18 MILLION RISING THEORY OF CHANGE


OUR ANALYSIS

Asian Americans are the fastest growing immigrant population in the United States. We represent a
myriad of multi-racial and multi-ethnic histories: from forced migration, incarceration, gentrification,
deportation, climate disasters, and state violence, all while authoritarianism expands at home and
abroad. Asian Americans are spread out in enclaves, and the rise of authoritarianism and social media
mis/disinformation, is contributing to the growth of a rightwing conservative Asian American faction.

While creating community on the Internet has helped young Asian Americans keep ourselves safe and
coordinate our struggles, limited access, gatekeeping, inconsistent digital literacy prevents our
communities from organizing online effectively. Moreover, leading social media platforms and
conglomerates are owned by technocrats and billionaires who are actively surveilling, targeting and
doxxing activists, creating an unstable environment for people to organize.

We are in a crucial moment for Asian Americans to unite, activate the Internet’s organizing potential,
and mobilize around issues that are critical to our survival: end funding wars and prisons to build
alternative institutions rooted in equity and liberation. We believe in the urgent need for a principled
Asian American left that can push back and out-organize the growing right wing, to make critical
inroads that will change the course of Asian American organizing. We must revitalize our organizing
strategies by meaningfully integrating art and cultural work to draw in and build a coordinated Asian
American abolitionist base, collectively expanding our imagination of liberatory futures.


OUR VISION

● We envision a world where people are the priority, where people of every race, background,
and ZIP code are cared for. Our vision includes ending forced migration, family separation, war
and militarism, creating a society that values diversity, and providing support for immigrants,
refugees, queer and trans people, and all marginalized communities.

● We work towards a society with no prisons, no police, and no borders, where the basic needs
of all people are met, and all individuals are free regardless of their identity and background.

● We follow the leadership of indigenous leaders and activists who have put forth the framework
of Just Transition, which is a host of strategies to transition whole communities to build
thriving economies that provide dignified, productive and ecologically sustainable livelihoods;
democratic governance and ecological resilience.

● We aspire to a world that respects the sovereignty of all nations and peoples, so we must
cultivate a shared sense of purpose so organizing and communities can advance together,
fully aligned, toward authentic power-building for social transformation.


OUR MANDATE

We are called to build Asian American political power that contributes to movements for racial justice,
abolition, anti-militarism, and democracy through political education, deep base building, and
strengthening movements that address these issues head on.


OUR NICHE

Harnessing the power of the internet and revolutionary propaganda, 18MR grows Asian American
political power by educating, mobilizing, and organizing Asian Americans towards taking collective
action online and offline.


CORE APPROACHES

● Educate and politicize Asian Americans on and off the internet through cultural work,
revolutionary propaganda, and political education.

● Mobilize our base towards taking collective action to strengthen (flanking) grassroots
campaigns, coordinate actions, events, and organize online and offline.

● Organize by equipping our base in digital organizing skills, political leadership development
training, and deepening relationships to build grassroots movement leaders nation-wide.


BIG PICTURE OUTCOMES

● Asian Americans come into increased political consciousness, understanding their liberation
being connected to others.

● Asian Americans have increased skills and commitment to organizing in solidarity with others,
sharing resources, and taking action for material wins.

● Asian Americans are a critical base in a coordinated left in the US that grassroots movements
can consistently rely on.

● Asian Americans have a political home that is rooted in their values of social transformation
and building radical communities.

● Asian Americans contribute to bringing an end to U.S. imperialism and breaking the power of
political and corporate elites who are funding endless wars and militarism.


ASSUMPTIONS

● Art is a critical entry point to move people and reimagine the world, pushing us to envision the
future we’re fighting for. Art allows us to tell stories that represent ourselves through our own
language, ancestral technologies and histories.

● Relational, power-building organizing is essential to building a multiracial pluralistic democracy
that can address the rise of authoritarianism and the intertwined crises that fuel it.

● We must organize from where our people are. We cannot bring people along and build a big
tent if we do not engage people at the level of human connection that allows them to feel
seen, respected and heard.

● People who are organized have the power to shift narratives, behaviors, and cultural attitudes.
People can challenge the forces that are imposing white nationalist, Islamophobic, male
supremacist, militarism and corporate control over our society and economy.

● The internet spans time, space and place, giving us a unique plethora of tools that activate
people across issues and identities. Organizing online brings new people into movements
through social media, websites, text (SMS), etc. Digital tools allow us to build power through
targeted communications and an organizing strategy that ensures people can confront
systems of oppression through multiple avenues. The internet provides a unique space to
bring communities across the globe for mass collective action.

● When strategizing to defeat our enemy, flanking allows us to carry the waters of our
movement partners to strengthen their organizing. Flanking is a strategy rooted in
transformational solidarity, which aims to rectify historic marginalization in our movements,
finding opportunities for those with more privilege and resources to push campaigns and
demands that are rooted in co-liberation.

● Asian Americans need a diversity of tactics as entry points to create solutions to the issues
that impact us.

● If we come together as an Asian American political identity, then we can step up to disrupt
racial capitalism and the right with an organized base that represents all oppressed
communities. If we collectivize our Asian American political identity and deepen our
understanding of how our struggles intertwine with all oppressed communities, then we can
create powerful alliances to disrupt racial capitalism and the right.


VALUES + COMMITMENTS

● Principled struggle
● Deep democracy, collaboration and shared leadership
● Accessibility
● Accountability to those most impacted
● Orienting toward possibility
● Solidarity and interdependence