To address these issues, we primarily rely on the case of the Minority Executive Directors' Coalition (hereafter, MEDC) based in Seattle, Washington. The MEDC is the longest standing broad-based multi-ethnic coalition in the state of Washington, consisting of over 95 executive directors working in nonprofit health, human services, civil rights, human rights, education and cultural services, and community economic development organizations. A purposive sample of 32 executive directors and managers from the former and present MEDC member organizations were selected as participants. Special attention was given to racial, ethnic and gender diversity as well as membership tenure in order to capture the history and the interplay between socio-political-demographic changes and coalition strategies in a turbulent environment. The key informants were stratified into three subgroups: The first 10 were selected from the founding members, another eleven from those with 10 years or more with the coalition, and the last 12 from those who joined the MEDC in the last five years.  In-depth interviews were conducted between September 2002 and January 2003.  Notably, there is a visible gender shift with an increasing proportion of women in leadership in MEDC over time which is reflected in the pool of key informants. Within racial groups, there is a shift in ethnic representation that reflects the increasing diversity within communities of color. Key informants included people who identify as multi-racial, Asian (Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino), African American (including of Caribbean descent), Latino (primarily Chicano), and Native American (tribal affiliation varied).

The study also draws on field notes and official minutes from general and executive board meetings. These data were drawn from organizational documents including policies, plans, strategies, annual reports, evaluations, procedural manuals, news articles, feature reports and documentaries in newspapers. These secondary data provided additional information on MEDC's history, and changing structures and missions.

Another important source for our study is the literature on historical case studies of the formation of communities of color in Seattle and Washington State. They provide the historical context of multiracial coalitions, acknowledging early social networks and interaction, interethnic unions, and a shared history of racial oppression and exclusion. Many of these social histories are themselves based on narrative and anecdotal accounts of early settlers and media accounts of the city's growth.

Seattle's Multi-Ethnic, Multi-Racial Settlement Histories

Contrary to a dominant historical account, Seattle's urban founding emerged from multi-racial origins, with significant Native, Asian and African-American representation. Seattle's “official” history by most accounts, however, begins with the arrival of first white men in 1841, when the Jacksonian Congress authorized a naval expedition to strengthen American claims to lands north of the Columbia River, at the time held jointly by Britain and the U.S. Arthur Denny is credited with being the “Father of Seattle.”  Meanwhile, native people who had lived here long before his arrival are portrayed as part of the scenery.

As is true of other ethnic enclaves, the history of Seattle's multi-ethnic neighborhoods is a story of bitter and relentless struggle on the part of persecuted minority groups for a place in which to live and work in relative safety from the prejudice and racism of the larger community. The evolution of these neighborhoods also reflects changing tolerance toward communities of color, manifested in increasing acceptance of racial and cultural pluralism and changes in America's immigration policy brought about by a larger international relations context.  These neighborhoods were birthplaces and venues where multi-ethnic coalitions could work toward the development of a movement to counter institutionalized racism and to build much needed institutions.

Indigenous Settlement

Every American city is built on Native land, but few advertise it like Seattle. The first, and most obvious, is the city's namesake. The city was named after an indigenous leader, Chief Sealth, of the Duwamish tribe (Ruby & Brown, 1992). Where Seattle's urbanized area lies today were the former fishing, hunting and collecting grounds of the Duwamish Indians in what is now Pioneer Square (Anderson, 1943). For centuries they have lived along what is now the Duwamish River and its tributaries that empty into Puget Sound.

They are a river people dependent upon the livelihood the rivers and surrounding areas of the Puget Sound provide. They gathered in villages during the cold winter months and dispersed throughout the region for the warm summers of hunting and fishing.  With an abundance of fish, game, fowl, and trees, the Duwamish were a wealthy tribe at the center of a vast regional trading network and an important people in the regional affairs of the day. During the first half of the 19^th century the Duwamish traded with whites who recognized the wealth and trading contacts of the Tribe and occupied land next to them. This changed in 1854 when Isaac Stephens, the governor of the Washington Territories, began taking Indian land by ending Indian title to land, removing Indian people to reservations and promoting assimilation.  More and more whites were moving into the region. In 1855 Chief Sealth, having heard the news from other Indians of the genocide heading west across the continent, signed the Treaty of Point Elliott. The treaty gave away Indian land in exchange for land on seven reservations throughout the area( Winn, 1999).

The logistics of town-building on the remote and densely forested shores of Puget Sound often required far more hands than white emigrants could provide, particularly in the early years. Native people's labor was critical to Seattle's survival in the first decades of its existence, shaping the town's economic, social, and political development (Thrush, 2002). In a region where towns were founded, platted, and abandoned all too often, mobilizing indigenous skills and expertise became critical to Seattle's persistence. As lumbermen and laundresses, hunters and longshoremen, Indian people actively participated in the nascent urban economy. Beyond millwork, Indians performed many other crucial tasks in Seattle's young urban economy. With supplies hard to find or outrageously priced, settlers depended on Native subsistence networks to survive (Eskenazi, 2001).  Pioneer accounts of Seattle's ‘village period' are full of settlers speaking Chinook Jargon; of white men and women learning indigenous subsistence practices from their Native neighbors and employees; and of people from places like Illinois and Ireland, Gloucester and China, Guangzhou learning to accommodate Native peoples (Denny, 1909 cited in Thrush, 2002). Native labor, quite literally, helped build “Seattle.”

The reliance on Native labor also brought the needs of an “embryonic town” into conflict with the larger aims of federal policies designed to segregate and manage Native communities. Not everyone felt that Indian people belonged in town, however, and a series of legal restrictions placed on indigenous people belied deep ambivalence about their place in urban life (Asher, 1999).

By the 1870s, the movement of working Indian people and their money in and out of Seattle had become a larger part of Seattle's urban calendar. Drawn by seasonal work in the region's burgeoning economy, Indian men, women, and children began traveling huge distances, often every year, to Seattle and its outlying areas.  In the decades of Seattle's most rapid urban growth, however, the city became an increasingly important regional hub for Puget Sound Native people, known through wage labor and consumer goods. By the early twentieth century, many of these people continued to live and work outside the boundaries of area reservations, and Seattle was a popular destination for many of them (Hansen, 1979). Some of the most obvious effects of Native travels to and from Seattle were economic. The Indians fresh from the hop fields and other industries of Puget Sound injected large sums of money into Seattle's economy. As the urban economy reached metropolitan proportions Native cash helped to fill urban coffers while lubricating the machinery of social tolerance.

Participating in the new economy did have its risks, however. Casting one's lot with the vagaries of the American agricultural economy meant that times could be hard.  The greatest challenge posed by annual migrations came from disease. Economic vectors between Seattle and its Native hinterland were mirrored by biological vectors, pathways where contagion traveled with the phonographs and cash. Hundreds of miles from urban centers, many Native cemeteries in Seattle's hinterland bore the marks of diseases that blossomed in crowded cities (Thrush, 2002, p 201).

The stock market crash of 1929 also changed the lives of Native people in Seattle. Many of the small firms that had fueled annual migrations of Native men and women in Seattle's regional hinterland closed as banks failed and businesses went under. Native laborers, at the margins to begin with, were often the first to go as their employers tried to survive the economic crisis. Unlike the Seattle of 1880, where urban Indians resided on Beacon Hill and the waterfront, in the 1930s Native people were integrated into the city's poor and working class districts, and had become invisible (Hansen, 1979).

Asian Settlements

Since the late 1800s and early 1900s, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, and African Americans, along with Native people, have been an integral part of Seattle's “ethnic landscape” (Nomura, 1989; Taylor, 1994). Asian immigration to Seattle at the turn of the early twentieth century was part of a larger process of global economic transformation generated by industrialization and colonialism. The Chinese and Filipinos responded to the growing control of their economies by Europeans and white Americans. The Japanese eagerly embraced industrialization to avoid being victimized by colonial powers (Taylor, 1994). Yet in all three societies, displaced agricultural laborers became candidates for emigration at the historical moment when the rapidly expanding Pacific Northwest regional economy offered numerous opportunities unavailable in Asia (Cheng & Bonacich, 1984).

Pacific Northwest capitalists eagerly sought Asian laborers because, as able-bodied young men without dependents, they could be subject to onerous conditions including low wages, long hours, and poor housing. Moreover, their numbers could be regulated through immigration restrictions and deportation, which conveniently precluded their engaging in labor or political protests (Murayama, 1982). Over time, the influx of immigrant groups from a variety of world regions (especially Asia and Latin America) has added to Seattle's rich ethnic tapestry and has created complex settlement patterns.

Chinese Settlement

The emergence of Asians in Seattle and Washington State began with the Chinese. Seattle's Chinese community developed in the late 1860s and early 1870s with the influx of Chinese laborers who were recruited to work in mining, logging, agriculture, and later in the railroads. By the late 1870s, Seattle had a distinguishable Chinese quarter located south of Seattle's downtown business core, adjacent to the city's initial birthplace, Pioneer Square. The original Seattle Chinatown is one of the city's oldest neighborhoods, with roots going back to the founding of Seattle (Chin, 2001). A large portion of Seattle's Chinatown (later renamed as International District) is on the national Register of Historic Places, primarily because it was the early settlement area for Chinese, Japanese and Filipinos in Seattle. This is the community where different Asian immigrants settled and grew together, at most times cooperatively, with tolerance, but at other times much less so. In fact, Seattle's International District is still the first and only Pan-Asian American community in the continental U.S.

Asian newcomers followed a transient labor pattern established by nineteenth-century white loggers who seasonally moved in and out of Seattle. The particular employment demands of salmon canning, logging, vegetable and fruit farming, and other seasonal industries necessitated a highly mobile, tightly organized work force of bachelors. Dispatched by labor recruiters and contractors, these men worked away from the city, returning only when the canning or harvesting season ended.

Yet, the initial Asian immigrants differed from many of their European counterparts, as well as from the Black migrants who moved to Seattle, in that they were male sojourners who had come to America with the intention of staying for a short period of time to seek economic fortune, then return to their home countries. Ethnically oriented service businesses encouraged group solidarity by molding social and business functions. Chinese and Japanese merchant associations, usually composed of immigrants from the same province or prefecture, established a collective fund – in effect a rotating credit system. Such funds, drawn from regular assessments of the members, were used to provide venture capital for newer businesses (Bonacich & Modell, 1980; Light, 1972).   

Similar to other West Coast cities, anti-Chinese sentiments were quite pronounced within the region at this juncture in history. During economic downturns, the Chinese were used as scapegoats by white, European workers who argued that immigrant labor depressed wages and undermined “their” position in the labor market. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, as well as violence and intimidation, forced most of Seattle's Chinese to leave town during 1885-1886, virtually erasing the Chinese quarter (Laurie, 1990; Sale, 1976). Although sojourning ambitions predominated among the Chinese immigrants, the Exclusion Act effectively prevented the majority of Chinese from establishing families in the city. Virtually all of new growth of Chinese in Seattle through 1940s was the result of middle-aged men retiring to the city from the surrounding vicinity. The Chinese community re-emerged only after World War II, when Chinese immigrant families arrived in the city (Chin, 2001).

Japanese Settlement

Japanese immigration to the U. S. began in earnest around the turn of the century. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 had cut off the supply of cheap laborers from China, and the Japanese were recruited to fill the void. These laborers, mostly bachelor men like Chinese, realized before too long that their dream of earning riches and returning home to Japan would not occur overnight. They began to work out marriage arrangements to bring over "picture brides." With the arrival of wives and the birth of children, the first generation Issei was able to build a family structure in America. In Seattle, a flourishing Nihonmachi (Japantown) began to expand in what is now known as the International District. Nihonmachi was a self-contained community where Japanese was spoken, and every conceivable kind of Japanese goods and services could be found (Takami, 1989).   Like other immigrant groups, the local Japanese community developed associations for social purposes, mutual aid, unity and protection. In 1900 the Japanese Association of Washington was formed. At its peak, the Association consisted of representatives of over 30 community organizations or clubs and spent much of its time fighting discrimination against the Japanese (Berner, 1991). The continued growth of the Japanese community was curtailed when the U.S. government closed the door to further Japanese and all Asian immigration in 1924.

