Our Movement Is for the Long Haul: Ten Years of DRUM’s Community Organizing by Working-Class South Asian Migrants

Abstract

This article challenges the perception that September 11 marked the beginning of the struggle for justice for all South Asians, Arabs, or Muslims in the United States. As Monami Maulik, the founder and executive director of Desis Rising Up & Moving (DRUM), explains, her group had for nearly ten years prior to the 2001 terrorist attacks been immersed in the immigration and law-enforcement crisis in working-class communities of color. The existence of such an organization debunks the falsehood that undocumented immigrants or members of the working class, especially Muslims, could not be organized in a political manner. Nonetheless, in exploring the effects of September 11, the author makes it clear that the 2001 terrorist attacks did force a new consciousness among South Asians. As a leader of DRUM, she quickly realized that new strategies were required to fight the struggles that low-wage South Asian workers and youth faced, and that different struggles had to be taken into account. Consequently, DRUM uses as its key tactics the cross-mobilization of their efforts with other marginalized and suppressed communities within the United States and the rooting of American struggles in conversations about global justice.