Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM)’s Immigrant Justice Program and CAAAV’s Women Workers Project (WWP) in New York City have joined together to conduct a community documentation project to show how Asian low-income immigrant workers are affected by unfair immigration policies and practices.
DRUM’s Immigrant Justice Program builds the power of low-income immigrants to end rising detention, deportation and abuse of immigrant detainees, and to end anti-immigrant policies of the Department of Homeland Security. As New York City’s economy increasingly relies on the exploited labor of undocumented immigrant service workers, CAAAV’s Women Workers Project seeks to develop leadership among and create spaces for Asian women working in these sectors to unite with other immigrant workers to fight sweatshop conditions and build power for all low-wage workers City-wide. Women Workers Project also mobilizes Asian women workers to oppose racist immigration practices that tear communities apart, and promotes policies supporting human rights and dignity for all.
The documentation project will support DRUM and WWP’s campaign for legalization not deportation of all undocumented workers and will help to build a movement in Asian communities for immigrant rights. Using a participatory, community-based research model, DRUM and WWP members are engaged in all phases of the project, from developing the survey tools and methodology to data collection to data analysis and integration into their campaign and movement-building work. Over the coming year, members will collect surveys in Mandarin, Bahasa, Bengali, Hindi and Punjabi. Additionally, the groups will gather stories from immigrants, conduct historical research of patterns of racism in U.S. immigration policy, and survey service providers. DataCenter is working collaboratively with DRUM and WWP to develop and implement the project. Data analysis will be conducted at the DataCenter under the guidance of and in collaboration with DRUM and WWP. The groups will publish their findings in a report that will be disseminated to legislators and the media.
For further information, contact: DRUM and WWP