Promise Li
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Promise Li a member of Solidarity, Tempest Collective, and Democratic Socialists of America.[1] He is a former staff organizer for Solidarity (U.S.). He is currently pursuing doctoral studies in English at Princeton University.[2]
Promise Li is a founding member of Lausan Collective, which is dedicated to amplifying and helping to build left-wing and anti-capitalist struggles in and transnational solidarity for Hong Kong. He was also a tenant organizer in Los Angeles Chinatown with Chinatown Community for Equitable Development.[3]
DSA conference resolutions
Signatories to MUG and R&R's Joint Resolutions for the 2023 DSA National Convention "On the votes of DSA Congressmembers to fund the Israeli military and ban a railway workers strike" included Promise Li At Large.
For a Political, Prolific and Democratic DSA Editorial Board
In May 2023 Promise Li signed a resolution "For a Political, Prolific and Democratic DSA Editorial Board" as one of the MUG and R&R's Joint Resolutions for the 2023 DSA National Convention in August in Chicago.
At-Large Delegate candidate
At-Large Delegate Candidates, DSA National Convention 2021 included Promise Li.
Black + Gold Forum
In May 2020, in response to these tensions and to the widespread protest sparked by the death of George Floyd, media advocacy organization Define American held the Black + Gold Forum, inviting prominent Black and Asian American voices to discuss the ways their communities could support each other.
“Asians have been in the United States for hundreds of years at this point, and yet so often we think of Asian people as ‘other,’ or as foreign,” said Noelle Lindsay-Stewart, former head of entertainment partnerships and advocacy for Define American. “In the same vein, you also have the Black community, which also has been in the United States for hundreds of years through forced migration, and even now, 150 years after the end of slavery, is still not treated as fully American.”
Much of the Forum discussion focused on cultural methods of building solidarity. Director Jon Chu admitted that he and many other Asian Americans had been unaware of the scope of institutional racism in the United States until Trump ascended to the presidency. Though Chu’s 2018 film Crazy Rich Asians was celebrated for boosting Asian American representation in Hollywood, this sort of cultural victory does little to rectify issues of income inequality, which is rapidly rising among both Asian and Black Americans.
“There’s a lot of really basic political education that needs to be done, in terms of establishing these types of cross-racial solidarity on the basis of everyone living under this same system of oppression, but differently,” said DSA member and organizer Promise Li.
Li pointed out that there is considerable economic and cultural diversity within the Asian American community, perhaps more than in any other U.S. racial minority group. Indeed, many Asians are more likely to identify with their ethnic subgroup than with “Asian Americans” as an overarching category. “Asian Americans who work at boba or bubble tea shops, to Black folks who are struggling to find a job,” Li said. “How can we actually build up solidarity along these class lines instead of buying into these more liberal representation struggles and narratives?”
Within DSA, the Afrosocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus is leading the effort to build solidarity and empathy across racial lines. It’s a welcoming space for people of color in a predominantly white organization to discuss their experiences as minorities in America—and the ways that these experiences can and should inform their work as socialists and political organizers. But Li cited examples such as the Flushing counter-protest as evidence that these cross-racial solidarity efforts are not limited to DSA. “I think that type of thing is very new,” Li said. “The fact that this kind of countering in our own communities can get that type of traction is very exciting.”
Still, months after the Black + Gold Forum, the injustices that inspired the panel remain largely unaddressed. Anti-Asian hate crimes in New York City have jumped nearly twentyfold, and the policemen who killed Breonna Taylor continue to walk free. The systemic racism and deep-seated white supremacy that have fueled U.S. anti-Blackness and anti-Asianness aren’t going anywhere, regardless of the election results.
“In our work in DSA, we have to be centering race,” Maikiko James emphasized. “It’s commonly said that race and capitalism are intertwined…but if we don’t center people of color in our work, then we can’t move forward.”[4]
Sanctuary City Working Group
According to Promise Li, a member of the Sanctuary City Working Group of the Los Angeles chapter of DSA, since its inception in mid-February of 2017, has secured major victories for sanctuary policies. The group was formed by a group of DSA-LA organizers who are intent on connecting the immediate fight for sanctuary cities to the larger struggle for a just and democratic society. [5]