GAR Membership Gathering in Chicago on Contending with Right-wing Forces

Recently, we held our Membership Gathering in Chicago! Over the course of three days, this Gathering was a crucial space for organizers and leaders to:

📣 Deepen our collective understanding about the multiple Right-wing forces that our communities are dealing with and the various strategies these forces are using to attack our communities.

📣 Share resources, tools and knowledge about building working-class membership bases.

📣 Build connections across the nation because that's how we build a strong national movement.

This Gathering included sessions on identifying patterns that multiple Right-wing forces share and strategizing ways to make sure we keep ourselves and our communities safe. Leaders and organizers from across the nation shared how building strong working-class, pan-Asian bases has been crucial in contending Right-wing forces in their local communities. Through this, we uncovered the vast infrastructures of Right-wing forces and how far their influences have reached, which is the result of their long-term investment in building large bases. We had rigorous debates on identifying how we can push wedges between Right-wing forces. 

When we unite as grassroots organizations, we accelerate our learning and increase our resources and skills to more effectively organize. This is particularly crucial because we know that whether it’s on affirmative actions, reproductive justice, Ethnic Studies, housing justice, or public safety, Right-wing forces are driving a wedge between working-class Asians and other communities. 

Now more than ever, our movements must support base building that addresses working-class, pan-Asian issues in order to  counter the right wing. Building shared working-class interests is how we can build unified fronts for a multi-racial democracy.