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I Wor Kuen (traditional Chinese: 義和拳; simplified Chinese: 义和拳; pinyin: Yìhé Quán; Cantonese Yale: Yih-wò Kyuhn) was a radical Marxist Asian American collective that originally formed in 1969 in New York City’s Chinatown. Borrowing from the ideologies of the Young Lords and the Black Panthers, IWK organized several community programs and produced a newsletter series, Getting Together, promoting self-determination for Asian Americans. Initially consisting of students and organizers, the group worked in conjunction with residents of New York City’s Chinatown to address the community’s needs for healthcare reform, draft counseling, and childcare. The group expanded nationally with the Red Guard in San Francisco in 1972 to create a national IWK, and continued to advocate for self-determination, taking part in anti-war protests, labor organization, and student struggles for ethnic studies in colleges. IWK was the largest radical Asian American organization in the 1970s,[1] and merged with other organizations in 1978 to form the League of Revolutionary Struggle.

Ideology

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IWK was originally founded as a radical student group in New York in 1969, and the group's official ideology evolved as the organization grew. IWK took their name from a Chinese organization that protested imperialism in China, identifying with the previous group's militant and anti-imperialist stance. The second publication of Getting Together, the IWK newsletter, carried an editorial entitled "I Work Kuen" explaining the reasoning behind the organization taking the previous IWK and wrote about the previous organization that "I Work Kuen ... believed in the equality and potential power of liberated women...The patriotic rebels of the Taipings and I Wor Kuen lit the spark which started the gigantic fire for the liberation of Chinese and world's peoples."[2] As a local, New York-based organization in their early years, IWK believed in serving the needs of their underserved communities, such as New York's Chinatown, while also engaging in revolutionary education for the people that taught them how to opposed the state, pointing out how capitalism created systematic inequalities that led to the oppression of people in the United States.

The group began a study of Marxist-Leninism after their merger with the Red Guard from San Francisco in 1971, leading them to formally adopt Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong thought as the organization's guiding ideology in 1974.[3] IWK adapted Maoist philosophy to the particular racial position of Asians in the United States, with neocolonialism as the mechanism which oppressed Asian Americans and other minorities in the United States. IWK was also influenced by the ideology of other revolutionary groups that were active at the time, such as the Black Panther Party, as well as the writings and philosophies of Mao, Lenin, and Fanon. They considered Chinatown to be "internal colonies" and was dedicated to fighting for self-determination and "hoped to form an essential vanguard in its ethnic community to mobilize its people for a class-based revolution that would destroy racial and class oppression."[4]

Organizational History

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Founding

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IWK was founded in 1969 by college students and community youth in Chinatown of New York City, and it was one of the many revolutionary groups that was formed in the 1960's. The organization takes its name from the Chinese organization that instigated a violent rebellion against Western influence in China during the Boxer Rebellion. IWK was also influenced by other recent radical groups, and as former member Lee Lew-Lee said, "the IWK was like the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords, and the Red Guards" and was "patterned after the Red Guards".[4]

Initial Work

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The organization worked to make services more accessible to the residents of Chinatown, creating a "Serve the People" campaign modeled after the Black Panthers Party Survival Programs, designed to meet the basic needs of their people. IWK began a door-to-door tuberculosis testing campaign in 1970 for Chinatown residents because at the time Chinatown did not have adequate hospital facilities or Chinese speaking staff.[5] They also opened up a free health clinic in 1970, emphasizing preventative measures for tuberculosis and exposing the high rates of tuberculosis among Chinatown residents. Their actions prompted the City Health Department to open a new X-ray unit in Chinatown.[6] The organization also worked to provide childcare with the Hsin Hua schools, conducting sessions in both English and Chinese. They also provided draft counseling sessions for Chinese youth who did not want to be drafted into the wars that the United States were waging in Indochina and convinced people to resist the draft.[7]

IWK also starting publishing its newspaper, Getting Together, which was sold in both Chinese and English and was used to broadly promote the views of the organization. It covered the struggles of Asians in the United States and was the "first revolutionary newspaper regularly published in the contemporary Asian national movement."[7] The first issue, which was published in February of 1970, claimed "All Power to the Brothers and Sisters who Love the People and Fight the Real Enemy" and "We Serve the People".[8]

The organization also worked to mobilize Chinatown residents for community interests. In 1970, it organized over 2,000 Italian and Chinese tenants to protest the tearing down of buildings by the Bell Telephone Company by moving families into the abandoned buildings. Its actions allowed for residents to reopen the buildings that the company had boarded up, allowing for affordable housing at the location. [8]

Merger with the Red Guard

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The Red Guard was a revolutionary San Francisco based organization founded by Asian Americans that addressed many of the same problems in San Francisco's Chinatown as did IWK in New York City's Chinatown. The Red Guard also organized serve the people programs, provided draft counseling, and protested for better medical treatment centers for the high rates of tuberculosis in San Francisco's Chinatown. Both the IWK and the Red Guard led protests for the restoring of China's seat in the UN and rallied support for other radical movements like the Black Panthers Party and the nationalist movements of Puerto Rico and other oppressed groups.[7]

