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It is not covered by Medicare nor Medicaid. © 2021 fi rst STREET for Boomers and Beyond, Inc. 85221 VOLUME 45 NUMBER 5 ON THE COVER Workers of the World Unite Against Amazon 18 There’s a Rural Steel Mill to Family Ties and Housing Crisis, Too Windmills Trans Justice For many in rural Wisconsin, A former steel town in the Baltimore The Congress members speaking finding decent, affordable area feels the winds of change up for their trans children housing is a “nightmare” BY DHARNA NOOR BY HERON GREENESMITH BY JACK KELLY 30 26 6 MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 1 No political movement can be healthy unless it has its own press to inform it, educate it and orient it. “ — IN THESE TIMES FOUNDER JAMES WEINSTEIN ” TABLE OF CONTENTS FOUNDING EDITOR & PUBLISHER JAMES WEINSTEIN (1926–2005) DISPATCHES FEATURES EDITOR & PUBLISHER Joel Bleifuss EXECUTIVE EDITOR Jessica Stites 6 The Rural Housing Crisis 18 LABOR EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER Christopher Hass BY JACK KELLY Workers of the World INTERIM MANAGING EDITOR Alex DiBranco Unite Against Amazon Guilt by “Gang” WEB EDITORS Miles Kampf-Lassin, 7 BY LUIS FELIZ LEON Jacob Sugarman Association WISCONSIN EDITOR Alice Herman BY MAURIZIO GUERRERO 26 Family Ties LABOR REPORTER Hamilton Nolan INVESTIGATIVE FELLOW Indigo Olivier BY HERON GREENESMITH Replacing Police COPY EDITOR Bob Miller 9 PROOFREADERS Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin, with ... Police 30 Steel Mill to Windmills Rochelle Lodder BY SAM MELLINS BY DHARNA NOOR SENIOR EDITORS Patricia Aufderheide, Susan J. Douglas, David Moberg, Salim Muwakkil, Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Kate Aronoff, VIEWPOINT DEPARTMENTS Theo Anderson, Michael Atkinson, Frida Berrigan, Michelle Chen, Jude Ellison S. Doyle, Pete Karman, Kari 12 Georgia Needs More Than 4 In Conversation Lydersen, Moshe Z. Marvit, Jane Virtue Signaling Miller, Shaun Richman, Slavoj Žižek This Month in BY ANOA CHANGA 7 CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Dean Baker, Late Capitalism Rebecca Burns, Barbara Ehrenreich, Jeremy Gantz, Leonard C. Goodman, Mindy UP FOR DEBATE 9 By the Numbers: Isser, Naomi Klein, Chris Lehmann, John Asian Americans Nichols, Rick Perlstein, Micah Uetricht ASSISTANT TO THE MANAGING EDITOR 14 Just Give People Money 10 In Case You Missed It Clara Liang EDITORIAL INTERNS Catherine Henderson, BY PREMILLA NADASEN 13 The Big Idea: Daniela Ochoa-Bravo, Maryum Elnasseh, Paco Alvarez, Sadie Morris 15 By All Means, Means-Test Civilian Climate Corps CREATIVE DIRECTOR Rachel K. Dooley BY MAX B. SAWICKY DESIGN ASSISTANT Matt Whitt CARTOONS EDITOR Matt Bors ON THE COVER CARTOONISTS Terry LaBan, Dan Perkins CULTURE DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Art Direction by Rachel K. Dooley Lauren Kostoglanis Illustration by Ryan Olbrysh DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR Jamie Hendry 36 What Nomadland Gets PUBLISHING ASSISTANT Caroline Reid Wrong About Poverty CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Rebecca Sterner BY ARUN GUPTA AND IN THESE TIMES BOARD OF DIRECTORS MICHELLE FAWCETT M. Nieves Bolaños, Tobita Chow, Kevin Creighan, Dan Dineen, James Harkin, 38 Comics Anand Jahi, Robert Kraig, Paul Olsen, Rick Perlstein, Steven Saltzman, Stacy Sutton, David Taber, William Weaver 40 In Those Times: Our New (Old) Look The work of In These Times writers is supported by the Puffin Foundation. Our staff and writerspms 3015 pmsare 130 represented by these unions: 2 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 EDITORIAL Asian Women Speak Up he March 16 massage parlor The 20th century brought a new twist to 19th- shootings in the Atlanta area, in which six century racism. With the “model minority” myth, of the eight people killed were Asian wom- white people constructed Asian American iden- en, emerge from the hypersexualization, tity as a neat, apolitical monolith: universally fetishization and stigmatization of Asian smart, striving, wealthy and law-abiding. In real- Twomen’s bodies. They were the violent outcome ity, more than one million AAPI women (many of of a larger problem. them immigrants) work in jobs that pay less than Spurred by former President Donald Trump’s $15 an hour. By casting all Asian Americans as “Chinese virus” drumbeat, violence and hate wealthy and privileged, the stereotype has acted crimes against Asian American and Pacific Is- as a wedge that has obscured the need and pos- lander (AAPI) communities have increased sibility for Asian people to build interracial, by 149% during the pandemic. Asian working-class solidarity. women, at the intersection of misogy- ny, racism and xenophobia, accounted Racialized disease narratives for 68% of reported anti-Asian incidents scapegoating Asian women have since the coronavirus hit. Racialized disease narratives scape- deep roots in the United States. goating Asian women have deep roots in the United States. As Chinese immi- Yet, AAPI labor organizing has a long grants arrived on the West Coast in history. In 1867 in California, thou- the mid-19th century, public health sands of Chinese railroad workers officials developed racist and sexist went on strike to demand better conditions “theories” linking Asian people with physi- and equal pay to white workers. In the early cal (and moral) disease. In San Francisco, the offi- 1900s in Hawaii, Filipino and Japanese plantation cials who failed to mitigate smallpox, tuberculosis workers organized unions. In 1982 in New York’s and syphilis crises in the city asserted that Chi- Chinatown, 20,000 garment workers, primarily nese women “brought in especially virulent strains immigrant women, went on strike. of venereal disease … and enticed young white Progressive labor protections must priori- boys to a life of sin,” Chinese American historian tize the marginalized and criminalized field of Sucheng Chan writes. sex work, along with adjacent industries, such as Shades of these 19th century “theories” could be massage parlors. These workers consist primarily heard in the alleged Atlanta gunman’s confession to of women who are often vulnerable to police raids police. The 21-year-old white man said a “sexual ad- and arrest. In a statement after the shootings, diction” drove him to frequent massage parlors and Red Canary Song, an Asian migrant sex worker that he killed these women to abate “temptation.” rights group, declared, “We see the effort to in- White men continue to hypersexualize Asian visibilize these women’s gender, labor, class, and women, stereotyping us as submissive and exot- immigration status as a refusal to reckon with the ic. Chinese American filmmaker Debbie Lum, in legacy of United States imperialism.” her 2012 documentary Seeking Asian Female, pro- In the wake of these shootings, Asian Americans files one white man with such a fetish (“yellow with less power—the ones who labor and live in ways fever”). “Growing up as an Asian American wom- our society does not value, made invisible through an, you cannot live without encountering so many America’s flattened concept of Asian-ness—are fi- men like the main character of my film,” she told nally being included in the progressive discourse. NPR. After the shootings, many AAPI women In the immortal words of radical Chinese Amer- shared their own stories of objectification and ha- ican labor activist Grace Lee Boggs: “In our bones rassment.