May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and I’m dedicating this letter to you – and all the domestic workers caring for our families and others every day.
Like me, you first dipped your feet in organizing while you were a student. While attending Columbia in the late 90s, you organized with CAAAV, an organization serving Asian and Asian American communities in New York.
As many good organizers know, our job is building relationships and trust. While at CAAAV, you reached out to immigrant women service workers and noticed domestic workers kept showing up. You said, “We were just starting to see the abuses facing domestic workers. And once you started to see it, you couldn’t not see it.”
You and I both see the personal as political. You could not allow the exploitation of domestic workers, who are our mothers, sisters and aunties, continue. The injustice gripped you so hard that you spent hours every week walking between commuter railway stops, the kid’s section of bookstores, and playgrounds speaking to domestic workers, sharing about your lives, and building a collective.
You knew and valued the power of our communities. It could have been so easy to walk away, to “move on” with your life and climb the socioeconomic ladder that society affords to women like us – second generation, native English speakers, with college educations.
But you and I are committed to the struggle. You have shown me how to be unapologetic about my convictions and to expect that I will achieve what I have set out to do. For the last two decades you have relentlessly pushed for the rights of domestic workers and have won time and time again.
Your leadership showed us that domestic work deserves dignity and our mothers, aunties and sisters can demand respect as care workers.
WE DON’T EVEN THINK OF [DOMESTIC WORK] AS REAL WORK, AND I THINK A LOT OF THAT HAS TO DO WITH ITS ASSOCIATION WITH WOMEN. AND A LOT OF THE STRENGTH THAT IS REQUIRED TO DO CARE WORK HAS BEEN TOTALLY … MINIMIZED AND INVISIBILIZED” - AI-JEN POO
As an Asian American woman, I often think about how the women in family have shaped who I am today. I grew up with my po-po, maternal grandmother. My family took care of her as she cared for us. She taught me that women are strong as hell.
You’ve spoken at length at how care work is feminized and unvalued, but it is essential to our lives. I see how this is also reflected in my work in community organizing. When the work is rooted in building relationships and trust, we ignore how hard people, and specifically Asian American women, Black women and other women of color, work so that we live in a world where we feel safe.
The value of organizing is dismissed because it threatens the status quo. Your work has always centered women at the margins. Institutions are scared that they will lose their power because women might finally get the support and credit they deserve.
Your new organization, Supermajority, co-led with Alicia Garza and Cecile Richards, will leave the patriarchy quaking in its boots. Its mission of training and organizing at least 2 million women ahead of the 2020 elections will force the political establishment to pay attention to our communities. I can’t wait for you to get it started!
This is all to say, thank you Ai-Jen. Thank you for leading the charge for a world where our work is fairly compensated. Thank you for being uncompromising in your convictions and proud of your identity. You give me hope I can do the same.
– Laura Li, 18MillionRising.org
This Love Letters to Movement Leaders series is a part of a collection of love letters that will be released throughout 2019.
Ai-jen Poo is the Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) and the Co-Director of Caring Across Generations. She is an award-winning activist, thought leader, and social innovator, and a leading voice in domestic workers’ rights and family care advocacy.
As co-founder of the Domestic Workers United (DWU), a city-wide, multiracial organization of domestic workers, she help lead the way to the passage of the nation’s first Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in 2010, historic legislation that extends basic labor protections to over 200,000 domestic workers in New York state.
In 2011, Ai-jen co-created the national Caring Across Generations campaign to ensure access to affordable care for the nation’s aging population and access to quality jobs for the caregiving workforce.
Ms. Poo’s numerous accolades include recognition as a 2014 MacArthur Foundation “genius” fellow, a 2013 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and was named to TIME magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2012, as well as Newsweek’s 150 Fearless Women list that same year.
In 2015 she was recognized as one of Fortune.com’s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders and the NonProfit Times Power & Influence Top 50 lists in 2015 and 2016. Her work has been featured in many publications, including Marie Claire, The New York Times, Washington Post, TIME, Glamour, and CNN.com. She is author of The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America. Follow her on Twitter at @aijenpoo.
All year, Sons And Brothers has honored the heroes and hundreds of individuals that have fought and continue to fight the injustices faced by our communities. Over the last couple of weeks, we've recognized the journeys of some of our female identified leaders and the ways in which they have made TODAY possible and are working to create a more just FUTURE. 🎨 by: Kelly Shami, check out more of their work here: www.legsny.com #HealthAndJustice4All #WomensHistoryMonth
#merylstreep and organizer and #domesticworkers leader #aijenpoo stand with #women as they share #whywewearblack at #goldenglobes. “People are aware that a power imbalance leads to abuse,” says @merylstreep. “We feel emboldened to stand in a thick black line.” Adds @aijenp, “I hope people see the momentum, the unity, and that we all deserve to work in places that are safe. There’s space for everyone.” #nowomanleftbehind #timesup #fashion #womenempowerment #womensfashion
Today's Person of Color (POC) in Public Policy is Ai-Jen Poo.
Ai-Jen Poo is the Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and co-director of Caring Across Generations. Thanks to the work of the NDWA, New York State passed the first Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in 2010. This first victory paved the way for passage of a similar bill in California and the expansion of labor laws to protect 2.5 million home-care workers by President Obama.
She has been recognized as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in 2012 and Newsweek's 150 Women Who Shake the World. On the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, she was recognized as one of 100 women delivering for other women internationally.
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