Notwithstanding the importance of Japanese labor in the state's railroad, lumber and fishing industries, the Japanese presence in the development of local farming cannot be overemphasized. Japanese immigrants were well-versed in intensive cultivating farming methods and played a key role in the development of the local agricultural industry. Their dairies supplied half of the city's milk supply and their farms, 75 percent of the region's vegetables and a good portion of the small fruits and berries. In fact, the Japanese are credited with the expansion of the local farming market to the Midwest and Northeast (Berner, 1991, p. 188).

Filipino Settlement

Filipino immigration began after the Spanish-American War in 1898, after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, which gave United States colonial power over the Philippines. Unlike other Asian groups, Filipinos could enter the U.S. without restriction, and immigrated in large numbers initially to fill the gaps in the low-wage labor market created by the restrictions on the importation of the Chinese and the Japanese. As with the Asian immigrants who came to America before them, the early Filipino immigrants were predominantly male. By the 1930s, the number of Filipinos exceeded that of the Chinese in both Washington State and Seattle.  The rapid appearance of this community in Seattle's already multi-ethnic and multi-racial Jackson Street district promoted the Japanese American newspaper Courier to declare that a “New Manila” had situated itself alongside, “the Chinatown,” and “Little Tokyo” (Chin, 2001).

Filipinos were considered U.S. “nationals” until 1934, when the status of the Philippines changed to a commonwealth state with limited autonomy under the Tydings-McDuffie Act (the Philippine Independence Act). As “Orientals,” Filipinos were subjected to all restrictions and discriminatory laws enacted against Asians. The spreading Depression, a rising number of anti-Filipino labor incidents, and the acrimonious public debate over Filipino immigration restrictions combined to discourage further immigration. Subsequently the number of newcomers fell in the 1930s as rapidly as it had risen a decade earlier.

New Filipino immigrants' and migrants' destination in Seattle was the International District (Chinatown), where they found some solace, familiar faces, and diversion from the laborious journey ahead.  They filled the single resident occupancy hotels (SRO) during spring and winter, upon their return from migrant seasonal labor.  It was also in the International District's hotels that labor organizing fermented and where Carlos Bulosan (1973) and other Filipino labor leaders sharpened their tactics to achieve equal working conditions and fair wages for farm and cannery workers (Koslosky, 1976).  The Filipino Community of Seattle, Inc. – a coalition of fraternities, clubs, lodges, and associations - was officially established in 1935, although it actually existed as early as 1926 (Cordova, 1983). It was an umbrella organization created to increase Filipino influence in the Democratic Party, working with Seattle civil rights organizations, progressive labor unions, and the Washington Commonwealth Federation. These coalition efforts successfully block the intermarriage ban introduced in the state legislature. (Cordova, 1983)

Black Settlement

The presence of African Americans in the Seattle area dates back to the 1860s and 1870s, although it was not until the 1890s that a discernible African American population emerged. From 1900 until 1940 Seattle's African American population accounted for no more than 1 percent of the total population, and lived near Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino residential neighborhoods (Mumford, 1980). During this period, Seattle's African-American community was concentrated primarily in the area referred to as the Central District. 

In Seattle, in contrast to virtually all other cities in the U.S. mainland, Asians rather than Blacks constituted the largest racial minority until World War II. Although Blacks were drawn into intense competition with the city's Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino populations for limited employment and housing opportunities, they felt they had found a place where they could breathe “free air.” The small Black population was insulated from the more virulent racism of the 1890s and 1940 era by the presence of large numbers of Chinese immigrants and American Indians who bore the brunt of discrimination from the white population. Consequently, Asians and Blacks, admittedly uneasy neighbors, became partners in coalitions challenging racial restrictions while remaining competitors for housing and jobs (Taylor, 1979).

During the city's first three decades many African Americans were self-employed in small businesses and trades such as restaurants and barbers. Virtually all Black-owned businesses were dependent on a white clientele, yet their place in the overall commercial economy was almost as marginal as that of Black wage earners, a fact reflected in the inability of any of these enterprises to grow large or achieve intergenerational success.   Seattle's African American communities remained concentrated in domestic service occupations. The resistance of most unions to the inclusion of Black or Asian workers and the city's minute African American population relegated Black Seattle's female and male workers to the periphery of the city's economy at least until World War II (Reiff, 1981).

The Black church was the first African American community institution in the city. Before the 1890s influx of African Americans to Seattle, most Blacks worshiped at white churches or held group services in homes. But with a growing population, Black Seattleites felt they could support a church. The impetus for separate churches came from Blacks rather than any attempt at segregation by the established churches.  Many African Americans were more comfortable with the emotional services of Jones Street AME and Mount Zion, both well known for hand clapping, fervent prayers, sermons, and “old down home south” hymn singing. Moreover, church organizations also grew from close-knit circles of extended families and friends. The church, in isolated communities such as Black Seattle in the 1890s, is a social center, a club, and a place of self-expression for African Americans (Mumford, 1980, p. 162). Jones Street AME and Mount Zion Baptist churches were the nexus of community social life. The churches supported widows and orphans, the homeless, and transients, and educated the Black community on public issues. Virtually all the Black community protest were held at Jones Street AME and the Seattle branch of the Afro-American League and its successor, Afro-American Council, the leading national civil rights organization of the era, was formed there in 1900 (Mumford, 1980, p. 147).

Black Seattleites created fraternal orders, social clubs, and political clubs such as the Frederick Douglass Republican Club, and voluntary organizations which contributed to the sense of community. They were bound together by an intricate web of mutually reinforcing kin, religious, fraternal, and social relationships. Those who might not belong to the same church nevertheless joined the same social club or fraternal order, met at picnics and dances or athletic events, participated in other community functions sponsored by the East Madison YMCA, or argued politics at the NAACP forum or political club meeting. Social groups such as the Queen City Club provided entertainment and diversion (Taylor, 1994, p 136).

Latino Settlement

Although the Latino settlement has had a long history in the state of Washington, especially in Eastern Washington's Yakima Valley (Gamboa, 1981& 1990), their settlement in Seattle is a fairly recent phenomenon. Yakima Valley has been the state's biggest agricultural industry since 1930s.  Since Washington Territorial Governor Isaac Stephens forced Yakima Indian people to cede most of their land during the latter half of the 19^th century, many of them were pulling sugar beets out of what used to be their hunting grounds. In the 1930s, giant public-employment projects, designed to alleviate post-Depression unemployment, built many of the Northwest's hydroelectric dams, bringing irrigation and turning deserts into fields of sugar beets, hops, asparagus, potatoes, corn and orchards of apples, pears, plums and peaches. Growing acreages and the growth of corporate farms created in the late 1930s a tremendous appetite for labor.  Indian people could no longer fill a majority of the jobs, and the company recruiters sought whites put out of work by the Depression as well as Japanese and other Asian people. Latinos were the last in a long line of human hands to work the sugar beet fields of the Yakima Valley.

The majority of Latino residents are of Mexican ancestry. Most were born in south-western states (from California to Texas) which were part of the Spanish empire, and then Mexico, for two and half centuries before the United States seized them during the Mexican-American War in 1846-1848[1].  Mexican citizens living in the ceded territories were promised rights of citizenship and guaranteed protection for property and cultural expression.  Neither promise was kept. In subsequent years, much of the landholdings were wrested from Mexican Americans by arriving white-American settlers, and cultural practices, such as bullfighting, were prohibited by law.

Throughout the Southwest, hundreds of thousands of Chicanos, once farmers of their own land, were forced into migrant labor during the early and middle 20^th century. The mountain migrant stream ran from the mid-states of Mexico up through Texas, west Texas, what is now New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, and then looped through Idaho, coming down through the Columbia basin, Yakima Valley, and then following the West coast migrant stream, mainly through the valleys of Oregon and California, back to Mexico. In the early 1940s, the labor shortage got so acute that the growers turned southward to recruit unemployed Chicanos[2] and Mexicanos[3].  The majority of America's farm workers, especially those in row crops, were Chicanos. In less than 40 years, Latino[4] people became the largest ethnic-minority in the State of Washington. Until the mid-1960s, however, this growing community was officially invisible; most state agencies and local governments (such as school boards) didn't count them as a specific group. Often, statisticians lumped Latinos under “white,” or sometimes, “Indian” or “other” (Johansen & Maestas, 1983).

Seattle's Multicultural Communities From the 1930s to the Civil Rights Era

Life in Seattle brought communities of color into contact with more than the city's white residents. Pioneer Square and nearby downtown neighborhoods had been home to the urban Indian community.  Made up of taverns, hotels, and public spaces, the Indian community was held together by a shared identity and networks of information (Laurie, 1972). The Indian community also bordered the International District, home to large Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino communities, many of whom operated inexpensive diners or managed SRO hotels. Native Americans patronized Chinese-owned laundries, restaurants and dry goods stores, causing some Chinese employees to learn Siwash (Chin, 2001). Chinatown was squeezed by the growth of other ethnic populations along Jackson Street. The Japanese in the 1890s, Filipinos in the 1920s, and African Americans throughout this period all took up residency in this area, creating an Asian American and African American integration of social and cultural space where Chinese restaurants occupied commercial blocks with Japanese tailoring shops, Filipino dance halls, and Black barbershops. Second Avenue in Pioneer Square had been a gay district since the 1930s. Gays and lesbians linked the neighboring communities through their own identities and movements (Thrush, 2002, p. 330).  Downtown, then, was a complex mix of communities, where lines of race, class, gender, and sexuality were blurred by everyday encounters.

Meanwhile, life in the SRO districts also meant that many Indian people had everyday encounters with Filipino men. As sailors, agricultural workers, and general laborers, Filipinos made up a significant part of Seattle's labor force and downtown population. Filipino men were prohibited by anti-miscegenation laws from socializing with white women. Some bachelor laborers would also become the fathers of a generation of mixed-ancestry people. Indian-Filipino relationships resulted in the birth of people who would go on to shape Seattle's politics in the decades to come: Both Bernie Reyes Whitebear, founder of the United Indians of All Tribes, and Bob Santos, a leader in the city's Asian-American community, were what Santos called “Indipinos” (Santos, 2002).  In the working world of Depression era Seattle, new kinds of multi-racial identities were being formed, and future activists were being born.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s Asian and African Americans forged tentative links across a broad cultural divide. Black, Asian, and white groups invited their counterparts to share aspects of their culture or discuss common problems. Typical of such gatherings was William H. Wilson's 1932 presentation to the University Interracial Society, which included white and Asian students and faculty. Wilson challenged his listeners to support intermarriage and full social equality for Blacks. In 1941 at a meeting on interracial justice sponsored by the St. Francis House of Hospitality, a Catholic community center in the Jackson Street neighborhood, representatives of the Jewish, Japanese, and black communities spoke on the contributions of their groups to Seattle and America and reiterated their fidelity to the American political system. Interethnic athletic contests, such as the highly publicized 1928 meeting of the Japanese Girl's Club all-star basketball team with a comparable Black all-star team, provided regularized contact in an informal setting (Chin, 2001;Taylor, 1994).

The Japanese evacuation from Seattle in 1942 tested the feelings and prejudices of all Seattleites. Seattle's African American newspaper, Northwest Enterprise, in 1941 became one of the few Seattle newspapers to oppose the evacuation of the Japanese from the West Coast. “Don't lose your head and commit crimes in the name of patriotism” warned the paper in a front-page editorial five days after the attack on Pearl Harbor (Taylor, 1994, p. 126).

On the eve of World War II, Seattle's Native, Asian, African, and Latino American communities, while facing surprisingly similar racial restrictions, were nevertheless poised to move in different directions. World War II had begun a new chapter in urban Indian history. Over 30 per cent of all able-bodied Indian men between 18 and 50 years of age served in the armed forces (Sorkin, 1971) and a large number of them did not return to the reservations after the war. Many others also moved from reservations to participate in defense industries and military service in cities across the nation (Bernstein, 1991). Before the war, many Indian people in Seattle came from Puget Sound reservations, continuing a much older pattern of movement between reservation and city, but many of the postwar migrants to the city were newcomers from places ranging from Alaska to Canada and the Plains, reflecting the breadth of a new, postwar Indian hinterland. While there were fewer than 700 Indians in Seattle in 1950, by the end of the century more than 11,000 people of Native descent lived in the city (Thrush, 2002, p. 303).

