Ei-iE

At Education International’s 10th World Congress, Arlene Inouye was awarded the 2024 Albert Shanker Education Award. In this article, Arlene looks back on her journey as a union activist, advocating for the rights of Asians and Pacific Islanders in education and society.

Fight Fiercely for Social Justice and Public Education

I am humbled to receive the laureate Albert Shanker Education Award. I appreciate the acknowledgement of my journey over the past 50 years; my work in public education and in support of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Two formative experiences come to my mind. Back in the 1990's, I lived in a low income neighborhood in Los Angeles as part of a nonprofit organization that provided services to the community. With the sudden influx of Cambodian and Vietnamese refugee families fleeing the Indochina war, they came to our Latinx neighborhood in LA. I developed an afterschool program to support 8-12 year old children adjusting to life in America.

These youth taught me about their harrowing experience escaping their country and the determination and resilience of their families in the face of murdered family members and being uprooted into a foreign culture and country. I treasure the relationships with them that have continued to this day, and how they opened my heart and broadened my world view.

As a third generation Japanese American born and raised in Los Angeles, I never learned about the Southeast Asian refugees and other Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) stories throughout my years of schooling. Although my family was incarcerated during WWII, I also did not know the extent of the trauma that included the death of a family member, mental illness, shame and deep financial losses. Learning about the history of the AAPI community has provided me with the context to understand my work as part of a larger legacy, that of AAPI activism and changemaking. It has enabled me to connect more deeply with my family and take pride in our story. Much of my work today is dedicated to ensuring that the students of tomorrow are provided the opportunity to learn about themselves and their classmates. I have been honored to co-coordinate student and teacher outreach for the UCLA Asian American Studies Center’s Multimedia Textbook on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Titled “Foundations and Futures,” this free digital resource will be the most comprehensive collection of AAPI histories and perspectives available. Launching in 2025, the textbook will feature 50 chapters written by academic and community scholars including over 200 corresponding lesson plans developed by classroom teachers.

Through this project, my hope is that my granddaughters and future generations will no longer say, “I don’t learn anything in school about AAPIs,” and that these stories of resilience, empowerment and solidarity will tear down the model minority myth and push students to imagine greater, radically hopeful possibilities for the future. Educators play a critical role in shaping the future of America. This includes not only what they teach but how they teach it, whose stories they tell and the critical thinking and learning skills that are transformational for student lives.

Another life changing and unexpected experience for me was being elected as an Officer and leader of United Teacher Los Angeles (UTLA) -- the second largest union in the nation from 2012-2023. I had no prior experience in the union but stepped up because women leaders in UTLA encouraged, supported and believed in me. I learned the synergy of being part of an officer team that navigated leading a union while intentionally making it more democratic. It was a difficult time in 2012, with an economic recession, and attacks by billionaires who sought to privatize public education. Educators felt demoralized and asked why they were being attacked. They needed to be reminded of the larger corporate goal to privatize one of the last bastions of a democratic society, and the power of educators and parents in every neighborhood across the nation to resist. Educators also shape the lives of students in teaching them to be critical thinkers and to make decisions that benefit society for the common good. Today, attempts to silence educators continue with legislation and resolutions, attacks on curriculum, DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) and book bans.

In 2012 we didn’t have many models showing us what unions could be. Unions were largely bureaucratic, with top down leadership, and a service model approach to tackling workplace issues. Since World War II, unions steadily declined, weakening the labor movement. This has taken a toll on workers with increased income inequality, wage stagnation, globalization of the workforce, technology advancements and the skewing of politics in favor of corporations and wealthy donors. The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) -- a close ally of UTLA -- stood out as a model for workers to collectively organize and fight back against school closures and educational inequities. Led by progressive reformers, CTU challenged the status quo and democratized their union.

In 2014, progressive UTLA leaders came together with a plan “Schools LA Students Deserve” centered on social, racial and educational justice. Our vision included an equal partnership with parents and community, expanded academic and social support for students, engaging all members and aggressively fighting against the privatization of public education. Together, the 35,000 members, UTLA leaders and staff transformed and built an organizing infrastructure that prepared us to strike in 2019. Our platform included common good demands (such as community schools, immigrant defense fund, climate justice, and additional resources for Black students who have been historically disenfranchised) along with critical salary and working conditions such as reduced class sizes with increased counselors and nurses. The educators in UTLA tell our story about the UTLA strike as we experienced it in the independent documentary, “When We Fight” which has been translated into various languages and used as an organizing tool. A sequel will be released this year.

UTLA has continued to evolve. In 2020, UTLA elected its first woman of color President, and in 2023, we won a fantastic contract after our first solidarity strike with SEIU local 99 -- the classified union in Los Angeles Unified School District that represents special education assistants, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and custodians. Our members joined their three day strike lifting their wages from the poverty level and affirming their dignity. I am proud that our members agreed to take a personal risk and strike with SEIU 99, when we did not have a history of working together and often backed opposing school board candidates.

Over the past 7 years, the activism of US labor unions has spread across the nation, beginning with the Red for Ed movement when teachers in the conservative Republican-led states of West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona led illegal strikes over their health care, salaries, and oppressive working conditions. Labor Notes, a media and organizing project since 1979, has helped amplify the voice of union activists who want to put the movement back in the labor movement. Networks of rank-and-file members, local union leaders and labor activists in the US and internationally have formed connections with workers in different unions, worker centers, communities, and industries to strengthen the movement - from the bottom up. UCORE (United Caucus of Rank and File Educators) is the national movement of educators who are transforming their unions across the country.

Various US unions representing industries without a history of unionization have been forming unions and striking to improve salary and working conditions. Amazon, Starbucks, United Postal Service, hotel and hospitality workers, auto workers, graduate students in the University system and more are fighting back and winning. It has been a privilege for me to volunteer with Labor Notes over the past 10 years supporting educators in the US and labor leaders in Asia who face growing repression.

I have learned from my experience that it isn’t the politicians or any individual person who has the power to save us. I’ve learned from the 60 thousand members, parents, community, unions, who joined our UTLA strike in 2019, about solidarity, leveraging power and winning our contract demands. And I’ve learned that in transforming unions, people are transformed. This is what power looks like.

As educators in Educational International representing countries around the world, we have the responsibility to be the change we want to see in our world. The stakes have never been higher nor more urgent. Over the years most unions have squandered their potential for power by sticking with the status quo and familiar hierarchical structures. Let us be vulnerable with an open heart and mind and center our students and our values. This is the time to be fierce in our fight for social justice and public education.