Catalyst

The 1960s marked a formative period for the United States. The country faced a racial reckoning as the civil rights movement catalyzed further political movements and campaigns to confront and interrogate America's reality. The far-reaching impacts of this socio-cultural reckoning led to the emergence of many social justice movements, particularly the work of the Third World Liberation Front. Led by a cross-sectional coalition of communities, numerous groups engaged on various fronts to challenge, re-imagine, and subvert the established systemic racism perpetuated within America's institutions.

In this account, Isao Fujimoto transcribes his experiences at a meeting held at Delano's Filipino Community Hall, which served as the Strike Headquarters.

The Vietnam War was a catalyst for significant Asian American anti-imperialist and anti-war movements; marking a reckoning of Asian positionality within America. With U.S. imperial logics expanding the U.S. neocolonial state, Asian Americans were engendered an agency, a recognition, and an agitation for the increasingly global neoliberal dynamic between Asia and the U.S. Through a panethnic collaboration, a multifaceted anti-war effort was coordinated to confront U.S. neocolonial machinations.

The Third World Liberation Front was a pan-ethnic coalition between the Black Students Union, the Latin American Students Organization, the Filipino American Collegiate Endeavo, the Mexican-American Student Organization, and the Asian American Political Alliance in a collective effort to advocate for campus reform in San Francisco State University. In recognizing the lack of institutional support for underrepresented students, the TWLF outlined five demands in conjunction with the ten BSU demands to advocate for ethnic studies and stronger non-white student support. This movement also led to the formation of the first pan-Asian student coalition. In the context of the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Panther Party, and the Vietnam War, Asian Americans created the "yellow power" movement to address the racial reckoning of Asian American positionality within the United States.

The Asian American Concern was created as a student organization at UC Davis to garner and articulate the developing need of Asian Americans in establishing a representative New World College that would include the Departments of Ethnic Studies and Women's Studies. Facilitated in collaboration with faculty, students, and staff, the AAC helped to guide and lead many of the student movements advocating for the implementation of ethnic studies at UC Davis.