As cancellation of government contracts at the shipyards and factories led to layoffs, and as returning soldiers clamored for jobs, Native veterans struggled to reintegrate into civil society and Indians who had depended on the waning extractive industries of timber and fish found themselves increasingly adrift. Even as the postwar economy regained its footing in the 1950s, urban Indians struggled to survive, facing the poverty, discrimination, isolation, and self-destruction associated with the urban poor. Many of them lived on “Skid Road” around the Pioneer Square, the aging downtown area that had been neglected during the years of suburban expansion (Dann, 1967; Morgan, 1951).

Postwar Native activism in Seattle began when seven women came together in 1958 to help struggling urban Indians and to rehabilitate the public image of Native people in Seattle. With the help of Erna Gunther, a University of Washington anthropologist, the group incorporated as the American Indian Women's Service League, which would be Seattle's premier Indian organization for the next quarter century. In the decades after the late 1960s, Native people became increasingly visible as active participants in the increasingly multicultural landscape of Seattle civic politics (Harmon, 1998). It was these seven women who would lay the foundations for the takeover of Fort Lawton, which will be discussed in the following section (Hansen, 1979).

With China serving as a vital ally to the U.S. in the worldwide struggle against the Axis powers, Chinese Americans benefited from the termination of exclusion policies. The Chinese were granted suffrage rights in 1943 and, with the repeal of the “unequal treaties,” the immigration of women and children slowly increased. The war offered the second generation a crack in the walls of discrimination, a chance to improve their social and economic status.

Seattle's Japan Town disappeared from 1942 to 1945 as its residents were incarcerated in internment camps in the interior West. Within the few years after the war, the Japanese American community had re-established a smaller Nihonmachi which lacked the vitality and energy of the prewar era. With the passage of time, a new life was emerging. Energized by the civil rights movement, the third generation Sansei worked with the Nisei to redress the injustice of the wartime imprisonment and waged new battles against discrimination and racism.  Young people spurred renewed interest in their culture and heritage in America.  Replete with hardship, denial, and ruin, the history of multi-ethnic America also resonates with resilience.

Independence for the Philippines, delayed by World War II, came in 1946 and was accompanied by continued immigration restrictions. For the next two decades the annual quota was 100.  Special exceptions that allowed immigration of Filipino “war brides” slowly moved the Seattle community to more balanced gender ratios, but immigrants, still heavily dependent on seasonal agricultural labor and work in the canneries, remained economically marginalized (Cordova, 1983, p. 224).

WWII was an important watershed in the development of the African-American community in the Central District of Seattle. War-induced labor shortages and anti-discrimination legislation in industries with government contracts brought an influx of workers from different parts of the country, significantly increasing Seattle's African-American population. By the end of the 1950s, Blacks had become the largest racial minority in Seattle (Morrill, 1965; Taylor, 1994). Carried forward by the momentum of the nationwide civil rights movements and using well-established strategies that ranged from confrontational direct actions to astute legal and political maneuvering, Seattle's African American community became the dominant voice in the city's multicultural politics.

Mexican Americans arrived in the Seattle area as early as the 1940s as result of military service in Fort Lawton and in Tacoma's Fort Lewis (Gill, 1989). Others began to arrive in the 1950s, attracted by employment in shipbuilding and the rapidly expanding Boeing Airplane Company.  Migration continued and increased. A major turning point in the development of the Latino community in the Seattle area was the result of the 1965 Immigration Act and other changes to immigration legislation such as 1980 Refugee Act, which contributed to the increase of Latino groups (Quintana, 1985; Gallardo, 1993).

During the 1960s, there was an air of excitement in communities of color as people carried stories of communities of color organizing in other cities, of people fighting to reclaim dignity on the job and their cultural heritage. Across the land, a determination was growing to take charge of destiny and a sense of community was growing in Seattle.

Forging Multi-Racial Identities and Partnerships During the Civil Rights Era

Despite inter-racial prejudices and tensions, the city's postwar Asian and African communities attempted to establish their first institutional link through the Jackson Street Community Council. The Council was formed in 1946 under the sponsorship of the United Good Neighbors (forerunner to the United Way of King County).  The 15-member board reflected the composition of the neighborhood, comprised mostly of African, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Jewish, and white Americans (Chin, 2001). The Council was a grassroots self-help group, which sought to improve declining physical and social conditions and promote interracial community building (Brandwein, 2000). The activities of the Council included neighborhood cleanups, voter registration drives, naturalization programs, crime prevention and intervention, health campaigns, and physical improvements to the neighborhood. The Council existed for about 20 years until it merged with the Central Area Community Council to become the Central Seattle Community Council, which served as a model of inter-ethnic coalition building for the International District neighborhood.

With the rise of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, communities of color began to form coalitions around issues of discrimination, housing, employment, and political representation. In some instances, actions galvanized support across racial lines during these hectic and intense times. Eventually a more focused and localized catalyst for racial minority unity was formed. In the process, a new urban activism emerged, which was characterized both by confrontational strategies and by connections with other communities.

On March 29, 1968 – a few days before Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated – Larry Gossett and other Black students from the University of Washington staged Washington State's first sit-in at Franklin High School to challenge curriculum and school policy that favored white students and disciplined students of color. About 180 students of color, mostly African Americans, participated in the sit-in, striking fear in a majority of the Franklin students and staff. The school closed, but Roberto Maestas – a young Chicano teacher – stayed and supported the protestors. This first meeting between Gossett and Maestas helped to spark a multi-racial alliance that addressed the struggles of all communities of color and allowed opportunities to support one another's issues.

The camaraderie between Gossett and Maestas developed as they supported Tyree Scott, an African American and co-founder of the United Construction Workers Association. Both Gossett and Maestas brought African Americans and Latinos, respectively, to demonstrations that Scott had organized at various Seattle construction sites. In 1968, Chinese American Michael Woo and Filipino American labor organizers Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes joined Scott's campaign. With the widespread support of Black contractors and construction workers and this newly formed multi-racial alliance, Scott led a successful labor organizing for people of color and women who were excluded from the skilled trade unions.

Victories for social justice and equality began to translate into a more formalized coalition as leaders of color took on positions of influence in nonprofits. By 1970, Bob Santos was the executive director of Community Action, Remedial Instruction, Tutorial, and Assistance Service (CARITAS). Part of his job was to manage the use of St. Peter Claver Center, which became a venue for various civil rights groups to form, develop and organize (Santos, 2002). Notably, the center played a crucial role in facilitating interaction and collaboration across racial groups and causes. Some of the activities organized at St. Peter Claver Center included support for the United Farm Workers' struggle; the occupation of Fort Lawton, a decommissioned Army base, which resulted in 30 acres of land being returned to indigenous peoples; the protesting of the Kingdome sports arena construction, which impacted the Chinatown community; and other fights for equality in employment, housing, and social services (Chin, 2002; Santos, 2002).  Santos later became the executive director of the International District Improvement Association (Inter*Im), which was developed by some of the original members of the Jackson Street Community Council. Under Santos' leadership, elderly residents, small shopkeepers, and students came together to transform the once decaying International District neighborhood into a reinvigorated community.

The occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay by American Indian Movement activists in 1969 became a turning point for Native-American activism. While the takeover of Alcatraz was a failure in the sense that Indian people and institutions never achieved permanent tenure on the Rock, it was a phenomenal success in that it inspired similar tactics among “Red Power” activists throughout the nation.[5] Colville Indian Bernie Whitebear[6] along with many other Northwest Native American tribal leaders, organized to take back tribal lands including Fort Lawton, a surplus military base on the beautiful shores of Puget Sound. When the government initially acquired the lands in the upscale Magnolia neighborhood, an agreement had been made to return the land to its “original owners” when the military no longer needed use of the land. City government officials interpreted this agreement to mean that the city of Seattle would acquire the land. Tribal members, supported by the multiethnic coalition forces, won a 99-year lease for the United Indians of All Tribes, including 30 acres of land, which later became the site for the Daybreak Star Cultural and Education Center.[7]

On October 12, 1972, symbolically the day that Columbus landed upon America's shores, another catalyst for racial minority unity was the peaceful occupation of the abandoned three-story Beacon Hill Elementary school building. Through minority unity and white support, the building was won and became El Centro de la Raza, a community service organization located in the heart of Beacon Hill that catered to the needs of Spanish-speaking residents in Seattle from its inception in the early 1970s.  Led by Roberto Maestas, this organization was an important watershed in the development of Seattle's Latino community. At El Centro, English as a Second Language classes, social services, health education, a food bank and a child development center were used as a venue for consciousness raising efforts among the Seattle Latino population. It came to represent an important beacon in the community that attracted Mexican Americans from other parts of the country and assisted newly arrived Latino immigrants. Aside from these social and educational services, El Centro engaged in supporting civil rights, human rights and international solidarity movements for Asia and South Africa.

Larry Gossett was a part of several progressive coalitions that pre-dated MEDC. The Third World Coalition formed in 1973, bringing together several activists of color and successfully lobbying for jobs about 300 youth of color. Gossett also helped to launch Making Our Votes Effective (MOVE), a group founded in 1977 to impact the electoral system.  After earning a reputation as a student and community activist and a champion for labor, Larry Gossett[8] was hired as executive director of the Central Area Motivation Program (CAMP) in 1979.

The new generation of activists in the communities of color represented a shift away from the polite politics of service-oriented organizations and toward a more assertive, progressive, and multi-racial mode of organizing. As Larry Gossott put it,

…. I was sent as a VISTA volunteer from central Seattle to central Harlem in June of 1966. That one year completely transformed me. …I went in there as a middle class, a Black, no, Negro, integrationist-type student who just wanted to get a B.A. and get a job and make it. I wasn't thinking about no civil rights, no poor people, no nothing, when I joined VISTA…. See, if you come from the center of Seattle—I lived on a block where at most 120 people live on both sides of the street.  And in Harlem,… resided at that time 515,000 Black people…And most of them very poor. A lot of heroin addiction out on the street, a lot of hopelessness, but also a lot of hope in the form of the growing Black Power movement throughout the country. …Malcolm X had just been killed the year before, and so Malcolm X speeches and the coming together of the Black Power concept spread like wild fire throughout Harlem in the exact same year I was there. I got very infected, affected.

… I went there as Larry Gossett, came back as Aba Yaruba, changed my name. I went there as a capitalist, came back, really and very strongly, in democratic socialism. I went there wearing Western dress, and when I left, I mostly was wearing African dashikis and stuff. … I went there with clear glasses on and when I came back, I had prescription shades. I went there not ever talking much about racism or anything and came back as a very committed anti-racist, anti-capitalist, and I believed that only through socialism could Black people ever get free.

Similarly, Maestas stated:

By the time I took a job in the community in an anti-poverty program, I already had a clear sense of what it would take to make a difference which is to align ourselves with anyone who opposed injustice. …I directed English as a second language adult education program. GED kind of deal. So I would propose to the students and the teachers, “Let's go learn English at the antiwar demonstration.” Because it doesn't matter how much we train our people for a job, the war is spending all our money so there aren't going to be any jobs. So we've got to stop the Viet Nam war and bring the war on poverty and racism home. Our students need to learn that not just ABCDEFG or, “Good day, where is the shovel, sir?” We need to do more than that, and we need to meet the Black organizations that are demonstrating for jobs. They already know English.  They already know how to operate a machine. They already know how to be a carpenter. They already know how to be a construction worker, but they aren't getting any jobs. So here we're trying to get people job-ready and that doesn't make any sense. There must be more than just needing to be job-ready.  It must be “Are they going to hire us?” What's the sense of training people if you're not going to get hired? So we train you to be a carpenter or a brick layer or an engineering machine operator or whatever, and then you don't get a job because your last name is Valdez, or Rodriguez and you speak with an accent. So we need to go fight with them for jobs. We need to demand that they give us jobs.

