In April 1990 representatives of the Pico Korea Union of electronics workers in Buchon City, South Korea, traveled to the United States in order to demand just settlement of their claims from the parent company of their employer, who upon the formation of the union had shut down operations without paying the American groups and deeply affected the Korean American community on several levels.
First, it served as a rallying focus for a diverse community often divided by generation, class, and political ideologies. Most notably, the Pico cause mobilized many young second-generation Korean Americans, many of whom had never been part of a political campaign before, let alone one involving Korean issues. Members of this generation, in the support received from the Coalition of Labor Union Women and leading African American unionists.
The reasons for these effects lie in the nature of the cause. The issues raised by the Pico unionists had such a strong human component that differences within the community became secondary to larger concerns for social justice and workers’ rights. The workers’ demands for compensation and respect were unencumbered with strong Americans, the working class more inclusively, and a broad spectrum of community leaders.
The Pico workers’ campaign thus offers an important lesson. It demonstrates that ethnic communities need more than just a knowledge of history and culture as artifacts of the past in order to strengthen their ethnic identity. It shows that perhaps the most effective means of empowerment for many ethnic communities of immigrant struggles for economic and social justice in their countries of origin.
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