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Solidarity in Action • Bill Lann Lee, Former Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights • Akiyu Hatano, Educator • Frank Wu, Law Profesor • Butch Wing, Activist • Nobuko Miyamoto, Artist • The Struggle for Justice: A Timeline of Asian American and African American history • Washington Journal: Black Like Us

A Lifetime of Activism

Butch Wing, California coordinator of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.

By Neela Banerjee

Butch Wing, California state coordinator for Jesse Jackson’s progressive Rainbow Push Coalition, often surprises people when he shows up to speak at events.

“I notice that people will have a small smile on their faces when they see me,” Wing said, describing people’s surprise at his Asian American heritage. “Sometimes, I will meet people who I have been speaking on the phone with or e-mailing for years and they will say, ‘You know, I thought you were African American.’”

Wing, who grew up in Sacramento in a very diverse community, said that his political development grew from his days at U.C. Berkeley in the 1970s, where coalitions between Asian Americans, Latinos and African Americans brought about major social change. Wing was very active in the 1970s, working on organizing and protesting around major issues such as the closing of the International Hotel, a residential building for many Filipino American seniors in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

“We worked hand-in-hand with other student organizations back then, our fights were very united,” Wing said.

He also was involved with protesting against the war and nuclear weapons issues, working with the group Bay Area Asians for Nuclear Disarmament (BAAND) and on the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign until the 1990s.

Wing first met Jesse Jackson in the early 1980s, on Jackson’s first presidential campaign. “I remember him coming to Chinatown back then,” Wing said. “Most politicians come through and have big expensive events, but he walked down Clay Street and Waverly and came into Portsmouth Square. There were all these old Chinese men and women yelling ‘Go Jesse, Go!’ It was amazing.”

Around this time, Wing became involved in a group of Bay Area Asian American activists and politicians who were campaigning for Jackson. The group, Asian Americans for Jesse Jackson, included leaders such as former San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Mabel Teng, head of NAATA Eddie Wong and state assemblywoman Wilma Chan.

“[Jackson] really impressed us because he really wanted to involve other communities,” Wing said. “His support base and experience was in the African American community, but he expanded. He began the conversation about coalitions.”

Wing came back to work on Jackson’s campaign in 1988 and was involved with the Rainbow Push Coalition (RPC) from its inception. The RPC, formed in the mid-1980s, is a multiracial, multi-issue, international membership organization “working to move the nation toward social, racial and economic justice.”

Wing took a full-time position as California state coordinator with the RPC in 1997, and had been actively campaigning against what he refers to as the “initiatives of mass destruction,” — namely, Propositions 209 and 187.

“We rallied support on a statewide basis for affirmative action and other issues affecting the people of color communities,” Wing said, saying that the RPC had an important role in helping to orchestrate the defeat of conservative Republican leadership in both the 1992 and 1996 elections.

In early 1999, RPC launched the Silicon Valley Project in East Palo Alto to focus on the technology industry and ensure that all people and communities participate in the digital revolution.

“We really see this as taking the civil rights movement into the 21st century,” Wing said. The Silicon Valley project is part of the RPC’s Wall Street Project that started in 1997, which focuses on economic equity. On the RPC Web site, the Wall Street project is described as “the fourth movement of the civil rights symphony,” which focuses on the fight for access to capital, economic equity and empowerment.

“We are working to break down the digital divide, especially in a place like East Palo Alto, which is literally sandwiched between Sun Enterprises and other high-tech super giants,” Wing said.

The project focuses on building digital connections between minority owned businesses and the high-tech industry, and between schools and community centers and high-tech companies.

“We want to close the workforce gap and educate local youth to fill the unfilled jobs in Silicon Valley companies,” Wing said.

Wing said the project works to bring together all the different communities that make-up East Palo Alto, again stressing the strength of coalition building.

“As an Asian American working to close the digital divide, it is a interesting place because there are a lot of extreme success stories like the Jerry Yangs and much of the Indian American community,” Wing said. “But that is not the whole picture and we are working to assure better access for everyone.”

Wing said that working with an organization that is traditionally based in the African American community has always been natural for him because of his background growing up in the presence of diversity.

“I think the Asian American community should learn from the African American community,” Wing said. “We should learn from each other. Our histories are so intertwined. I often point out that the same ships that brought Africans to these shores as slaves also brought Chinese here as indentured servants. When you think about these things, you really understand why we need to work together.”