As a result of multi-racial coalition politics, nonprofit organizations representing African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, welfare recipients, seasonal and agricultural farm workers were able to push for much fuller participation in the city's social, political, and economic life. By the end of 1970s, Bob Santos was executive director of Inter*Im, Roberto Maestas, executive director of El Centro de la Raza, Bernie Whitebear, CEO of the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation, and Larry Gossett, the Executive Director of the CAMP. The camaraderie and alliance between these individuals served to set an example for other people of color, and their organizations laid a foundation in which social networks and multiracial identities were cultivated and mobilized for social movements. This was the start of the Minority Executive Directors' Coalition in Seattle.

The discussion that follows focuses on a shifting policy environment and its impact on government-nonprofit relations. This analysis provides a context for the massive expansion of community-based nonprofit social service organizations in general, and the emergence of the Minority Executive Directors' Coalition in particular, since the tumultuous era of the ongoing civil rights struggle.

The Growth of Nonprofit Social Service Organizations and Government Contracting

The "Great Society" and the War on Poverty Contracting           

When the federal government was finally pressured to address the health, employment and training, community development, and social service programs of the nation during the civil rights era, it operated with and through community-based nonprofit organizations. As noted in the previous section, Bob Santos, Roberto Maestas, Bernie Whitebear, and Larry Gossett represented an early benchmark in the developing relationship with federal grants and nonprofit social service agencies.  The federal government gave extensive financial support to organizations working with the poor and people of color, addressing the social causes of poverty and institutional racism; and pursuing a decentralized strategy to tackle poverty at the neighborhood level.  In the process, the government helped to stimulate a massive expansion of the nonprofit social and human service agencies. Indeed, much of the nonprofit sector as we know it today took shape as a result of this growth in government support (Salamon, 1985). In some cases, the government stimulated the creation of such organizations where none existed (for example, the community action agencies fostered by the War on Poverty, area agencies on aging, community mental health centers, and regional planning agencies in health and metropolitan development). Among social service agencies, this newly expanded government support flowed directly to the nonprofit agencies themselves. While much of it took the form of grants or contracts for particular services, the grants or contracts were often on terms highly favorable to the nonprofit organizations. 

Additionally, as popular pressure mounted for increased public support, Congress amended the Social Security Act in 1967 so that states could develop purchase-of-service contracts with private nonprofit agencies. These new financing arrangements created more opportunities to promote social change and develop community-based programs. Increased federal support, channeled primarily through individual reimbursements via Medicare and Medicaid as well as aggregate contracts for specific programs and projects, changed the composition and role of community-based agencies. They clearly benefited from the expansion and diversity of funding, but the money also exacted certain tensions and strains.

Thrush (2002) describes such drawbacks in the context of Seattle's Native American community: “Once money came into the picture, things changed, and it got a lot more political… that turned off a lot of people.…and revolutionary rhetoric in many cases was quickly eclipsed by funding charts and service provision models” (p. 321). Soon after the Fort Lawton takeover, the Service League[9] finally obtained Model Cities funds to open a new Indian Center of its own, located on the edge of the International District. Although it was the culmination of a long-standing dream, the new center – or more specifically, its management – provoked turmoil within the League. Pearl Warren, who had expressed strong concerns over dependence on federal funding, resigned, ending a quarter century of her leadership. A new generation of women took over, focused more on the professional management of federally funded programs than on the community-based volunteerism of the Service League's early years. For many volunteers, it was the end of the era.  Recalling the old Indian Center as a place without a lot of double talk or social service workers lingo, they saw the institutional success of the IndianCenter made it less of a Native place and more like any traditional social service agency.

Under the government contracting, securing funding from the public sector was very difficult work, especially for smaller agencies. As a former retired MEDC member stated, “Just filling out the forms and questionnaires required to get public money is an exercise in acuity and endurance, aside from the real job of interesting the beleaguered public servant in even your most creative plans.” Also contracts were always a compromise between what communities wanted to do, or what the communities really needed money for, and what the government wanted or was willing to fund. Moreover, running programs demanded increased bureaucratization and formalization as well as ever increasing attention to the whims of policymakers in Washington, D.C. or Olympia. Concurrently with the institutionalization of new contracting relationships between nonprofits and the public sector, support for social action waned. What developed and was permanently established in the 1960s and 1970s, Fabrican and Fisher (2002) argue, was a new funding relationship with federal, state, and local governments that transformed most community-based nonprofit human service organizations into different organizations after 1975 (p.61). Contracting in an era of privatization and economic globalization had begun.

Privatization, Contracting, and Nonprofits          

The Reagan-Bush administrations accelerated these trends to transfer costs to the states, expand contracting, and cut support for social action efforts (Kramer, 1994).  Beginning in the early 1980s, the Reagan administration ushered significant policy changes in government-nonprofit relations from the previous era. The partnership that had expanded during the 1960s and 1970s was substantially redefined, with results that were increasingly problematic for the nonprofit sector and those it serves. Four changes in the policy environment facing nonprofit social service organizations are particularly noteworthy.

Retrenchment.  Beginning in 1980, funding for many of the government programs that had fueled the growth of the nonprofit sector in the 1960s and 1970s declined in both absolute and constant dollars, at least outside the health arena. Although only a portion of the budget cuts the administration proposed were enacted, the result was a considerable reduction in the real value of government support to nonprofit organizations. Such support declined approximately 25 percent in real dollar terms in the early 1980s (De Vita, 1999).

Marketization. Despite this retrenchment, overall government spending and government support to nonprofit organizations grew substantially, but took a different form. In particular, government support shifted substantially away from producer-side subsidies, provided directly to nonprofit service providers, and toward consumer-side subsidies, provided to potential recipients of their services. Over 70 percent of federal support to nonprofit organizations took this form by 1986. The result was a deepening “marketization” of nonprofit operations that has had a broad impact on the characters of these organizations.

Privatization. This shift toward consumer subsidies reinforced other government policies that have jeopardized the preferred-provider status of nonprofit organizations in many government programs and increased the relative advantages of for-profit providers. Although these moves were characterized as “privatization” and were justified by “public choice” economic theories, their real impact, given the widespread government reliance on nonprofit organizations, was to increase for-profit competition for many of the grants and contracts that nonprofit organizations were already receiving.  These policies have shifted public resources not from government agencies to private ones, but from nonprofit private ones to for-profit private ones. In the process this shift injected a much higher degree of uncertainty into nonprofit operations, and intensified the pressures on nonprofits to market their services.

Regulation. Nonprofits faced growing regulatory pressures from government al all levels. Particularly noteworthy were legislative and administrative efforts to discourage nonprofit advocacy.  Other mission-critical nonprofit functions were also put at risk, such as the commitment to serve those in greatest need, and to value quality and community benefit over efficiency and responsiveness to market pressures.

Although contract funding continued to increase during this period, a dramatic shift occurred during the Reagan-Bush era regarding the nature and goal of such financing.

Contracting as an Ideological Tool

As Kettner and Martin (1993) suggest, essential differences exist between early government contracting efforts and those since 1980. In the former the private sector was not seen as inherently superior to the public sector, and contracting was seen as essentially an administrative tool, not an ideological one. In the 1960s and 1970s, federal social policies, such as contracting, were intended to overcome the limit of private charity and local and state governments. Privatization efforts during the Regan-Bush years, on the other hand, sought to achieve different objectives. They also wanted to improve the public sector's efficiency, but more important, Reagan-Bush policies sought to end social welfare expansion, reduce the role of the federal government, and unburden the federal government of more expensive civil service employees and unionized workers. These policies were developed to shift funding responsibility from the federal government to the states.  In theory at least, Reagan and Bush preferred that the private sector, rather than the states, independently pick up the costs of the burden of responsibility for social service provision.  Paradoxically, while private-sector charities were being asked to pick up the slack, they were simultaneously becoming ever more dependent on public sector funding (Wolpert, 1993; Salamon, 1987).  

The privatization of social services is thus not so much about government declines in funding, but more about the transfer of responsibility and resources from the federal government to nonprofits via state-funded and locally funded purchase-of-service contracts (POSC). In this respect POSC and privatization have been viewed as ideologically compatible, with POSC representing one means to accomplish public divestiture (Gibelman & Demone, 1998). It removes the federal public sector from its former service delivery function and enables privatizers to create a political climate hostile to public ownership of and responsibility for social service programming. This, in turn, delegitimizes both current and future claims for the responsibility of the public sector (Gibelman, 1995).  The success of the nonprofit world actually helps to discredit the public sector at the very moment nonprofits become more a part of government (Fabricant & Fisher, 2002, p. 78).

These changes in the voluntary sector in general and in social service organizations in particular are part of the most significant international development since 1980s, the rise of privatization strategies in both economy and government. Privatization reflects a general policy orientation rather than a finite set of policy alternatives. This policy direction contains four key elements. First, priority is given to economic considerations in almost all aspects of domestic politics. Second, private markets are preferred over public policies in terms of allocative social choices. Third, if public intervention is deemed necessary, it must supplement private market processes and include maximum private-sector participation. Fourth, public programs are expected to be modeled on the methods of the private sector (Barnekov, Boyle, & Rich, 1989, p. 4).

In this respect, purchase of service contracts is being used as a tool for privatization initiatives.

Overt government intervention has been kept to a minimum as nonprofit agencies, contracting with the public sector, accomplish the tasks and deliver the services.   According to Smith and Lipsky (1993), contracting has actually allowed a growth in public services because contracting agencies can hire employees at cheaper rates and with fewer public-sector requirements. If the hires had been public employees, an antigovernment response would have been likely. But as employees of contracted agencies, they are private-sector workers, albeit those who deliver and implement public policy. Contracting hides growth in the public sector. This is especially ironic as a policy designed to reduce government evidently has the opposite effect.

Purchase of service contracting continues to be the dominant method for financing and delivering social services, despite growing constraints and funding volatility (Gibelman & Demone, 1998).  Kramer (1994) argues that purchase-of-service contracts enable nonprofits to maintain, expand, and diversify social services in ways not possible without public-sector funding. This is especially the case for newer and smaller community organizations that developed out of social movements of the past generation. Certainly the demands of contracting weigh disproportionately on these smaller community organizations, but for many, proponents argue, government funding is the primary, often the only, source of financing. The general benefit for money for nonprofits should not be underestimated. It expands the range of services, salaries, and employment opportunities.  Moreover, organizations that secure contracts often have enhanced visibility and prestige in their communities, which can be traced to both their increased service delivery and new connection to public-sector decision making (Kramer, 1989). Wagner (2000) suggests that contracting forces nonprofits to serve the poor and oppressed, requiring them to address the issues and needs of the most disadvantage.

Because of this complex interconnection between public, private, and voluntary sectors, wholesale attempts at dismantling the federal public sector turned out to be unsuccessful, certainly when compared to the rhetoric and intent of Reagan-Bush era policies.  Organized resistance to cuts for middle-class programs, such as Medicare and Social Security, the popularity of and demand for social service programs, and the significant entrenchment of the voluntary sector, due in no small part to prior contracted funding, slowed down federal efforts to dismantle public social services (Wolch, 1990; Piven & Cloward, 1982).

Institutionalizing Multi-Racial Coalition:  The Case of Minority Executive Directors' Coalition (MEDC)

The Emergence of MEDC

In this changing policy context, increasing financial pressures, the struggle to maintain social services, the emergence of new areas of concern such as immigrants and refugees, and increasing partisanship in local politics were all creating new strains on community based nonprofit organizations but at the same time opening up new possibilities. It was in this political climate, in 1981, that MEDC of King County became a formal entity. As many of the MEDC's founding members recall, Reagan's decision to eliminate the federal anti-poverty agency was a severe blow because it had provided the core funding for the growth of the MEDC member agencies. Moreover, they found themselves competing with one another for contracts.

We noticed very subtly, they pitted CAMP against El Centro, or against United Indians. …. I'd go down there and say, “We want to get in the United Way family, the federal Anti-Poverty Act.” They said, “we appreciate that, but God, we're getting pressure from the Latinos and the Asians. They want to get in. We just wish it wasn't y'all coming at the same time.”

