@ucla.edu or glenn.omatsu@csun.edu

Fridays, 2:00 – 4:50 p.m., Public Policy 2250

Course Description

Both historically and today, community-based struggles by immigrant workers are central to defining the Asian American and Pacific Islander experiences.  Labor struggles bring to the forefront issues of human rights, interethnic alliances, racism and gender oppression, the impact of globalization, and the ongoing efforts to expand democracy.  However, despite their significance, Asian American Studies has virtually no classes focusing on labor organizing.

Through this service-learning class, students will develop a health and safety comic book to help the Koreatown Restaurant Workers Association and Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates (KIWA) educate Latino and Korean immigrant workers.  To take up this project, students are required to analyze both current and historical immigrant labor struggles, identify resources relating to worker rights on health and safety, and investigate labor conditions in the restaurant industry. Students will also study how worker campaigns are redefining community politics, such as gender relations and race relations.

This class also focuses on the key role that Asian American and Pacific Islander students can play in supporting labor struggles of low-income immigrants.  This class provides students with hands-on activist training to help them confront class polarization, which increasingly is becoming a major feature of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.  Students will receive training in ways that they can use campus resources, including their academic skills, to support immigrant labor struggle