Our brothers and sisters in the Asian Canadian Labour Alliance have issued the following statement on Asian Heritage Month 2022. We applaud them for the statement and wholeheartedly support the sentiment expressed in it:
To our beloved Asian relatives: We stand in solidarity with you. Our commitment begins with healing our relations and walking the path of reconciliation. Because we also come from colonized places of wounded relations. We are rooted in the immutable truth that restoring the justice of Indigenous peoples is fundamental to our liberation. We honour and raise the voices of the murdered and missing Indigenous sisters all over these lands and waters.
Our actions are grounded in decolonization. We decolonize our minds by orienting our relationships towards each other and all living things. We connect with, care and labour for our communities. We divest from colonial structures and concepts such as capitalism, the supremacy of the law, police and military. No one, therefore, is illegal.
We believe race is constructed, and as such, so too is our Asian-ness. That does not mean our experience of racialization is imagined; Rather we experience very real violence in different kinds and intensities, Because we have different degrees of access to privileges and opportunities to exploit.
For us, Anti-racism must be anti-imperial, anti-capital, and anti-colonial. We are against all systems of oppression, be it ableism, sexism, genderism, classism, transphobia, Islamophobia, or any form of discrimination against religion, caste, ethnicity, sexual orientation etc.
Our labour is equal. Our lives are valuable. Our seniors, womxn and children are precious. Our diasporic communities are held together by mutual help and respect. Our work is grounded in legacies of workers and activists who have come before us.
To our allies:
Stand with us, walk with us, and lay yourself down for us. Walk with us on the path of reconciliation. Because we need you in action, not just in words. Hold and put yourself on the line for and with us. Be an agent, accomplice, co-conspirator.
With radical hope and love, we struggle in solidarity with all those who share the same dream of justice and liberation.
In Struggle and Solidarity, ACLA in BC