A group of executive directors of color came together to form an alliance. Joe Garcia, then the deputy director of El Centro de la Raza, and Ike Ikeda of the Atlantic Street Center facilitated the formation of the coalition. Comprised of an organized network of executive directors of color, MEDC became a formal entity of the multi-ethnic, multi-racial coalition to achieve greater equity for communities of color, particularly in the areas of social, health, advocacy and economic development services.

The discussion that follows below goes into more detail about MEDC's organizational capacity, assessing its contribution to the struggle for racial equality. At the core, the analysis captures MEDC's organizational life through the voices of 32 former and present MEDC members who struggled in the cross fire of contract demands at their work while fighting for racial equality for the communities of color. Their stories individually and cumulatively describe the complexity of broad-based organizing, leadership development, and building power and influencing policy. We use the language of participants, with only minor grammatical changes. As noted in the research methodology section, participants were selected to reflect racial, ethnic and gender diversity as well as membership tenure in order to capture the history and the interplay between socio-political-demographic changes and coalition strategies in a turbulent environment.

Organizational Capacity Building

Over the last 20 some years, MEDC has grown from 12 coalition members to over 95, representing a very diverse membership of executive directors, directors and managers who are persons of color who currently or formerly work(ed) in private, non-profit health, human service, education and community economic development agencies in Seattle-King County. The focus of MEDC has been on “doing”—monitoring and researching public issues, advocating for legislation, budget allocations and policy decisions, and responding to emerging concerns of its members and communities of color.

Developing Sustainability through Funding and Staff

Currently MEDC has a board of directors comprised of 7 officers and is the ultimate policy decision making body. It has several committees, including public policy, cultural competency, strategic planning, operations, special events, and racial profiling task force/police accountability. These committees are generally headed by a board member and include coalition members. Also there are work groups or sub-committees, where specific emerging policies and issues are addressed. The work of MEDC is carried out primarily by two full-time staff and volunteer committees. Staff works with coalition members and the appropriate committees to gather information, identify issues, review proposed policies and budgets, and to recommend and draft positions papers, and to present at the monthly membership meeting. The board of directors will review, and adopt, amend, or decline the position.

MEDC has historically received most of its funding from the City of Seattle and King County. Recently, it has expanded its funding base to include private foundation funding, annual fundraising events, training fees and membership dues.

In the first few years of its existence, MEDC was run almost exclusively by volunteers and an ad-hoc committee, with staff periodically loaned from other organizations, primarily El Centro de la Raza. Many leaders within MEDC cite the hiring of staff as a turning point in its sustainability. A founding member stated,

When people come to me with all kinds of ideas… coalition to save the world; coalition to save the planet, a coalition to economic, racial and gender justice. I mean we get invited to every kind of coalition. But the first thing we ask is “what's the current structure, and who is staffing the coalition?” “Why don't we all staff it together?” Okay and who does all the tedious work? So everyone works, mails, calls, telephones, organizes a summit meeting. “We've got five great resolutions. Who's going to do the work? Not me because I'm already overextended”… I don't remember exactly at what point somebody said, “Let's put together a proposal that they can't say “no” to…. The key was the minute we decided to go for the money, get the money, and stabilize it with a staff. That was the success.”

In spring of 1990, a City of Seattle block grant enabled MEDC to hire its first paid staff. Richard (Dicky) Mar, a long-time community activist, was hired as a part-time coordinator. Mar brought a fresh perspective and helped MEDC to establish a regular presence at Seattle City Council and King County Council hearings. A former member describes how his presence took MEDC's advocacy efforts to a new level:

At the time that I arrived, the coalition and its membership individually and collectively still were not recognized as a resource to policy makers. …We were not at the table around different policies or fiscal decisions during the time I was there, very early on. I think that having a staff person and having a central contact – having something that entities could actually contact with some assurance of a response, aided in that process. As a result, we became more visible at the table. And we had to figure out ways to respond to the participation level that was now available to us, which was mobilizing the membership and establishing the committees, putting together more specific statements that would help guide both the representatives that would be participating in these bodies and also the staff in the positions that they would take during those discussions… MEDC representatives also traveled to Olympia to testify at legislative hearings in the state capitol.

Mar also helped to recruit new members. The leadership was expanded to include human service managers, and later, people of color working for private foundations and funding organizations. People of color in middle management positions at human service agencies had already been working together to support MEDC's efforts, so membership guidelines were expanded to recognize these developments, as well as reach out to much smaller, more focused agencies.   As one early member stated, “it might have been with the insight of developing leadership, and so it was a natural happening.”

Mar's work helped to define the roles of MEDC members by mobilizing the membership and establishing committees. He helped to initiate MEDC's on-going goal of impacting other agencies and funding entities to provide more culturally competent service delivery.

Transitions in MEDC Leadership

After Mar's resignation, Dorry Elias took over as a full-time executive director. Just as the hiring of Mar signified MEDC's growth, the hiring of a full-time executive director and support staff indicated that MEDC was here to stay. Elias had been a part of MEDC from its inception; a receptionist at El Centro de la Raza, Elias began to take on voluntary responsibilities to help MEDC in its infancy. She was responsible for much of the behind-the-scenes work of communicating with members and taking minutes at meetings. Following her tenure at El Centro, Elias worked for MEDC member agencies such as the Denise Louie Childhood Education Center and the Atlantic Street Center.

As MEDC executive director, Elias immediately saw MEDC facing issues with welfare reform and securing the public safety net. She developed existing and new partnerships with traditionally mainstream funders, coalitions and organizations such as United Way, the Seattle Human Services Coalition and the Family Leadership Fund. By 2003, Elias had helped to expand membership, bringing MEDC to a group of over 90 member organizations. A long-time MEDC member praised Elias' and women's leadership style,

 …leaders like Bob Santos, Roberto Maestas, Larry Gossett and Bernie Whitebear - they're rough and tumble. And Dorry's a velvet hammer…under Dorry's leadership, I think they're resolving the issues by debate, by dialogue and by consensus…And it's moved from a gang of four, Ike Ikeda, Joe Garcia, you know, good old boys to Joanne Kauffman, Theresa Fujiwara, Kikora Dorsey, and recently Stella Chao. Claudia Kauffman and Estella Ortega were active in the group. And I've always said, “The future of human service, the future of the community is in the hands of the sisters.” Men and myself included, you know, we have too much machismo, too much pride. And the women gonna say, “Put that aside. We gotta find a solution.”

The transition from Mar to Elias also indicated a larger gender shift among the leadership of MEDC; whereas its founders were predominantly men, MEDC's newer leaders tended to be women. A founding member praised this development as a positive direction for MEDC:

In the social, political movements in the people of color communities, the majority of the workers have always been women…but the requisite leadership positions have not always approved to them…These women seized the time, took advantage of it and ran with it. And the organization is better in some ways than it had been…It's an ongoing saga of particularly making America a fully democratic place.  

Another member describes how women's leadership changed the focus of MEDC:

I knew that there were some issues prior to my arrival where the focus was less on tangible outcomes of activities: to be in front of cameras and less of membership nurturing. I think when the women took over, some of those things were addressed, and I think appropriately so.

Some members cite MEDC's practice of fostering leadership among younger people of color as a strength of the organization. Many of MEDC's original leaders continue to do work in or for communities of color, but are less directly involved with MEDC's current efforts. Thus, it is necessary to transition younger leaders into positions of influence within MEDC and the community at large.  A former member stated,

…one of our objectives was [to] try to make sure that those that have responsibilities stay in that responsibility and nurture new mid-management people to work on gaining leadership positions.

Forging Multicultural Community Ethos

Even before MEDC was formed, Santos, Whitebear, Maestas, and Gossett were known as the multicultural “gang of four.” These early founders valued the multi-racial alliance as they supported each other in achieving victories, and this premise became part of the spirit of MEDC. Mutual support enabled members to achieve victories that might be impossible without the connection to other groups. Equally important, working in coalition threw issues of class and institutionalized racism into sharper relief. This point is more fully described by many members in the following passages.

I know the Asian & Pacific Islander community had an issue about bilingual education at that time, and even though maybe African Americans or Native Americans might not have that same issue, they will support us in terms of calling and saying, ‘Look this is important.' So there is that support within that group and also…making sure that the four major minority groups are working together and supporting one another

The one thing that I felt was unique and I've always been proudest of is that we had…Third World consciousness - that we saw ourselves as part of the broader African, Asian, Native, Latino diasporas. From the get-go, we talked about the disadvantaged Asians, all Indians, all Latinos and the communities of color. And we had class consciousness. 

We're lucky that the people that were leaders in these communities were not in it just for their own self-aggrandizement, because it is not difficult to demagogue racial differences. Only witness how this country was built. Many of white politicians got their positions by demagoguery against Blacks or the Chinese or the nerve of the Japanese attacking us…. That kind of demagoguery can play just like it's still not hard for Black people to be against Asians.

Personally, MEDC has made me really be an internationalist.  I mean, I tell people all the time I was a nationalist.  Now I see personally that people of color have more in common than not, and I have a very extensive and diverse family.

Many of the opportunities to build community among the groups came as cultural exchanges or as growing friendships. One founding member recalled,

I also was, am still and was then, a member of a cultural performing group. One outcome was that the Samoan community also had a performing group. So, for example, we had an evening together where…there was a lot of percussion involved. We performed, they performed, we performed, and they performed. And it was…exchanges along those lines, not just in the work setting. Not just in the budget or grant development or the training sessions, but also in the cultural and family and community settings.

A long-time member reiterates the importance of having this shared space:

This is why we have to tell people that sometimes communities of color, we have to deal with our own issues. But I think you can do that when you're family, and that's another value I think we have. It is family. I think we are connected through an extended kinship that allows us to collaborate and coordinate with each other. I think those are some of the values that I think that we hold, and not just for ourselves as members. I think it's for the community at large, too.

Within each racial group, leaders saw beyond racial lines, and faced challenges in convincing their peers to take the same approach:

I am proud that from the beginning I was part of a group that weren't what I call ‘cultural nationalists' like a lot of brothers… where they couldn't see beyond Black. I'm proud that we were not caught in that kind of doctrinaire thinking. We're all in this together. That also manifested in the Black student union. Two official members were Native American women and one official member was a Latino brother. So we had three non-African Americans in the Black student union the first year. By the time we had the sit-in and brought in 230 students that next year, it was enough of a base for the Natives, Latinos, and Asians to set up their own student groups.  

I was older and more experienced than many of the other students. There was a confusion that students would have when I would say, ‘You know what, we need to invite the Asian student leadership, the Black student leadership, and the Indian student leadership and do something together.' And people would say, ‘Well they got a different agenda. Who are they?' It was that division that society had imposed upon all of us that made it a significant challenge for people to see that it made sense to come together with other races. I guess I was so lucky to see that color and ethnicity are just minor things and that when you have a common agenda that is really irrelevant.

The forging of multicultural community ethos, as these leaders expressed and nurtured, is a rare and unique quality, which set the MEDC apart from most communities of color in U.S.

Shifting Strategies

MEDC's roots are obviously in the civil rights era. Its early leaders organized sit-ins, shut down construction sites, and picketed sports stadiums. As a former member stated,

There was a process in which we would think through our agenda and prepare what we needed to prepare for. If that meant going to jail, being arrested…with others, forming coalitions with coalitions…we did it. If it meant taking over the college president's office or federal official's office, the mayor's office, it didn't matter…It was all about, in those first five years of MEDC we needed to show that the coalition would be effective, bring change.

Whereas MEDC once relied on the voluntary support of its members, it has now paid full-time staff and funding for programs such as cultural competency training and education programs. MEDC contracted with businesses, non-profits and government agencies to train people about institutionalized racism and develop strategies to incorporate anti-racist principles in the organization's operations and service delivery. It also started new initiatives, such as Children of Color Organizers and Advocates (COCOA) and sub-committees, such as the Racial Profiling Task Force. Both have reached success in providing a venue for current and potential members to address specific areas of need and disparity. Many of MEDC's current members believe that recent developments and the establishment of programs have allowed MEDC to take a more proactive approach to issues, rather than the reactive role that characterized its early efforts.

