Chinese American anarchist tradition

I have been reading some of the writings of a Chinese American anarchists who were active in San Francisco in the 1920s. One of the leaders of the group, the Equality Society (平 社 ）was a Chinese worker called Ray Jones， 刘钟时。So far, the group is best known for the correspondences between Jones and Ba Jin, a well-known Chinese anarchist who just recently passed away. Their writings to one another show the kind of dedication that both parties felt toward disseminating anarchist ideas, mainly in the form of a monthly journal, called Equality, or 平等. Ba Jin was also actively translating a lot of anarchist literature, by Berkman, Kropotkin and the like. He was sending a lot of these to Ray Jones with the purpose of disseminating it to Chinese workers, not just in the US but also in Cuba. In his archives, Ray Jones receives letters from workers at the sugar plantations in Cuba, who are trying to organize resistance against the plantation supervisors for their miserly treatment. Also in Ray Jones archives, I found flyers that the Equality Society was distributing at that time, advocating for Chinese workers to resist both the KMT and the CCP, both of which are statist formations that will squash workers under capitalism, albeit different forms. They also tried to organize solidarity strikes in SF Chinatown for the longshore workers union in San Francisco in 1934, as well as the Chinese workers in the garment factories in 1937. They maintained a strong class perspective during the anti-Japanese war resistance. The flyers that they put out on in commemoration of May 1st Labor Day in 1938 (?) was a commentary on the anti-war resistance in China. They warned Chinese workers that the bourgeois parties were going to make use of the war resistance effort to create legitimacy for themselves, and that workers should see through that and fight not only Japanese militarism, but also their own Chinese ruling classes along the way. They showed an earnest sense of internationalism when they published essays by Japanese socialists who were facing repression during the WW2 period, making clear that there was a strong anti-war resistance movement in Japan that was brutally squashed. They quote Shifu, the figurehead of Chinese anarchism, that one's loyalty should not be to any one country, but to the whole of humanity. This is in the tradition of strong anti-nationalism within anarchism.

This research on the Chinese Am anarchist scene in the early part of the 20th century is on-going. The One Big Union Monthly, the publication of the Industrial Workers of the World back in the 1910s, has an article called The Chinese and the IWW, which documents how Chinese workers organized during that period. I'm excited to get a copy o this article soon. It seems though that there is some literature floating around about Chinese workers organizing during that period, such as Chris Friday's Organizing Asian American labor : the Pacific Coast canned-salmon industry, 1870-1942 and Jean Pfaelzer's Driven out : the forgotten war against Chinese Americans

More later,
Jomo

Still "Gone for Broke"?

I recently came across an article about a campaign that has been started by some Japanese Americans, calling for the US Postal service to issue a stamp commemorating Nisei veterans and their participation in World War Two. These Nisei veterans contributions to WW2 have been forgotten by mainstream US history, and the stamp campaign is part of an initiative to reverse that. When they are discussed, these Nisei vets are lauded for their heroism and patriotism, particularly their willingness to "prove" that they were American by fighting for the US during a time when their identities made them suspect. The term to "go for broke" is used to describe the situation of these Nisei vets during WW2 era, whose families were interned in concentration camps as a result of Executive Order 9066 issued by the government, and yet still decided to fight for this government which has wronged them. Revisionist or not, the retelling of the history of this era usually paints these soldiers as ones who maintained enduring faith and hope in America's egalitarian ideals, believing that the injustice of EO 9066 would eventually reverse itself.

I couldn't help but wonder, would we use, and glorify the same term "go for broke" to describe Black soldiers in the US who fought in the Civil War, WW2, Vietnam War, and today's Iraq War? Would we also use those terms to describe the Latino immigrant soldiers who enlist in the US army to fight in Iraq for citizenship while their families are locked up in detention centers? The legacy of the Black Power and Chicano movements show us that white supremacy, embodied in the US state, preaches democracy worldwide for its foreign policy, but never practices it at home. Except for when its an inescapable compromise pushed by the people's wrath.

Are the only times we glorify subservience to the state, moments when resistance is not seen to be threatening anymore? Blacks or Latinos in this country could not glorify joining the army easily, because the attacks on their communities by white supremacy is still so glaring, so in your face. So why is it that for J.A community, reluctant subservience to the state is glorified, rather than critiqued?

I couldn't help but painfully notice the elements of "model minority" that went into the description of these Nisei veterans. In a speech by historian Eric Saul, "America at its Best," he points out "Japanese values" that have made Nisei veterans fighters for an unjust government. Nowhere does he talk about the proud legacy of No-No boys, those who resisted fighting in WW2 for a government who only used democracy as a rhetoric, cos those Japanese Am at the time sure weren't seeing any democracy happening in the US!
Here's a quote from the piece:

Furthermore, your President, on February 19, 1942, signed an Executive Order that said you weren't Americans anymore, you were "non-aliens." So why did you join the army? Why did you become soldiers, and ironically become, of all things, the most decorated army unit that this country has ever produced?
There were words like girl and on, which your parents taught you, which means "duty," and "honor," and "responsibility." You had to pay back your debt to your country.

Oyakoko: love for family. Your parents couldn't become citizens, but you loved your families and you had to . prove your loyalty at any cost. You used your bodies as hostages for your families to prove your love for democracy and justice when you volunteered from those camps.
[...]
Enryo: humility. There's an old Japanese proverb that says if you do something really good and you don't talk about it, it must be really, really good! You never talked about your wartime_ record. You didn't tell your children, you didn't tell your wives, and you didn't even tell the country.

Gaman: internal fortitude, keep your troubles to yourself. Don't show how you're hurting.
[...]
Haji: don't bring shame on your family. When you go off to war, fight for your country, return if you can, but die if you must.
[...]

I mean, for real...this sounds all rosy and great..but I bet that most of the Nisei who went to fight at that time were mad confused and didnt know what else to do...worried for their own parents' safety if they didnt go to fight, worried for themselves too! For all the talk about Niseis "volunteering" to go fight in the war, the fact is that the repercussion for not fighting in the war was imprisonment in the state pen. Its bad enough that folks were forced to go fight in the war, but its even worse still that its made to seem like a choice when really, there wasnt any...There's nothing beautiful or great about forcing a group of oppressed people to fight a dirty war for the US...subservience to the white supremacist US state was never in anybody's blood, anybody's culture whatsoever. I resent the way that proud cultural traditions that have been used for people's liberation struggles are now being twisted in a pretty perverted manner to glorify subservience and non-resistance...

People usually pit the US coalition of Allied forces, against the Japanese Empire during WW2, saying the former is the lesser of two evils. I find that hard to believe, considering that General McArthur was intending to drop a kazillion atomic bombs in North Korea soon after the Japanese War had ended. There wasn't no democratic ideal in resisting the Japanese...it was all a malevolent, practical political calculation. One area that I am really curious about, is the history of anti-war, anti-imperial resistance within Japan itself before and during the war period. While the rest of the Asian world was celebrating Japan's victory over Russia, for redeeming their sense of Asian dignity and pride, Japanese anarchists and socialists were fighting Japanese militarism within Japan itself. They were consistently for the solidarity of the international working class, not for allying with any specific nation's ruling elite.

There's a lot to be covered. But for now, here's a link to an article by John Crump that is pretty eye-opening: Anarchist Opposition to Japanese Militarism, 1926-37