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“For Stewart Kwoh, justice is not separate from who he is. It is who he is. . . . His choices shaped how I think about leadership, responsibility, power, and what it means to live with integrity in public life.”
—Julie Su, Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice, New York City
Stewart Kwoh, legendary civil rights attorney, activist, and MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, believes that social progress comes from communities standing together in kinship, not isolated struggle. In Lessons in Crossracial Solidarity, Kwoh relates eight stirring episodes of recent American history when Asian Americans joined hands with other groups to fight for justice, fairness, and opportunity. Filipino and Mexican American farmworkers mounting the historic Delano grape strike, Thai and Latine workers freeing themselves from slave conditions in garment factories, African American and Korean American residents protecting each other during the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, multiethnic labor organizing, and much more—these stories reveal a rarely told American story: Solidarity has always existed between communities struggling against discrimination.
Kwoh, a leader who has witnessed, contributed to, or led so many social movements throughout his groundbreaking career, blends moments of his own life into these moving examples of American unity. Together, they create an inspiring roadmap for building crossracial solidarity. Lessons in Crossracial Solidarity dares us to imagine a more inclusive democracy, offers us the tools necessary to practice it, and guides us to push forward the ideals of the American experiment.
Stewart Kwoh is a civil rights advocate who has spent more than five decades building bridges across communities. He is the founder of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California, one of the nation’s largest Asian American civil rights organizations, and served as its president for thirty-five years. He is also co-founder, with his wife, Patricia Kwoh, of The Asian American Education Project, which has brought Asian American history into thousands of classrooms across the country. Over the course of his career, Kwoh has worked alongside labor organizers, educators, and community leaders in struggles for civil rights, immigrant justice, and inclusive democracy. In 1998, he was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, often referred to as the “Genius Grant,” becoming the first Asian American attorney and community activist to receive the honor. A longtime Angeleno, Kwoh studied at UCLA and UCLA School of Law, where he later taught, and has mentored generations of students and organizers.