As MEDC has grown more established, it has been pursuing the possibility of obtaining its own 501(c) 3 non-profit status. An associate member believes that such an effort to strengthen MEDC's organizational core will help to make their efforts more proactive:

 MEDC…is a grassroots organization, and so to a large degree it's been a crisis-oriented group. It's been more reactive, and obviously the long range hope is to become more proactive. And you can only do that if you have a solid infrastructure.  You have a power base that you don't have to continually stroke…it's there and you can focus on the long range politics. And there is a long ways to go before MEDC can choose that, but it's getting there.

The formalization of MEDC is also seen as a means to hold its leaders and members accountable. A newer member described his views on the subject:

If MEDC was a loosely formed structure, I think it would fall apart. It falls back on a very formal structure. There's an executive committee, there's certain processes that have to happen, there's a vote that's made. It's got structure, and so that protects it from having any biases or, I would say, conflicts of interest, unethical practices. I think there's enough oversight and checks and balances…and I think that adds credibility.

While some see this change as part of MEDC's natural progression, others believe that this raises some concerns.  A long-time member explained,

…you may not want the loose-knit coalition to become formidable and established because then what you do is if you need funding, you actually find yourself in direct competition for limited funds with the very members you're trying to serve.

Others see these changed strategies as movement away from MEDC's core values. A founding member directly disapproves of this new direction:

If you buy into being accepted and you get caught up in the formal process of community activism, then you've sealed your death. You may get promoted, get a good job description or a great title, nice office, get paid well serving the community, but you are not going to be a community activist anymore.

Today, many former and current MEDC members have prestigious appointed and elected positions in all levels of government, work for private foundations and large funding institutions, and are executive directors of larger, mainstream organizations. A long-time member reflected on this transition:

There were many of our members who were former executive directors or program directors who have since transitioned into the government sector or in the private sector. And a lot of that, I believe, can be directly tied back to MEDC's work in ensuring that people of color get placed in high level leadership positions, whether it is in the political arena or in the corporate sector. As a result of that, we created an associate membership category so that some of those folks who had moved into those positions could continue to stay involved in MEDC.

Some view this as a sign that MEDC has effectively infiltrated the system and now has more direct access to decision-making bodies. As one long-time member pointed out,

…instead of being the community activist voice, Larry Gossett is now the member of the King County Council…He is now one of those people he used to yell at. So he's in a position of influence that wasn't readily available to MEDC at that time.

We weren't given any opportunity to provide input at the front end. We had to react to policies after they've been developed. That changed with our being at the table. There was clearly less of a need to pound on doors, take over offices or call in the media, for that matter.

Transitions were not necessarily easy for MEDC over the years, but it has definitely moved in a direction that many members agree is appropriate in changing with the times. Moreover, the staff, executive committees and members often had to work to create and carry out an often changing vision of MEDC. As a member stated, “…It's important to include a notion that MEDC has evolved and survived because a lot of hard, determined, relentless work by people who believed it needed to happen as it did.” Among the participants, there is agreement on the common purpose of advocating for policies and funding that will benefit communities of color.

Inclusion of Diverse Perspectives

Once MEDC established its executive committee, it was decided that the presidency would rotate among the different racial groups in order to ensure balanced representation. The same practice of rotating leadership positions among the different racial groups was used to elect all of the officers in the executive committee.

A topic rarely addressed is the extent to which MEDC has included indigenous issues as part of its agenda. While the “gang of four” and others helped to take over Fort Lawton and open the Daybreak Star Center, some have asked how influential or how well represented Native communities have been within MEDC's efforts. A newer leader noted that MEDC has improved on this front:

MEDC's support in the tribes' issues on this past legislative session was very important and it was very positive. And I think that MEDC was actually looking forward to more involvement within supporting the Indian community.

 MEDC was established as a coalition of four major racial groups, but since its founding, the importance of diversity and representation within each group, as well as between groups, has increased in importance. A long-time MEDC member stated,

You might have an agency that deals with a very small community subset within the larger community and…this may be the only chance that this organization voices its concerns. And I think MEDC is actually very good because…it would be natural to fall into the trap of letting the big groups dominate.

The same member shared that the Samoan community, whose issues may tend to be marginalized within a larger Asian Pacific Islander community, would have a place within MEDC to voice concerns and garner support.

I don't think that the group ever had a real problem with one ethnicity dominating another. I think probably perhaps at times a little bit of that came up. But really from the beginning, the numbers were in place. And not just one, but several people, from a particular culture group because you have cultural diversity…within cultural groups.

Over the years, there have been influxes of immigrant and refugee groups who have had different levels of participation in MEDC. Embracing this new dimension of diversity created new challenges, but also stretched members understanding of the nature of disenfranchisement and the depth and breath of their shared struggles:

...when we started, there's Black, Brown, Native American and Asian. Now there're subgroups of each…. I think there are folks from East Africa and there are folks from South East and Middle Eastern Asia who aren't as well represented.

I think over time, what people had begun to discover is that the African American community is not just one race. That it is made up of many ethnic groups and we have to be conscious about how to bring Ethiopians, Southeast Asians, and Muslims into this conversation. How to really look at what it means to have a discussion and debate about how do we reach out to people who may look a little different than the African community we're used to, but who are just as disenfranchised as all people of color. I think we've had to really try to understand more about the diversity within diversity in that context.

It's basically the newer arriving immigrants and refugees that are not being reached by MEDC: Southeast Asians, Pacific Islanders, African communities, South Asians, Indian communities are underrepresented, I'm sure…I would guess the same challenge exists for MEDC as with any other coalition and that is getting people to the table who are struggling within their own communities.

The concept that groups newer to the United States may be developing at a different pace was a frequent theme expressed by several interviewees. Immigrants and refugees who are involved in larger efforts in communities of color (outside of their ethnic/cultural communities) tend to be educated in the U.S. and more integrated into the larger community.

…ten or fifteen years ago...there's no…Vietnamese or like the newcomers coming to the Asian American community functions, just me…And now, I think there's more and more. So I think that there's one reason for that…It's because like refugee first came to this country has the language barrier, didn't know much about…how the system operate in this country and don't have the community network in place. So they create their own network and…different agenda and things like that. And also…a lot of time their issues of their home countries became…the issues that the people in the community used to organize the community…and of course if they organize a long issue, they cannot integrate with other like actors in the community.

A specific challenge to diversifying membership may be attributed to MEDC's practice of conducting meetings and business only in English.  Discussion of the challenges of integrating other language communities into the coalition illustrates the ongoing self-analysis and growth among the group:

Since we did not accommodate the language issues – we couldn't. We had to stay with one common language, I guess. It was difficult. Even most of the directors, even from limited English [serving] organizations, spoke relatively good English.

…the membership of MEDC has to more and more look like the changing population…The Minority Executive Directors look like the mainstream non-profit agencies.  Most, if not all, of the executive directors at the roundtable are born here in the United States…But you have very few immigrant refugee organizations that are really tied in the MEDC, and they should be.

Remember this happened during…the developing stages of the immigrant/refugee populations…And so, yeah, they were left out…And then we worked very hard to make sure that we did everything possible to make sure that they got to the table.

I don't know much about the activities or…goals of MEDC prior to my involvement….Since I came to the organization, …the issues of refugees and immigrants …always came into my mind, is on the table all the time….So I think that since I came to MEDC that I push that issue more and more….I think that's perfect for me to play that role.

There is a general recognition that Seattle's communities of color have dramatically shifted since the original alliance formed between four major racial groups; increasing diversity within MEDC is a direction that MEDC needs to look at in order to continue to be an effective voice in this anti-racism movement.

Stretching themselves to accommodate the needs of immigrant and refugee communities include providing child development centers for immigrant and refugee children, and mentoring immigrant and refugee groups in securing funding and influencing politics:

MEDC put forth an effort for immigrant and refugee children and agencies that were serving them to become Head Start delegate agencies so that Jose Marti and Denise Louie through this city were able to receive funding to provide Head Start services. That was a major, major victory because we had significant opposition to that. …As a Head Start parent, that was my real introduction to advocacy at the grassroots level.

…especially for emerging communities who may not have been around long enough to fully develop a strong network of contacts, that may not have reached a critical mass to be determined as an influential body to political parties…there is not…a good number of their members registered to vote…MEDC can speak in support of…those communities who are not yet…fully effective in speaking on their own yet.”

While some members stated that most MEDC members were American-born and meetings were conducted in English, others recognize that many of the members were themselves bicultural or bilingual, and therefore had some ability to reach out to immigrant and refugee groups.  

Another challenge in reaching immigrant groups is the complicated issue of including undocumented immigrants. A newer member commented on this subject,

You've had Mexicans who've been there for three or four generations and you have immigrants. And then you have undocumented immigrants, who are basically invisible. You see them, but you're not supposed to see them. There's this undercurrent where people try to dissociate as much as they can…They want to be like, ‘I've arrived. I've made it.' And I still think that happens in every culture.

In line with MEDC's principles of inclusion based on common issues, an associate member recognizes that there is still a commonality that exists among many American-born MEDC members and immigrants and refugees:

In my life it may play out this way as an African American, and in a Vietnamese person's life it may play out a different way. But in the end, institutional racism is something that we all confront.

MEDC's members have differing opinions of the extent to which it addresses multiple oppressions or includes the perspectives of other marginalized groups. While MEDC has done extremely well in empowering women to move to leadership positions, it has been arguably less successful at bringing issues of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people of color and disabled people of color to the forefront.

Another founding member recognizes the initial limitations of MEDC in working across oppressions, but believes that MEDC is now headed in the right direction:

I think initially it was a big job to work on the races and class, mostly around racism and interconnections with economics…I think that it could have been that the work on sexism…wasn't addressed, but basically that's where their organizing skills were developed. It was around racism and undoing racism, addressing racism…When I started to look at it and work on other forms of oppression, I obviously pulled from those experience – understand one another better…I did a training last year with MEDC, so I know they're working on some of those things now. And that's really good to hear because it just makes the possibilities of what we can do in communities even larger.

Some members believe that intersections of identity serve to include the perspectives of LGBT people of color and those living with disabilities:

…within MEDC there are…people with disabilities, there are people who are lesbian and gay, transgendered, who are members in leadership positions. They come out of communities of color, they represent communities of color…but we are an organization primarily dealing with the issues of people of color.

Some see limiting MEDC's work to addressing racism as a necessary step in maintaining a clear focus for the coalition. One long-time member stated that LGBT people are invisible within MEDC:

You don't see them in MEDC…Not the organizations. MEDC really is focusing on communities of color…it's somewhat misleading in the name…because they're minorities, too, right? But they're not communities of color, so that's where the distinction is...I still think that we need to keep the focus on communities of color.

A newer member explains MEDC's role in working with LGBT communities, as well as addressing religious minorities' issues:

…I'm not aware of…the major collaboration reaching MEDC in the gay and lesbian community, but there's…quite a few members of the MEDC came from that community. And I…think MEDC has been very supportive of the gay and lesbian community. It's not like one of the major activities of MEDC to go out and advocate around those issues because they organize along the line of people of color…Recently there's this MEDC collaboration with other Muslim community organizers…the MEDC collaboration with the Muslims is because they're along the lines of the anti-racism issue rather than the religious issue.

Another member added:

It's not that we wouldn't, for example, work with the AIDS organizations. We are concerned about health care issues with them, but we're not into the debate around gay and lesbian sexuality issues. …..Looking at the community coalition for environmental justice is moving us to understand environment issues and racism. I think we have to be educated about how some of these things, such as disabilities, LGBT, impact our communities. And how we can integrate it into our agenda.

While MEDC claims to represent King County, many members believe that the Seattle-based coalition needs to expand its geographic diversity. A long-time member describes how this has challenged MEDC:

The community is much more ethnically diverse…immigrants and refugees are not actually staying within the city. They're moving to the outskirts, and so we're seeing a lot of immigrants and refugees in suburban cities where they would never have even thought to go in the past…To that degree it has really forced us to have to broaden our net[work] and try to be more inclusive and participate. And so it's kind of stretched our capacity and challenged us in a way that we were not challenged before.

However, the geographic expansion appears to be constrained by staffing and resource limitation. MEDC has done proclamations or resolutions to support efforts in Yakima and concerns in other neighborhoods. As Shiota'(2002) report noted, even with the high productivity of staff (2 permanent positions) and volunteer committees, the expansive scope and quantity of activities exceeded the capacity of the current level of staffing and other resources.   

