DRUM was founded in 1999 and organizes low-income South Asian immigrant communities and INS detainees for social justice and immigrants' rights. Desi is a term used by South Asians to refer to people from our 'homelands' in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Guyana, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Trinidad. DRUM’s activities combine community organizing, advocacy, and services and centralizes the leadership low-income South Asian immigrants, all immigrant detainees and their families, women, and youth. Since September 11, 2001, DRUM has been working with South Asian, Arab, and Muslim immigrant communities in the Campaign to Stop the Disappearances to release immigrants detained since 9/11, repeal the USA PATRIOT Act, and end growing racial profiling, detention, and deportation. DRUM’s post 9/11 Community Self-Defense Campaign has trained hundreds of immigrants through Know Your Rights workshops in mosques, schools, and other places. DRUM's program areas include the INS De-Detention Campaign which organizes detainees and their families to demand an end to immigrant detention and provides direct services and advocacy to over 100 detainees and their families; YouthPower!
and Desi Reel Newz which train low-income South Asian immigrant youth in immigrant rights organizing and community video documentation; and Third World Resistance which roots local organizing in Third World movements for
peace with global justice.
Established in 2000, Domestic Workers United is a City-wide alliance of domestic workers organizing for respect and the establishment of fair labor standards for the hundreds of thousands of predominantly Third World immigrant women working as nannies, housekeepers, and elderly caregivers in the greater New York City area. DWU is led by a steering committee of domestic workers from the Caribbean and Asia, and is affiliated with several organizations, including Andolan Organizing
South Asian Workers, Women Workers Project of CAAAV, Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, Latino Workers Center, and Damayan Migrant Workers Association.
Henry Foner's career spans a life as a musician, song-writer, teacher, union leader and social activist. He is the youngest and only surviving member of a family of four brothers -- all educators and activists. All four were victims of a witch-hunting state legislative committee -- the Rapp-Coudert Committee, an earlier version of the McCarthy Committee. Jack and Philip were professors of history at the City College of New York, Moe worked in the college registrar's office and Henry had just graduated from City College when the committee launched its onslaught on the city colleges in 1940 and 1941. The three older Foners lost their jobs immediately, but all went on to distinguished careers as educators. writers and trade union activists. It
took until 1948, after Henry had returned from four years of military service during which he received the Legion of Merit, the U. S. Army's fourth highest award, for the State Commissioner of Education to deny his appeal for a regular teaching license. During this period, three of the brothers were part of the Foner Orchestra, which performed at union functions and, during
the summers, at Arrowhead Lodge in the Catskills. During this period, too, Henry co-wrote, with Norman Franklin, a musical, "Thursdays 'Til Nine" for the Department Store Employees Union. In 1948, Henry joined the staff of the Fur and Leather Workers' Union as educational director, and in 1961, upon the death of the union's president, Sam Burt, Henry was elected president and served in that capacity until his retirement in 1988. His union's newspaper, FLM Joint Board TEMPO, which he edited, received more than a dozen awards for general excellence from the International Labor Press Association. Together
with his brother, Moe, who was Executive Secretary of Drug & Hospital Union, Local 1199, Henry played a leading role in mobilizing labor opposition to the war in Vietnam and in leading his union's participation in the struggle for civil rights. He also headed the fur industry's Committee on Wildlife Conservation and Legislation. In 1985, the four Foner brothers received the
Tom Paine Award from the National Emergency Committee for Civil Liberties, and in 1999, they were honored by the Metropolitan Labor Press Association. After his retirement in 1988, Henry taught classes in labor history at the Harry Van Arsdale Labor College, the City College Center for Worker Education and the Brooklyn College Institute for Retirees in Pursuit of Education (IRPE). He also served on the Editorial Board of "Jewish Currents" magazine and for several years wrote its column, "It Happened in Israel." At present, he is the president of the Paul Robeson Foundation and as co-historian of the website, Labor Arts, a web museum devoted to highlighting the cultural contributions of the American labor movement and its working people. In April, 2002, he lost his wife of 54 years, Lorraine Foner, herself a trade union activist and an officer of the Brooklyn Older Women's League (OWL). In 1989, they lost a daughter, Diane, after a lifelong struggle against the ravages of diabetes and kidney failure. Henry has a daughter, Rachel, and two grandsons, Michael and Justin, 21 and 20 years old, respectively.
Adam Shapiro is a member of the International Solidarity Movement, which was founded by his wife, Huwaida Arraf. While in Ramallah on the first day of the IDF’s incursion in April 2002, Adam negotiated for three hours with Israeli soldiers to allow an ambulance and doctor to enter the Arafat’s compound. After helping get the injured out, Adam stayed in the compound to assist the physician on site, only to be prevented by the Israeli soldiers from leaving later. He remained in the besieged compound, under constant fire, for 24 hours. Before his release, Arafat shared breakfast with Adam as a way of thanking him for helping with the medical evacuation of the injured. Almost as soon as the media account appeared, the vitriol started flowing. Adam and his family were called traitors and were threatened by some right-wing and not so right-wing organizations and people. Because Doreen and Stuart Shapiro, his parents, and Noah Shapiro, his brother, vocally supported Adam and his work, they received death threats, there were calls for demonstrations against them, and they required 24-hour police protection. While Adam’s parents left their home for a time to escape these threats, Noah brilliantly faced the print, radio and television media to defend his family. Today Adam is a doctoral candidate at American University and is continuously speaking out and working for Palestinian freedom and the end of the Occupation. His family is extremely proud of him.