How Our Movement Grew in 2023 and What Comes Next

In 2023, GAR brought together dozens/hundreds of grassroots organizers across the country to strengthen our working-class, pan-Asian movement. With GAR’s strong infrastructure - including people like you - our member organizations are fearlessly leading and organizing to win real changes for neighborhoods, cities, and states across our nation. We’re excited to share a little more about our accomplishments in 2023. 

In 2024, we will mobilize everyday working-class people to make sure we can protect historic victories and win new changes for justice across the US. To do this work, we have received a generous offer from the Farbman family who has pledged to match every donation, dollar for dollar, up to $5,000! Can we count on you to join us? 

In 2023, we welcomed Woori Juntos (Houston, TX), Filipinos Advocates for Justice (Bay Area, CA), California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, and HANA Center (Chicago, IL) to GAR’s membership! We are now 32 members strong – allowing us to reach, organize, and support communities that live in the most precarious margins of power: refugees, low-wage workers, youth, undocumented immigrants, queer and trans people, and low-income tenants. Find a full list of our members here. 

GAR supports our members to build their capacity and community power through creating inclusive, relationship-centered movement spaces. We host peer exchanges where organizers share insights and lessons learned. This year, we invited Equality Labs, the only Dalit-led national organization organizing the Dalit diaspora, to share about the intertwined nature of classism and casteism – the fight against casteism is also the fight for racial justice, gender justice, and workers’ rights!

We also united our membership in Los Angeles for our National Convening, Lotus and Rice: Growing the Pan-Asian, Working-Class Ecosystem! This in-person convening was a crucial space for grassroots organizers across the nation to cultivate strong movement relationships with each other, ground ourselves in working-class pride, and co-create our pan-Asian movement. 

We are moving our member organizations to join other national coalitions, including Rising Majority and Climate Justice Alliance, which increases our collective power and hone our strategy. By joining broader movements with other people of color, labor, and allies. Together we are able to strengthen all of our movements, organize for long-term power, and win changes across our communities. 

We launched the translated Asian American Racial Justice Toolkit into 11 Asian languages, including Hindi, Nepali, Tagalog, Bangla, Korean, Hmong, Chinese, Arabic, Punjabi, Vietnamese, and Khmer! The toolkit includes educational resources and curriculum to support transformational conversations in Asian American communities on systems of power and oppression. With the toolkit now translated, grassroots organizers are planning to hold in-language workshops and conversations with working-class community members.

To help reach working-class, immigrant and refugee, Asian communities, GAR also created "From the River to the Sea: Building Pan-Asian Solidarity for Palestine." Amidst the ongoing and escalating violence in Gaza, we must mobilize our communities and use people power to demand a ceasefire NOW and stop military support to Israel. We created workshop materials to help draw parallels between our communities’ own experiences with occupation and the current Israeli occupation of Palestine. 

Lastly, GAR is working to financially resource our pan-Asian, working-class movement. Earlier this year, we hosted a funder and donor briefing to showcase why now, more than ever, is the time to commit to GAR’s work so we can win safety, dignity, and justice in our communities. If you are interested in funding or donating to GAR and would like the recording of this briefing, contact cathy@grassrootsasians.org.

Because of what you made possible, we spent 2023 making sure our ecosystem was robust and ready to do deep, grassroots organizing and leadership development across the country. We need your continued support in 2024 to keep mobilizing the collective power of working-class, pan-Asian communities – and winning real changes for all of our communities. Donate TODAY at grassrootsasians.org/donate!