Challenges and Limitations

MEDC members had to reconcile real differences of needs and tensions between communities in order to build this multi-racial alliance. While most members expressed that cultural differences may not account for conflict (“I don't think that the cultural differences were ever that much of a barrier.”), another explanation offered was that disagreements that arose between groups were resolved. A former member stated,

 I don't think it was ever a point of community against community. I think that the opportunity to discuss the positions, how certain positions may have a different impact on one community over another. I think that really defused any outward tension that may have been created.

Thus, work to settle these differences of opinion was part of the sometimes challenging process of coming together.

While all of its stakeholders see the diversity of MEDC membership as an asset, there is difficulty in reconciling differences in any coalition. One founding member explained,

We really have to try to keep conflicts outside of the main agenda, which is to get the system to respond to the crisis of people of color.

It is important to recognize commonalities and strengths instead of focusing on potentially divisive conflicts. Another founding member emphasized that institutionalized racism imposed divisions among people of color:

It was that division that society imposed upon all of us that made it a significant challenge for people to see that it made sense to come together with other races. I guess I was so lucky to see that color and ethnicity are just minor things and, that when you have a common agenda that is really irrelevant.

Managing Conflicts and Bridging Divisions

Most MEDC members, past and present, describe the coalition's democratic process of taking positions on issues.  Members are informed about an issue, are asked to weigh in and discuss their individual stances, and are then asked to vote at membership meetings.

Some of the work on any particular issue is assigned to the appropriate committee or brought to the membership as a request for MEDC to address. Committees develop positions and make proposals to the general membership body. Ultimately, questions or concerns are brought to staff members or the executive committee, and the proposal formally voted on at meetings.

Others say that reaching consensus is often the goal, rather than relying on majority voting. A former member believes that consensus is a principle that makes MEDC effective: “…trying to develop consensus whenever possible is another [principle] that is very critical in holding a coalition together.”

Developing a collective decision was not necessarily an easy task. A former member stated,

We always present issues in a collective position and we always try to inform the membership of any position that we take. We have been less successful in getting all the membership to understand the position…Being able to not have in the public eye, internal controversy with regards to the positions that we took strengthen the position, obviously.

A long-term member concurs:

…one of the principles that I'd like to believe makes MEDC an effective advocacy entity is the fact that we value one voice…the fact that we can take care of our dirty laundry behind closed doors and present a unified front…Primarily, united we stand, divided we fall.

There are very few issues that struck controversy and division among the members. One such issue was the departure of founding member, Joe Garcia. Another issue that MEDC chose not to take a stand on was the potential unionization of El Centro de la Raza employees. A long-time member detailed the point of conflict:

…when El Centro was under attack for union busting, I think I was at the meeting and was asked to take a position. MEDC had a long history of supporting labor movements and the right to organize, and here was one of our founding father organizations being challenged and accused. It was important to have both sides heard before a vote could be called, even though there were some very passionate opinions about it.

A newer member described the scenario:

I remember there was a time when El Centro was banned by labor because…their employees were trying to unionize. Maestas wanted to have MEDC make a statement or endorsement, but there was a lot of different opinions about that within the group. It was very interesting to watch how that played out, but because the greater group has to make a decision about, ‘Is this good for MEDC to make a decision on?' Maestas was respectful when it came at the end that MEDC did not want to make a statement or decision. It didn't become an issue.

A long-time member described how the issue was handled by the membership:

There was an example of the union issue at El Centro. And with all due respect to providing a forum for our members to be able to raise issues, we gave El Centro an opportunity to come and to share with us what their experience was through this process and what was going on with them. But at the same time, in all fairness we needed to get the union an opportunity to voice their side as well. That's the process that I would say we engage in. We listen to both sides of the story and the issue, and then we make a decision collectively as to whether or not we're going to pursue dealing with it, take a position on it or not.

In light of these areas of conflict, a long-time MEDC member stated,

Fortunately…MEDC doesn't have those people who were kind of the nay-sayers and ones who will just sit back and sit in the peanut gallery and…criticize everything because…that's not really productive.

One way that MEDC sought to reconcile divergent interests was to allow the space for different issues to be taken on. For example, the Asian and Latino communities had a vested interest in bilingual education. While some African Americans in the greater community disagreed with MEDC's choice to take this issue on, the purpose was to present a position of mutual support. Likewise, disproportionality in the public school system garnered broad support although it most severely affected African American youth and the African American community was in the forefront of this struggle. As one member described this dynamic,

That created some balance with regard to some of the controversy that may arise with divergent opinions. But I think that the ability to communicate and understand the different positions and different needs within the community really helped having the opportunity to do that.

Maintaining coalition while respecting divergent interests demands strong facilitation skills among both leaders and members. In one example, a few members worked at the committee level to develop a position on a policy initiative. After the position passed at the membership level, they wanted to rescind their participation. The executive committee brought in the members and underwent a mediation process to resolve concerns. A founding member commented on their ability to work together instead of against each other:

…you always have group politics…you have to expect that…things come up in groups, and that processes have to be in place to work through them. You know, you start working together and people's strengths and their weaknesses come out.  And that's all right, that's so normal, and so natural, and so common. So then it means having the expertise in group facilitation and in cultural democracy to figure that out.

A newer leader in the group described MEDC's ability to build consensus and determination to work out differences as the key ingredient that makes MEDC unique:

…what makes MEDC very unique…is that all of us can come together, and then we all have different issues…Even though we serve different populations, in some cases – some of them are mixed…The point of it is, though, we can come together and find consensus around various issues and work together to see if we can solve them.

MEDC as a Model for Coalition Building

There are many features of MEDC's uniqueness. One of the founders credits multi-racial coalitions partly to geography and a shared experience of oppression; “…because of racism and segregation, these neighborhoods not only became the living quarters…we were in close proximity to one another.”

People have often implied that Seattle is unique as a hotbed for activism and socially progressive policy, making MEDC's formation just part of the mix. A founding member directly debunked this idea:

…wherever I am and the subject of MEDC comes up, people always say something like, ‘Oh well, people in Seattle are kind of like that,' and I correct them because I don't think there is anything unique about Seattle, but rather that it took commitment and understanding and vision by people from those colors and a hell of a lot of hard work. Seattle has got its own differences from other major cities in the country but is still governed by fundamental status quo characteristics. It is just as racist as any other major cities. Racism is alive and well.

Another member also challenged the misconception that Seattle's liberalism contributed to the ease of communities of color coming together:

…it took a lot of work, and it wasn't the kindness and generosity and liberalism that created it. It was somebody who had the commitment, the notion, and…it was just historical destiny that there were four people, who were from each major minority group, who had enough confidence in each other and trust and good sense to say, ‘Hey, let's work together instead of having the man divide us.

One long-term member believes that Seattle is different from most urban cities, and points out that the much smaller population of color actually works to Seattleites' advantage, making it very apparent that any single group may well be too small to successfully demand change. He explains,

…obviously, when you look at sheer numbers or even on the percentage basis of who makes up Washington State, it isn't a tremendously diverse state when you compare it to someplace like California …no one group of color is so large that they could probably go it alone…in California you have such a concentration of people of color that there may not be a perceived need to work with anybody else because you look around and you've got the bodies there…if people of color in Seattle want to get large-scale social issues or an agenda passed…you're going to have to come together…and that's done through groups like MEDC.

Once groups began to socialize with one another, the stage had been set for socially conscious people of color to build multi-racial alliances. Many participants acknowledge,

…once independent leaders in each of these communities that already had experience at working and living across racial lines gained the consciousness that they wanted to help…their targeted group, and had more power and influence in Seattle, it wasn't hard for them to ally with others who had the same purpose in mind.

…I'm so proud that MEDC has been able to stay together for over 20 years under different leaderships. Still pretty true to our original mission.

The leadership, for the most part, has been visionary and progressive… and we continued to attract really bright people from the various communities. They would see beyond their own individual ethnic group, I think it's luck, consciousness and the milieu or the environment – when you come to the MEDC, you're kind of infected by this sense that we're gonna work cooperatively.  Most presidents of MEDC have been willing to challenge when opportunistic issues or activities or individuals tried to push divisions.

Others acknowledged that the alliances built were not necessarily representative of the larger political perspective of communities of color:

…we're not talking about…the mass of them. We're talking about the ones who had social consciousness, who were already active and had a tendency toward the left. Liberal, left, democrats, socialists, communists is what came together.  Not necessarily the masses of any of our people, but it still made a difference.

Regardless of the explanation or analysis of how MEDC came to be, there's no doubt that it has become a successful example of people of color coming together for social justice and equality. One founding member observed,

…as I go around the country, I'm constantly looking to see how people are working together in coalitions. And it seems as though…this is one of the more unique manifestations of people of color struggling to regain their voice and regain a measure of justice and equality.

According to another founding member, Jesse Jackson campaigned in Seattle in 1984, commenting on the extremely balanced representation among Seattle's politically active residents:

I got Rainbow Coalitions in 50 states. But let me tell y'all, there's nothing like what's going on in the greater Seattle area or Washington State. As I look out here – look at all these Asians, Indians and Latinos and progressive whites and Blacks. This is my definition of the rainbow.

Summary

Throughout its history, MEDC has faced difficult internal struggles and overcome great challenges; nonetheless, it has steadfastly worked to increase services and resources to the communities of color, particularly in the areas of human services, health care and economic development. The significance of MEDC's role is that it has institutionalized a cultural space where multi-racial coalition identities have been nurtured and a political context from which leaders from nonprofit organizations come together to identify problems of racial inequality and articulate collective actions. In the process it has played an indispensable role in helping to politicize the issue of racism by documenting and publicizing forms of inequality, unraveling the structures and processes which shape them, developing strategies for intervention and change. They have effected an alliance of people and organizations which can exert a significant pressure locally and at a sustained level. It has cultivated a new generation of activists and leaders in the arena of networking with other major coalitions, committees, and commissions across racial lines; advocating city, state, and federal funding for social service programs; launching media campaigns for cultural diversity and public recognition[10]; and educating mainstream agencies on culturally competent practice and multicultural organizational development.

MEDC has demonstrated the capacity to survive: Its management and decision making are structured to ensure racial/ethnic representation and accountability to the general membership. With a membership of over 95 from the various communities of color, MEDC has established an impressively large coalition. This strength can provide a formidable base of power. It also reflects the effectiveness of the organization to reach out and maintain its attraction to a diverse audience and to build a sense of partnership and common purpose. Particularly noteworthy here is the MEDC's leadership structure and processes (equal racial/ethnic representation and access within the organizational decision making) that ensure dialogue across different constituencies within the MEDC. It is rare for a local organization taking up race-related issues to have these features, as anti-racist organizations in general tend to be pushed out on to the periphery of local politics.

With this general recognition of the scope of the MEDC, there are constraints and weaknesses. Its expansive scope and quantity of activities exceeds the capacity of the level of staffing and other resources needed to formulate transformative goals and strategies. Other concerns expressed by the participants include competing priorities and strategic approaches, fiscal instability, diversification of membership and representation, member relationship to projects and activities, broadening communal capacity and identification, among other things. Clearly, MEDC must address these internal organizational dynamics, strategic resources and constraints if it is to serve as instruments of community building for racial equality.

Implications for Multi-Racial Coalition Building

Critically, the themes and findings of this study have implications for multi-racial coalitions in general, not just for Seattle. They can be also viewed in the wider context of the vast number of nonprofit social service agencies struggling to meet individual needs while working to advance the collective interests of poor and marginalized communities. The social services provided by the MEDC member agencies reach hundreds of thousands of service users annually.[11]  These agencies, consumers, and contracting arrangements differ little from the broader experience of not-for-profit social services and are therefore representative. MEDC member agencies are frontline, grassroots institutions serving the needs of the community of color. Accordingly, these organizations, due to their relative flexibility in responding to local problems, mission, size, and historic relationship to a neighborhood, are a potentially critical locus for significant community-building work.

