Rachel Sun graduated from the University of Washington in 2021 with a double major in History and International Studies, and holds a Masters in Social Work from the University of Chicago. Sun participated in the inaugural year of the Building a Movement Labor Internship, working with Seattle's Massage Parlor Organizing Project (MPOP). Today, she serves as a core organizer with MPOP.
Hello everyone, thank you for giving me the opportunity to share some words with you all on this lovely evening! I am no stranger to giving presentations, but this is my debut as a keynote speaker. I already feel very connected to you all, because it was not so long ago when I was just graduating from UW. This is a roundabout way to say I am quite honored and nervous to be standing here tonight. Before I continue, I would also like to extend my most heartfelt congratulations to the graduates from the Labor Studies and BAM internship program - you all have worked so hard for this! If you are nervous about what's ahead, I reassure you that whatever anxiety you have for the future is normal and relatable, and that I also felt similarly when I graduated.
In fact, thinking about anything post-grad was overwhelming. For context, I studied International Relations and History. Unlike my friends and peers who studied Computer Science, there was no internship to full-time employment pipeline at a corporate giant that existed for those in my discipline. I didn’t know how to articulate it then, but I, like most, was deeply dissatisfied with the idea that we must work to live. I wanted to pursue something that allowed me to challenge this system.
This opportunity came through the Bridges Center during my last year at UW. In the Spring of 2021, a mass shooting spree in Atlanta led to the deaths of eight people across two parlors; six of the victims were workers of Asian descent. I was stricken by this event and wished to contribute my time and energy to support my community in the wake of this national tragedy. I was armed with nothing but my bilinguality, a surface-level understanding of activism, and shaky hands - afraid that tomorrow’s headlines would feature names of people I knew and loved. In April of 2021, I applied and was accepted into the Building a Movement program at the Bridges Center as an intern with the then Massage Parlor Outreach Project, also known as MPOP.
I had no idea what this internship would encompass, as I had virtually no experience working in a group like MPOP. For context, when I joined the organization, MPOP was a grassroots organization that supported migrant Asian massage parlor workers through mutual aid and direct service in response to numerous destabilizing parlor raids and other ongoing instances of state and interpersonal violence. I thought, “We’ll say hello, inform them of their rights, give them some resources, maybe organize a protest or two with them, change some laws, and be on our way!” This is like the Google AI definition of “organizing”, and could not be further from my reality. As I grew into the organization, I discovered the complexity and nuance involved in working with marginalized workers. A lot of it is difficult, but it is an extremely fulfilling relationship. Starting with trust building with people who have been exploited and pushed to the margins, from apprehensive first encounters and speaking through a crack in the door, to having hard conversations and sharing vibrant life stories over meals, to envisioning our future together. I’m humbled by the workers who have given us their time and shared their stories. I am grateful for their trust in us and willingness to be vulnerable with each other. Without this, we would not exist.
I have been at MPOP for over 4 years now, and only recently have we begun the exciting and difficult work of agitating workers, reflected in our name change from Massage Parlor Outreach Project to Massage Parlor Organizing Project. While we still continue mutual aid, we are shifting our focus from service to supporting workers’ self-organizing. We’ve also been expanding to include workers in other industries in our work, because we recognize the importance of organizing all workers to build collective power. While MPOP has grown and evolved into taking on bigger, more exciting endeavors since our first efforts at parlor outreaches - campaigning to establish industry standards and decriminalizing unlicensed massage work - I believe it is important to remember that our work is only possible because of the connections we have built over the years. I hope to continue to nourish the relationships that sustain us.
In all of the wonderful work that you do and will continue to do, I urge you to keep these relationships close to you and to stay grounded in connection -- especially to those on the periphery of our labor force, those who are most hard to reach and consequently most commonly overlooked, those who easily slip through the widening cracks of our social safety nets. Remind yourself and find opportunities to remind them that they deserve safety and deserve to be heard. To uplift their demands, I’ve learned that it is important to be creative. We cannot rely on one specific person or institution to uphold their promises. We can and must critically examine our own conditions and move collectively to make things happen. While our university degrees are extremely valuable, it is also important to remember not to put all your faith into our years of schooling, and to listen and be curious about the lived experiences and inherited knowledge of those in our community. Personally, I have learned more through speaking to community members and being on the ground than what I have learned through two fancy degrees.
In our work, you will, and probably already have, felt stifled and choked back by the administration. Trust me, I have moments where I’m tearing out my hair, hearing about politicians playing with our lives as if they were meaningless. The system is created to stifle us, to make us believe that there is either nothing better or that fighting for more is pointless because this is all there ever will be. This is my response: I impart a quote from one of my favorite childhood books, The Phantom Tollbooth – “So many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible. Some call this delusion. Some call it aspirational. I call it resistance. We cannot fight for a more just, vibrant, equitable future if we cannot imagine it.”
Thank you all so much for having me, and congratulations once again to the BAM program and Labor Studies graduates! I’m excited for what the future holds for you!