Much of the history of African/Asian and Black American/Asian American
inter-actions is not as well known as it should be. All peoples of
whatever race or color have criss-crossed into each other's lives more
than we think. But such history, like all true history, has often been
hidden, lied about, or distorted. Malcolm X used to admonish: "Study
history. Learn about yourselves and others. There's more commonality in
all our lives than we think. It will help us understand one another." We
also need to remember that history, depending on how it is told, can be
used as a weapon to divide us further, or as a vehicle to seek truths that
might bring us to greater mutual understanding.

Unfortunately, thanks to the mass media, we are more likely to hear about
ways that we are divided. We hear about attacks on African students at
Nanjing University in China, the killing of 15-year old African American
Latasha Harlins by a Korean shopkeeper in Los Angeles, and anti-Korean
actions following the verdict in the beating of Rodney King. These events
also reveal the social and economic gaps between peoples of color.

But there is so much that unites us, which we do not learn. As Gary
Okihiro observed in a paper he wrote: "Africans and Asians share a history
of migration, interaction, and cultural sharing. They share a history of
European colonization, decolonization, and independence under new
colonization and dependency. Africans and Asians share a history of
oppression in the U.S., successively serving as slave and cheap labor..."

The first Asians who came to the United States were Filipino slaves, who
were originally taken to Mexico by Spanish and Portuguese merchants in the
18th and 19th centuries. They escaped to New Orleans, Louisiana, where
their descendants live today, in their own communities. Also in that
period, people from China and India were sold to European and American
ship captains as "coolies" in the same way the pigs were sold: they were
put in pigpens, nearly naked and filthy, with their destinations painted
on their chests. Many Chinese workers were sent to Latin America.

Between 1870 and 1890, when Congress was debating the infamous Chinese
Exclusion Act barring Chinese immigrants, African American leaders like
Frederick Douglass and Augustus Straker spoke out against the bill. They
considered the objections to the Chinese "in kind and principle" identical
to attacks on Blacks, and said that their opponents were the same as those
of the Chinese. Senator Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi, the only African
American in the U.S. Senate, voted courageously against limiting the
rights of the Chinese people by the Exclusion Act.

During the Spanish-American War of 1898, some 6,000 Black soldiers sent to
the Philippines with Theodore Roosevelt's "Rough Riders" were repelled by
American atrocities (600,000 Filipino civilians massacred). Feeling
kinship with their "brown brothers," as they said, the Black soldiers
risked their lives by joining the Filipino guerrillas.

At the turn of the century, a Japanese man named Sen Katayama became the
first Asian to attend a Black college in the southern United States. He
went on to be an outstanding labor leader and friend of the acclaimed
Black writer of the Harlem Renaissance period, Claude McKay. Together they
organized the Communist Party in New York. U.S. labor history has ignored
Katayama, probably because racism marginalized workers of color.

In the early 1920s another Asian came to the U.S. while in exile for his
work to free Vietnam from French colonialism. Ho Chi Minh lived in the
ghettoes of Chicago and Harlem, became an admirer of Black leader Marcus
Garvey, and wrote one of the earliest books on racism in the United States
(it was published in the Soviet Union). During the U.S. war on Vietnam he
was seen as a hero by Blacks and other Americans opposed to the war, who
often considered it a racist war and identified with its victims.

In the 1930s the Black historian and leader W.E.B. DuBois visited China,
Manchuria and Japan. DuBois met Mao Tse-tung and other Chinese leaders.
Famed Black Americans who have visited the People's Republic of China also
include Langston Hughes, Vicki Garvin, Robert Williams, and several
members of the Black Panther Party.

