Immigrant Rights in the Shadows of Citizenship

11. Immigrant Workers Take the Lead: A Militant Humility Transforms L.A. Koreatown

266 chapter 11 Immigrant Workers Take the Lead A Militant Humility Transforms L.A. Koreatown Glenn Omatsu When we look at the country, we see who are the ones doing this kind of low-wage work. They’re not white Americans; they are immigrant workers . I think we play such an important role in U.S. society. —Jung Hee Lee, L.A. Koreatown restaurant waitress and organizer1 We are tired of being mistreated, tired of being overworked and underpaid, and tired of being insulted. We deserve better work conditions, salaries, and benefits. But the most important thing is that we deserve to be treated respectfully because we are human beings, not slaves. —Maximiliano Mariscal, L.A. Koreatown market worker and organizer2 Immigrant Workers Take the Lead 267 Where do leaders for our communities come from? How do people develop the skills to lead communities? In neighborhoods across the United States today, we often hear the following question: “Where are this generation’s Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Cesar Chavez?” Implicit in this question is the belief held by many in America today, especially young people, that there is a leadership crisis facing our communities and that little can be done to change society until new leaders emerge. Actually, in our communities today inspiring, new leaders have already emerged—but they are largely invisible, except to those immediately around them. Like Rosa Parks, these new leaders show others how seemingly small acts of courage by a single person can be linked to collective mobilization against injustice. Like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., these new leaders teach others how to combine social change with personal transformation. Like Cesar Chavez, these new leaders show others how fighting for the rights of the most oppressed sectors in a community can empower all people. Who are these new leaders, and why are they so invisible? Too often we are conditioned to look for our leaders in the wrong places. We look for them in the TV news broadcasts where reporters cover dramatic events in our cities and interview important individuals. We look for them among the ranks of politicians. We look for them among the spokespersons of organizations or from the sector of professionals in our communities, such as lawyers and business executives. But when we look for our leaders in these places, we forget one of the most powerful lessons that Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Cesar Chavez taught us: leaders in our community emerge in “ordinary” settings. They are found in workplaces , schools, and other community gathering places. They are found in grassroots struggles around basic neighborhood needs like housing, jobs, and schools. In this essay I tell the story of one remarkable set of leaders in Los Angeles Koreatown, a gritty, inner-city neighborhood where tens of thousands of immigrants from Latin America and Korea live and work together in a five-mile radius of densely packed apartment buildings and small shops. Like many other communities across America, L.A. Koreatown is marked by poverty, overcrowded schools, gangs, crimes, and ethnic conflict over scarce resources. Yet, amid this turmoil, several important lead- 268 Glenn Omatsu ers are helping people to organize collectively to solve these problems. These leaders are immigrant women and men from Korea, Mexico, Guatemala , and El Salvador who developed their leadership skills during the past decade through campaigns for justice in Koreatown restaurants, markets , and other workplaces. Because they are immigrant workers in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, these women and men are unknown to most outside of Koreatown, and they are not yet fully appreciated even by their neighbors. Yet, their impact as leaders extends far beyond workplaces . They have redefined race relations in Koreatown, reshaped gender relations in their largely patriarchal immigrant cultures, and contributed to the development of a new, grassroots leadership model that can potentially help all communities today. Who are these inspiring leaders? Rising from Fires of Koreatown Our story begins in the dark weeks after the 1992 L.A. riots. The four days and nights of fire and destruction devastated many inner-city neighborhoods , including Koreatown. Officially, more than fifty people died, thousands were arrested, and more than 5,000 small businesses throughout Los Angeles were looted, burned, or destroyed.3 Described by one researcher as “America’s first multiethnic riot,” the upheaval stood in sharp contrast to riots...