Announcing our 2026 Lotus and Rice Membership Convening!
In 2026, GAR will host our seventh annual National Convening - Lotus & Rice: Reclaiming Our Organizing. For the past decade, GAR has hosted convenings to bring together organizers to create a national strategy for building working-class pan-Asian power. Will you help us brings our members together to strategize, so that we can really make change on a national level?
GAR Member Convening in Los Angeles, California in 2023.
We’re Growing Lotus & Rice Again!
“Lotus & Rice” draws inspiration from the historic rallying cry “bread for all, and roses too,” which fueled the women’s and workers’ movements of the early 20th century. Lotus and rice are deeply rooted in the material and cultural survival of pan-Asian communities. The lotus flower is often a symbol of prosperity and enlightenment, and rice is a staple food that sustains billions of people around the world. Lotuses are planted in rice paddies to enrich the soil, boosting the growth of rice. Together, they embody our vision: a movement that feeds our people’s material needs while cultivating the conditions for liberation.
In 2023, we introduced the Lotus & Rice theme at our Membership Convening in Los Angeles. Since then, we have expanded GAR’s membership to 34 strong organizations, all of whom share a commitment to working-class base building. Through peer-to-peer learning, resource sharing, and trainings, our members have grown our Lotus & Rice ecosystem to meet the moment.
From April 7-10, 2026, GAR will gather in Chicago, Illinois, returning to Lotus & Rice with renewed purpose. At the 2026 Membership Convening, we will come together to strengthen the roots of our Lotus & Rice ecosystem. As authoritarians escalate their attacks, we’ll strategize by training organizers, sharing resilience-building tactics, and aligning our movements to outpace right-wing co-optation.
The Crises We Face: Why We Must Reclaim Our Organizing
Our communities are in crisis because right-wing forces are out-organizing us. Over the past two decades, pro-authoritarian forces have mobilized pan-Asian communities to attack affirmative action, dismantle queer and trans rights, end eviction protections, and block data equity. They’ve done this by adopting our tactics, including base building, electoral organizing, and fostering cultural community.
Meanwhile, our communities face escalating state violence, authoritarianism, and the relentless grind of capitalism. The fear in our bases is palpable, making it more difficult to mobilize and organize our people.
We are no strangers to resistance. From rising up against colonialism and genocide to fighting back against labor exploitation and border violence, our histories are stories of resilience. Now, as fascism rises, our task is clear: We must grow our movement’s power to protect democracy, defend our rights, and reclaim our organizing legacy.
GAR’s 2026 Membership Convening
Reclaiming our organizing requires nothing less than a movement-wide recommitment to fundamentals: We must recenter working-class base building as our core strategy.
Working-class organizing builds the sustained power we need to move from defense to offense; it's how marginalized communities have always defeated oppression. Right-wing forces fear organized workers because they disrupt systems most effectively and expose exploitation most clearly. From Zohran Mamdani’s progressive victory in the New York mayoral primaries to the shutdown of oil refineries in Richmond, California, and the defeat of a corporate sports arena threatening Philadelphia’s Chinatown, people-powered movements prove that collective action works. For pan-Asian movements, reclaiming our tradition of working-class organizing is our best weapon against authoritarianism, both within and beyond our communities. When we have organized communities, we have the capacity to not just respond to crises, but also push for change that proactively meets working-class needs.
We Need Your Support!
There’s so much knowledge and wisdom in GAR’s membership that folks are excited to share with and learn from one another! Our members have helped win back stolen wages, shut down oil refineries, and defeat corporate sports arena threatening our communities. Because of these wins, we know that people-powered movements is what brings positive change. Will you help power grassroots organizing by making our 2026 Lotus & Rice Convening possible?
Here are some meaningful amounts to help us make the convening possible:
$5,000 to cover the cost of an entire grassroots organization to attend.
$1,500 to cover the cost of one organizer to attend.
$700 to celebrate the 7th ever GAR convening.
$340 for the 34 grassroots organizations in GAR’s membership that will be at the Convening.
$120 for the 120 organizers that we hope to bring together.