Both the IWK and Red Guard faced internal division about the best course of action for revolution, with a more militant and misogynistic camp emerging. This faction of the group believed that the work the organization did to serve the needs of the community was only support for the militant army of the movement, which they believed should be the main focus. They also promoted "anti-monogamy and collective sexual relations", which were used to place the role of women at home in support of the male fighter. [3] The two groups began to meet in the spring of 1971, and the talks between the two groups helped the Red Guard suppress the outspoken militant branch of the organization that had partially prevented effective large-scale organization. When the organization emerged as the national I Wor Kuen, they agreed that childcare should be divided collectively rather than on gendered lines, created a central leadership board that was majority women, and also started a tradition of providing childcare six nights a week so that the organization's working class women members could also participate in their activities. [3]

Twelve-Point Program

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After the merger IWK released its twelve-point program reflecting the goals of the organization, which had become formalized in the process of the merger. The twelve-point program was inspired by the Black Panther's own Ten Point Program, as well as the Young Lords, who also drew inspiration from Maoism. IWK's twelve points also drew from the principles of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, "calling for self-determination for all colonized and oppressed peoples, an end to male chauvinism, an end to US imperialism", and "finally an open call for a socialist society."[9] The twelve-point program reads as follows: [3]

  1. WE WANT SELF-DETERMINATION FOR ALL ASIAN AMERIKANS.
  2. WE WANT SELF-DETERMINATION FOR ALL ASIANS
  3. WE WANT LIBERATION OF ALL THIRD WORLD PEOPLES AND OTHER OPPRESSED PEOPLES.
  4. WE WANT AN END TO MALE CHAUVINISM AND SEXUAL EXPLOITATION.
  5. WE WANT COMMUNITY CONTROL OF OUR INSTITUTIONS AND LAND.
  6. WE WANT AN EDUCATION THAT EXPOSES THE TRUE HISTORY OF WESTERN IMPERIALISM IN ASIA AND AROUND THE WORLD
  7. WE WANT DECENT HOUSING AND HEALTH AND CHILD CARE
  8. WE WANT FREEDOM FOR ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS AND ALL ASIANS.
  9. WE WANT AN END TO THE AMERIKAN MILITARY.
  10. WE WANT AN END TO RACISM.
  11. WE WANT AN END TO THE GEOGRAPHIC BOUNDARIES OF AMERIKA.
  12. WE WANT A SOCIALIST SOCIETY.

Work as an International Organization

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In its work as an international organization, IWK continued to advocate for the struggles of Asians in the United States and show solidarity with other revolutionary groups. The organization also began studying Marxism-Leninism during its first national leadership meeting as a new group in December of 1971, and officially adopted Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong thought in 1974 as the group's ideology, incorporating more labor-based work in the group to reflect their more class-focused ideology.[3]

It supported the student movements that called for Ethnic Studies at college campuses across the country such as UC Berkeley, Laney College in Oakland, and the City College of New York. They also continued anti-war efforts, taking a leading role in the organization Bay Area Asian Coalition Against the War (BAACAW), which mobilized primarily students who were opposed to the Vietnam War, and educated others by linking the war abroad to local problems, and organized in protest of the war.[10] IWK also organized anti-war and anti-imperialist demonstrations in New York and San Francisco.

IWK also focused on labor activism, directly organizing in industries with high concentrations of Asian American workers such as the restaurant, garment, public transportation, telephone industries, industries.[8] The organization also fought for tenant rights and low income housing, and helped small Asian businesses that were threatened to be shut down due to government ordinances. [3] IWK was one of the many groups that fought for preventing the demolition of the International Hotel in San Francisco.[8]

Culturally, members of the organization were active in many different Asian-centered arts and culture organizations in major cities such as New York, Boston, and Los Angeles, either founding or being active members of groups such as Asian Cinevision, Bridge Magazine, Basement Workshop, the Asian/Pacific Heritage Festival, the AA Resource Workshop, the Gidra newspaper, and many other organizations.[3] IWK also continued to publish Getting Together, which was a major paper for disseminating radical information about Asian American struggles.

Merger into the League of Revolutionary Struggle

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IWK merged with the Chicano-Latino communist organization August 29th Movement, another Marxist-Leninist organization, in September of 1978 to create the League of Revolutionary Struggle (LRS). The LRS would also merge with other revolutionary groups within the first few years of its founding, including the Revolutionary Communist League, East Wind Collective, and the Seize the Time Collective.[3]

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  1. ^ Espiritu, Yen (2011-01-19). Asian American Panethnicity: Bridging Institutions and Identities. Temple University Press. ISBN 9781439905562.
  2. ^ Cohen, Paul A. (1997-01-01). History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth. Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231106504.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Ho, Fred Wei-han (2000-01-01). Legacy to Liberation: Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific America. AK. ISBN 9781902593241.
  4. ^ a b Joseph, Peniel E. (2006-01-01). The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780415945967.
  5. ^ Cook, Alexander C. (2014-03-06). Mao's Little Red Book: A Global History. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107057227.
  6. ^ "Empire Roundup: Caught in the Squeeze" (PDF). 1970, October. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ a b c EROL. "History of I Wor Kuen". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 2016-12-01.
  8. ^ a b c d Liu, Michael; Geron, Kim; Lai, Tracy A. M. (2008-01-01). The Snake Dance of Asian American Activism: Community, Vision, and Power. Lexington Books. ISBN 9780739127193.
  9. ^ Cook, Alexander C. (2014-03-06). Mao's Little Red Book: A Global History. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107057227.
  10. ^ Nakanishi, Don T.; Lai, James S. (2003-01-01). Asian American Politics: Law, Participation, and Policy. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780742518506.
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