January 10, 2002 | Read Time: 7 minutes
A persistent litigation director helps a California group serve Asians and other minorities
Barely a year out of Harvard Law School, Julie A. Su took Montgomery Ward and
several other major clothing companies to court, charging that they were responsible for the plight of more than 100 Thai and Latino garment workers, many of whom had spent years working and living in a filthy building that they were forbidden from leaving.
It took four years, but by working closely with several nonprofit organizations and leading the workers in a sustained legal challenge, Ms. Su eventually won a $4-million settlement, as well as legal immigrant status, for the garment workers.
Ms. Su, who last year won a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur “genius” fellowship for her work at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center here, won the settlement by persistently pinning responsibility for the appalling work conditions on the clothing companies, instead of focusing only on factory owners. Although the factory owners went to prison, Ms. Su figured that widespread change would only happen if she also pursued the major companies that buy products from sweatshops. The success of her case and the publicity surrounding it called attention to California’s sweatshops and paved the way for a 2000 California law that requires manufacturers to guarantee fair payment for garment workers.
“That case gave the green light for other workers to sue,” says Ms. Su, the center’s litigation director. “It opened the door for others to do a lot more.”
When Ms. Su first arrived on a $32,500-a-year fellowship at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, it was located in a church. In the seven years since, the organization has quadrupled the size of its staff, and now has more than 40 employees working in a gleaming downtown office building with a spacious reception area, conference room, and private offices for staff members. Along with expanding its work force and office space, the group is also expanding its range of issues and the kinds of people it serves.
Expanding Role
Although the center opened 18 years ago mainly to protect the civil rights of Pacific Asian Americans — a group that includes people from Korea, China, and Japan as well as Pakistan and Sri Lanka — it has increasingly been assisting Latinos, blacks, and members of other minority groups. The center also helps domestic-violence victims in danger of deportation if they speak out against their abusers, educates people about how to report hate crimes, runs race-relations workshops, and advocates for access to welfare benefits for recipients who speak little English. In addition, the center has helped form other local nonprofit organizations, including the Garment Workers Center and the Asian Pacific American Dispute Resolution Center.
Not Just an Advocate
Ms. Su, 32, says she doesn’t see her job as just being a lawyer or advocate. Instead, she views her role as “helping to build or imagine a community that you would want to be part of.”
Ms. Su says her vision of the ideal community is different from the one in Los Angeles where she grew up. Her parents, who immigrated from China and Taiwan before she was born, were sometimes isolated in their middle-class neighborhood because of their foreign accents. “You don’t get the same kind of attention,” says Ms. Su. “People mock you or imitate you. Those are memories that so many children of immigrants grow up with.”
Ms. Su’s parents initially opposed her working at the center, worried that she would struggle financially as they had. But Ms. Su was determined to help members of minority groups find a secure place in U.S. society.
To do that, Ms. Su and the center often make efforts to help blacks, Hispanics, and others. For instance, she is collaborating with several nonprofit organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense and Educational Fund, on a lawsuit alleging that the University of California at Berkeley discriminates against blacks, Latinos, and Filipinos in its admissions system.
“I really do feel that I, and Asian-Americans generally and women generally, have benefited tremendously from the civil-rights movement of African-Americans, of white women, of people who demanded that this country live up to its ideals in numerous ways,” she says. “The root of so much racism, sexism, and homophobia is very similar, and unless we address it in all its forms we are never going to get rid of it.”
Ms. Su credits Stewart Kwoh, a lawyer in private practice who founded the group during his spare time and a previous MacArthur fellowship winner, with emphasizing partnerships with other minority groups. “It’s not,” Mr. Kwoh says, “that we don’t have a strong base in Asian-American issues and don’t advocate for our interests, but if we can find groups with similar interests, then we can combine efforts. We have a philosophy or view that it is better if all ships rise.”
Growing Support
Support for the center has grown because its work has become more well-known — partly because of Ms. Su’s high-profile garment workers case — and because a growing number of Asian-Americans are giving to charity, says Mr. Kwoh, the group’s executive director.
While most of the center’s early support came from church groups, a variety of donors contributed to its $3.6-million 2000 annual budget. Foundations, including the Liberty Hill Foundation, in Santa Monica, Calif., and the Rockefeller Foundation, in New York, underwrite about 60 percent of its annual budget, with government, corporations, and individuals making up the rest.
In addition to many individual gifts from Asian-Americans, the center has received gifts from Asian-American family foundations, including the Tang Foundation, in Las Vegas. Also among the group’s contributors is Hsiu-Chu Chen, a garment worker. Ms. Chen donated $5,000 after the center helped her win a lawsuit to gain back wages.
The center has also raised two-thirds of its $6-million goal to purchase its new office building and create an endowment.
‘Model Minority’ Myth
Though the center has achieved much fund-raising success, Mr. Kwoh says groups like his still find it difficult to convince some potential supporters that Asian-Americans need help. Mr. Kwoh, who is Chinese-American, says Asian-Americans confront the “model minority” myth that all Asians are successful and don’t need assistance. But some groups, including Pacific Islanders, are among the poorest in the country, Mr. Kwoh says. “One of our aims is to make sure that people understand the full dimension, achievements, and failures in the Asian Pacific American community,” he says.
Mr. Kwoh has other goals for the group as well. The center will soon start an Asian-language phone service for poor people who could be helped by local legal-aid organizations, including the center. In addition, he and Ms. Su hope to expand the center’s capacity to take on more legal cases involving voting rights and a multitude of discrimination lawsuits.
To achieve these goals, the center will have to further expand its legal staff. Mr. Kwoh is confident the center will be able to attract talented people like Ms. Su, despite the relatively low salaries compared with corporate law firms. “Most of our lawyers can easily make a six-figure salary overnight and yet they chose to work here because we allow for creativity,” observes Mr. Kwoh.
The ability to pursue cases in innovative ways is part of what keeps Ms. Su motivated. She says that winning the MacArthur fellowship, which comes with a $500,000 award spread over five years, has not changed her career plans, although she has cut down her work week to spend more time with her 15-month-old daughter.
The MacArthur prize, she says, was “a challenge to keep on doing this work and do it better.”
JULIE A. SU, LITIGATION DIRECTOR OF THE ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LEGAL CENTER
Age: 32
Place of birth: Madison, Wis.
Education: Earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Stanford University and a law degree from Harvard University.