Inter-action was common between African-Americans and the Japanese as
well. In the midwestern United States, immigrant Japanese related to the
newly emerging Nation of Islam (NOI), and some made ties for the purpose
of friendship and trade. In early 1940, Elijah Muhammed and others of the
NOI went to jail because they would not support World War II against Japan
and spoke out against it; they also opposed the concentration camps where
Japanese Americans were sent at the time. First generation Issei Japanese
worked with militant Black nationalists in those years.
By Yuri Kochiyama
Shades of Power: Newsletter of the Institute for Multi-Racial Justice

The historic 1955 conference of non-aligned nations held in Bandung,
Indonesia brought together African and Asian leaders in a historic
gathering. The U.S. was irked at not being invited but many prominent
Blacks attended, including Adam Clayton Powell and Margaret Cartwright,
the first Black reporter assigned to the United Nations. The Bandung
conference was organized by Indonesian president Ahmad Sukarno, whom
Malcolm X held in high esteem because he would not bow down to the white
man.

The 1950s also saw the United States getting embroiled in the Korean War.
At a huge rally in New York, the distinguished and charismatic Black
leader Paul Robeson declared that "it would be foolish for African
Americans to fight against their Asian brothers." He urged Blacks to
resist being drafted and said that "the place for the Negro people to
fight for their freedom is at home." Despite worldwide recognition for
Robeson's many talents -- as a football hero, lawyer, actor, singer, and
speaker -- he came to be seen as a threat by the United States. In
reality, he was an anti-imperialist internationalist and lover of
humanity.

The 1960s brought many acts of solidarity involving Asians and Blacks
alongside Latinos and Native Americans. We find these in protests against
the Vietnam War; support for the "I" Hotel in San Francisco; student
struggles for ethnic studies. There was much interaction between Black
Panthers, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Young
Lords, I Wor Kuen, Brown Berets and other Chicano groups, the Red Guards,
and Manila Town Filipino activists. Together Asian activists supported
Wounded Knee in the West and the Attica Brothers on the East Coast; the
fight to bring the People's Republic of China into the United Nations; and
support for Third World political prisoners throughout the country,
including Puerto Rican independistas.

Beyond our borders, Mao Tse-tung, leader of the emerging People's Republic
of China, said during the 1968 urban riots by African Americans: "I hereby
express resolute support for the just struggle of the Black people in the
United States." In that same period Mao sent thousands of workers to help
build the railroads between Zambia and Tanzania in East Africa. Chinese
workers also helped to construct the national sports stadium in Zimbabwe
and a library in Harare. In addition, Zimbabwe received work teams from
North Korea. An outstanding Korean woman writer, Pak Sunam, always
referred to Franz Fanon -- the Martinique-born psychiatrist who became a
powerful voice of anti-colonial, anti-racist struggle -- as "her brother."

There are many stories of solidarity featuring Malcolm X; he probably
impressed Asian Americans, in particular youth, more than any other Black
leader. In June, 1964 Malcolm met with Japanese atom-bomb victims who came
to New York for plastic surgery and toured the U.S. speaking out against
nuclear proliferation. They were deeply impressed by Malcolm's
graciousness and openness. Malcolm also spoke of his admiration for Mao
Tse-tung and his support for Vietnam's struggle, which he saw as the
struggle of the whole Third World.

Another important area of Black/Asian interaction has been music,
primarily jazz. Coltrane, Max Roach, Milford Graves, Herbie Hancock and
other jazz greats made periodic tours to Japan, as did reggae artists such
as Jimmy Cliff. At the same time, Asian American musicians like Fred Ho,
Mark Izu and Francis Wong have created jazz combos. Dancer/singer Nobuko
Miyamoto and poet Janice Mirikitani are heralded by Black audiences.

There are still more examples of Black/Asian interaction. But much remains
to be done to build bridges and create a united force that can challenge
the system in which those with wealth and power live high off the toil and
desperation of the marginalized. We must all work to break down barriers
and phobias and build working relations, while understanding that each
group has its own primary issues and needs its own privacy and leadership.
If we want to change society, we must begin by transforming ourselves;
learning from one another about one another's history, culture, dreams,
hopes, personal experiences. We must become one, for the future of
humanity.
Kochiyama is a Japanese American born in California, is a longtime
community activist living in Harlem who has worked on many issues, in
particular supporting political prisoners. She worked closely with
militant Puerto Rican groups like the Young Lords Party and was a member
of the Organization of Afro-American Unity as well as a close friend of
Malcolm X.

BINNEH S MINTEH
NEW YORK UNIVERAITY

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