wfn.org | AIWA serves Asian women immigrants

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3215 notes).

Note 3213 by UMNS on Oct. 7, 1996 at 15:41 Eastern (6081 characters).

SEARCH:   AIWA, Asian, immigrants, women, labor rights, workplace
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

CONTACT:  Joretta Purdue                      499(10-33-71B){3213}
          Washington, D.C.  (202) 546-8722            Oct. 7, 1996

Immigrant women fault American reality,
praise award-winning advocacy organization

     WASHINGTON (UMNS) -- Korean and Chinese women from California
clearly expressed their disappointment with life in America, but
praised Asian Immigrant Women Advocates (AIWA) for the difference
the organization is making in their lives.
     Speaking at the United Methodist Building here Oct. 3, the
group of seven women and one man were guests of the Washington
Office of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries' Women's
Division a few hours before AIWA and its executive director and
co-founder Young Shin were to receive the Letelier-Moffitt Human
Rights Award for a domestic program.
     The Board of Global Ministries has given AIWA various forms
of support including a mission intern and grants from the Women's
Division to assist AIWA in empowering disenfranchised Asian
immigrant women who work in garment manufacture, food service,
electronics, hotel cleaning and nursing homes.
     Speaking through an interpreter, an electronics assembly
worker from the San Jose area said that for 13 years she did what
she was told by her employers without realizing that she was
endangering her health.
     Only when she took an AIWA class in workplace English --
motivated at least partly by the desire to be able to help her
children with their homework -- did she begin to learn about
workplace health and safety hazards as well as workers' rights,
she said.
     For her and her co-workers who work for electronics
contractors in silicon valley, the hazards included soldering
circuit boards with lead in unventilated work areas and washing
them without gloves. 
     She said they work 10 hours a day in the lead fumes or next
to ovens heated to 800 degrees. Their pay is low, and they have
little or no health insurance to help them deal with medical
problems that may be related to their working conditions.
     Leadership training classes and the mix of language and
worker safety and rights information that AIWA calls "workplace
literacy" have enabled some women to negotiate safety equipment
and education in the workplace.
     A Chinese housekeeper in the San Francisco area spoke about
AIWA's efforts in her area.
     "We work very hard to organize the low-income immigrant Asian
women to improve their living conditions," she said through an
AIWA translator. 
     When a sweatshop in her area closed a few years ago, some of
the displaced seamstresses sought help from AIWA. Many of the
women have become leaders and together they were able to gain
considerable support from the public, media, churches, and county
and city officials.
     She said working conditions for immigrant Asian women are
very poor, and until the women learn some English and learn about
their rights they have few opportunities for improvement.
     To work around the traditional submissiveness of Chinese
women and their husbands' objections to the empowerment of these
women, she said, AIWA holds an annual celebration for the women
and their families, and AIWA makes an annual report at the event.
     That coupled with the classes, where wives learn about
workers' rights and share the information with their husbands who
are immigrants also, have led to growing support for AIWA among
the men, she added.
     Shin said the challenge for AIWA is to "turn learning into
action." 
     In addition to workplace literacy and leadership classes,
AIWA's endeavors include a quarterly newsletter published in
Chinese, Korean and English and an environmental health and safety
training project.
     A three-year effort to seek justice for a group of
seamstresses resulted recently in an agreement in which the
manufacturer pledged scholarships, a fund for former workers,
bilingual publications about labor standards and toll-free numbers
in Cantonese and English about wage and hour laws.
     Asked about the effects of anti-immigrant legislation in
California and in Washington, Helen Kim, the Korean translator and
an AIWA organizer, said she was "dumbfounded" and "really
disappointed."  She added that the "silver lining" is so many
groups that had been one-issue organizations are seeing that they
need to work together on the larger issue of basic human rights.
     Translating for one of the Korean assembly workers, she
articulated the other woman's remark: "This country boasts of
equality and justice, but the bottom line is always racism
hovering just below the surface."  The worker added, "We need to
advocate for our own rights. We are not doing anything wrong."
     Shin said of the anti-immigrant feeling, that history tends
to repeat itself. Cyclical patterns of immigration and backlash
have existed in the country's past, too, she said. "People have a
tendency to exploit other folks," she concluded.
     The Rev. Pharis Harvey, a United Methodist missionary and
executive director of the International Labor Rights Fund, said
that although his work tends to be at the policy and legislative
level, he would like to work with this and other similar groups in
addressing specific complaints relating to their labor issues.
     Harvey, who co-convenes the Child Labor Coalition and
coordinates the Alliance for Responsible Trade, also was being
honored at the awards ceremony that evening. His special
recognition Letelier-Moffitt award was for his work in
international labor rights, especially his efforts to eliminate
child labor and to include worker protection in legislation and
treaties.
     The annual Letelier-Moffitt awards commemorate two Chilean
activists who were assassinated in Washington 20 years ago.
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