BUILDING PEOPLE POWER,
FROM THE GRASSROOTS,
BY THE GRASSOOTS!

After four years of transformative leadership, Cathy Dang will be transitioning out of her role as Co-Director of Grassroots Asians Rising. Cathy has been instrumental in shaping GAR since its founding—first as Executive Director of CAAAV in New York City since 2013, and later as Co-Director since 2021, where she strengthened our infrastructure, resources, and organizational culture.

In today’s political climate, right-wing strategists have exploited public safety concerns, economic instability, and the pandemic to recruit small business owners into an increasingly conservative agenda. But small businesses are vital hubs in our communities where people work, shop, play, and live. Earlier this month, GAR invited our member organizations to grapple with a critical question: How can we organize small business owners to align their interests with our working-class communities? 

We’ve seen these tactics before in the US and abroad: when ICE was first formed as a part of the “War on Terror” to surveil and harass AMEMSA communities, in the Philippines under Martial Law, in Korea under corrupt political leaders. As working-class Asian people in the US, we are too familiar with how authoritarian regimes rose to power through the same playbook in our own homelands: mass arrests, militarized policing, propaganda that dehumanizes dissent, and the deliberate erasure of state violence. 

As GAR's Membership Director, Sammie will help shape our membership's shared political vision, strengthen our programs, and unite our members and allies in the fight for working-class justice. Sammie brings a deep commitment to grassroots organizing and movement building that will help us build power for our power!

In today’s political landscape, many people across class backgrounds are eager to engage in movement work. But channeling that energy in a way that truly centers working-class communities requires intentionality. How do we avoid the pitfalls of mixed-class membership organizing while still building working-class solidarity? Two GAR members, CAAAV and Lavender Phoenix, have grappled with these questions in their own work.