Framing Cultural Differences for Positive Changes

Culture is a term which is incorporated, often inappropriately in our view, into discussion of race relations and racial inequality. It is more often than not used to explain conflict or misunderstanding between groups which arise from differences in norms and values, custom, religion, manners, and language. Although color is said to heighten these differences it is argued that problems experienced by people of color and immigrants of color are similar to those faced by Irish or Italian immigrants in the latter part of the 19^th Century. Following this line of analysis racial minorities are thus perceived as ethnic minorities and color is one dimension of the broader concept of ethnicity.

The tendency to focus on “ethnic” culture per se does serve to shift the emphasis of discussion onto minority groups themselves; the quaint and the exotic as well as the alien and the pathological characteristics of their culture. Predictably and correctly many have come to regard this form of analysis as a diversion from, and by implication an abdication of, institutional responsibilities for inequality.  Although we accept the thrust of these criticisms we do believe that it is both possible and necessary to develop knowledge of culture which neither pathologizes the group in question nor eschews the reality of racism. From an anti-racist policy perspective, ‘ethnic' culture or cultural difference has to be framed in a way that is amenable to a political analysis. In this sense, therefore, policy analysis should pay attention to contexts in which cultural differences beg institutional responses and how the failure to respond has helped to create and reinforce racial inequalities.

Assumptions based on particular cultural and ethnic stereotypes are examples of how cultural differences result in unfair treatment. The area of social service provision offers examples of this particular form of institutional racism, in this case over which the city, county and state have some control. The very essence of human services, with its individual casework orientation, militates against an understanding and acknowledgement of needs and rights on a group basis.  Consequently, social patterns within minority groups, which have implications for provision, are often overlooked. The disproportionate number of working women within racial minority groups has implications, for instance, for the geographical location and extent of pre-school provision. The rapid growth of elderly populations also has implications for provision in terms of type, location and the organization and facilities offered, for example in meeting the dietary requirements of different groups. The failure to develop policies which respond more directly to those differences has policy implications. There are many more examples of how our schools and colleges fail as institutions to be sensitive to culture and therefore effectively make educational access and opportunity comparatively more competitive and restricted for racial minority groups.

At the heart of these debates is the question of who and what is responsible for the inequalities. The argument underlying positive action places that responsibility unequivocally on the institution. The absence of people of color from employment in the city hall, Asian girls from youth facilities, and Native people from affordable housing must be considered in terms of institutional failure to redefine job responsibilities, to develop appropriate criteria for selection, to devise recruitment procedures which ensure greater proportions of people of color employees, and to develop affordable housing. Redefining the problem thus entails challenging those assumptions which attribute the above problems to the lack of qualified applicants, cultural conflicts within the Asian community, or the failure of Native people to integrate or assimilate into western culture. With the explicit identification of these reasons and their clear implications for policy and practice, we can frame cultural difference into positive policy initiatives.

Marginalization through Consultation

Paradoxically, although contracting undermines the public sector's legitimacy and significance, it simultaneously demands that nonprofits be active participants in the public-sector political process.   Social service agencies seeking contracts must build relationships with public-sector officials. They become ever more enmeshed in a political system that, ironically, is prone to lobbying pressure. Political incorporation entails a shift in the role of the agency's administrator from day-to-day administration of the agency to increased involvement in public sector affairs.

This increased political involvement, however, should not be confused with the social reform and social action efforts of the civil rights era. Political incorporation strengthens the clout of the organization, but it also restricts its broader advocacy.  Neo-conservatives attacked service allocations in the past two decades not only to save costs and improve government efficiency but also to undermine social reform. The dismantling of Legal Aid, Community Action, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children not only cut public-sector costs but eliminated programs that supported activist groups or programs through which recipients were organizing opposition and making claims (Kramer, 1985;Mollenkopf, 1992).  The danger lies in such political activity that is likely to be more about agency survival, as a part of the funding process, than about fighting for the clients' benefit or struggling to advance a larger more collective social action initiative.

Governments of all levels have attached, at least nominally, some significance to the involvement of local communities in local decision-making. Race related policies and policy documents have, albeit sometimes ambiguously, laid stress on the need to consult minority communities. Consultation as a principle attracts support across the political spectrum, and has been incorporated in policy documents produced by all of the major political parties. The reality of consultation can hardly be said to represent a significant advance in terms of an extension of local democracy. On the contrary, the variety of consultative measures invariably serves to emphasize inequalities between consultors and consulted.  Committees, located within local government structures, have become an increasingly popular form for consultation. Representation on a statutory committee is the closest an organization can get, in an official capacity, to the sources of power. Although these committees would appear to provide the “best” opportunity for consultative exercises to involve serious dialogue and responsible action on the part of local city councils, the experience of local organizations demonstrates the circumstances of community powerlessness.  Devoid of any rights or sanctions, they witness formal decisions regularly ignored, or directly opposed in the policy and finance committees. The power of the consulted is restricted to concurring with the consultors (Ben-Tovim, et al, 1986).

A second form of consultation is to be found in the variety of public meetings organized by local authorities in response to the increasing demands by community groups over the last decades. They include day conferences, seminars, workshops and exhibitions on a range of issues and are viewed by members and officers of the local authority as consultative exercises, insofar as they are concerned with community-linked issues. The fact is, however, that most often they fail to provide the opportunity for the exchange and development of ideas, let alone for the making of policy.  On the contrary, they are more likely to create a false consensus and a context in which dissension and conflict are covertly, if not openly, discouraged; and recommendations, statements of intent and even written reports which emerge from them are likely to be disregarded. The failure of consultation, as a means for a more equal balance of power or more open policy making, indicates the need for creating a new framework for new political relationships and power.

Challenges: Broadening Communal Capacity Building

Never has it been more critical to find new ways to strengthen communities of color. The globalization and growing mobility of capital has created greater and greater strain and ever more profound dislocations for inner-city communities of color. Increasing globalization and racial/cultural diversity require the building and rebuilding of communities to provide a basis of stability and identity. Without such community building, people will find themselves without any form of political community that expresses our shared identity, and knits them together in the families, schools and neighborhoods that democracy requires (Fisher & Karger, 1997).

Yet, at precisely the moment when non-market institutions are critically needed to engage in the work of community building, the structure of government contracts has made it especially difficult for nonprofit social service agencies to promote social solidarity and thereby address the crisis of the community. As they become more and more part of the government's social service system, reliant on it for revenue and destabilized by cutbacks, they face increasingly complex dynamics affecting their ability to advocate for social justice. Identifying the common good and finding common ground within a larger social justice framework become very complicated and dangerous tasks for nonprofit organizations, although they can strengthen the community a great deal in the long run.

A critical task of community-building processes is to extend the organization's web of relationships. The emergence of interorganizational coalitions and informal networks results in a broader communal sense of identity and more political and economic clout. If the process of building social capital stops at the organizational level, then the larger neighborhoods and communities will be shortchanged. The conversion of social networks into political capital, however, poses particular challenges for social service agencies. The creation of social capital or networks offers opportunities to mobilize ever greater numbers of people to exert political pressure on decision makers. Agencies engaged in organizing must often challenge a public sector that provides critical funding. The tension for social service agencies between funding and political action is not new. What must be calculated by the agency, however, are the tradeoffs, strategies, and tactics specific to particular kinds of organizing. The basic relationship of political work to community building must be integrated into a calculus of risks and returns. Different circumstances will dictate different responses. Ultimately, any decision by a community agency to play it safe and not engage in political work will undercut its legitimacy with and contribution to disenfranchised communities.

Paradoxically, global capitalism pushes people away from oppositional strategies at the same time that global entities concentrate power and compete furiously with each other. Conflict and contestation are accepted practices in the global marketplace. The goal is to eliminate competitors and minimize the cost of competition. In terms of domestic or social matters, conflict and contestation are discouraged as costly and counterproductive: cooperation and consensus building are the only acceptable strategies and modes of operation. The same is true for the contemporary world of community organization (Fabrican & Fisher, 2002).  The process of community building, for example, is seen as one of building relationships. We agree in large measure. But the examples of community building and leadership development exemplified by the emergence of MEDC were initiated by organizers with both a conflict approach and a desire to build social cohesion and solidarity around progressive agenda.  Individual empowerment, leadership development, amplification of voice, and more generally, community building often occur in struggle with those institutions and actors outside the community that are responsible for many of the ills of communities of color. These movements remind us of the invaluable lesson that dialogue alone cannot reconcile structural differences.

In an age dominated by a highly conservative credo of corporatization that emphasizes social moderation and consensus strategy, agencies are faced with the dilemma of gaining support for community work open to conflict and oriented to political mobilization.  Creating the internal and external resources for such initiatives, although increasingly difficult, remains possible. This work will be central to truly effective long-term change in communities of color.

Multiple Identities as a Base for Multi-Racial Politics

Building coalitions of color today is much more formidable than it was in the 1960s due to contextual shifts and new complexities.  During the past two decades, a large influx of immigrants and refugees of color from Asia, Latin America and Africa has dramatically changed the country's composition. Ironically, the increasing diversification and fragmentation of identity and interests in the post-1960s era have been accompanied by the hardening of racial boundaries in the form of ethnic-minority identity politics. In recent years, cultural nationalism has assumed a more extreme form under the rubric of monistic identity politics (Chung & Chang, 1998).  Various segments in communities of color, in a self-defeating manner, have begun to consider racial identity as the ends rather than the means to empowerment.  Race is now deemed the only salient feature of political identity, such that other features of identity (e.g., class, gender, sexuality, etc.) are regarded as either insignificant or secondary to racial issues.  Moreover, the hardening of racial boundaries homogenizes the interests of individual racial groups in a manner that eliminates the basis for biracial and multiracial alliances Various arguments are used to legitimate the exclusionary and anti-coalitional activities of these groups, including references to a hierarchy of oppression, the prioritization of the advancement of one's own group, or the denial that there is any compelling shared interest among racial groups.

The literature on coalition building consistently emphasizes the essential relationship between multiple identities and multi-racial alliances. Hence, race does not become an indomitable barrier, since individuals and groups can have similar interests on any level of identity. Unlike monistic identity politics, multiple identity consciousness is structured around recognition of the multidimensional nature of oppression. As such, coalition-building around intersections of multiple identities other than race is not only viable, but also necessary to overcome all aspects of domination (Chung & Chang, 1998). The lines of commonality that intertwine these racial groups are initially pragmatic, local, and transient in nature. As such, coalitions are most effective when they tie together racial-interest constituencies, as opposed to a mixture of individuals. Nevertheless, within the realm of racial politics, there is room for a more universal understanding of oppressive systems that is inseparable from issues of gender, class, and sexual orientation, among other lines of stratification. For example, Zillah Eisenstein (1990) calls for centering reproductive rights claims on the rights of “pregnant women of color.” That formation would foreground the needs of Black and Latina women in order to push rights discourse to encompass women's claims to health care, teenage counseling, prenatal care and so forth. By putting individual choice within a context of race, class and gender inequities, it would make clear that access for groups within the category of “women” requires more than system adjustment. Labor movements mobilized by immigrant workers could potentially be an effective means to empower communities of color. Biracial and multi-racial coalitions that focus on women of color in the workplace or gay/lesbian identities are other forms of multiple oppression politics that strengthen the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality politics.  Furthermore, the latter types of movements hold great promise because they inherently require flexibility in the boundaries of racial identity, as demonstrated by the paradigms proposed by Black feminists and lesbians (Collins, 1990).

Some argue that the notion of “people of color” has lost its social meaning because of racially essentialist origins. Yet, we argue that its inherent meaning must be transformed to fit with the context of our time and place, so that it acknowledges, and organizes around, the multiple facets of oppression. The problems of communities of color still overlap and we must reach back into the substance of multiple oppression politics, invest greater efforts in clarifying common interests, and advocating coalitional consciousness, and directly engage with power institutions.

In a political situation like the contemporary one, where there continues to be a saturation of inequalities and a dearth of political will to eliminate them, the accomplishments and challenges of MEDC have both historic and present significance for multi-racial coalitions. It allows them to reclaim the legacy of promoting organizational citizenship and political change. In this way, they can perhaps most directly contribute to the renewal of communities of color. Clearly they cannot engage in this struggle alone. They will need to join with other groups and institutions struggling to invent approaches that promote multi-cultural, public citizenship

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