
AF3IRM is a transnational feminist organization of women of color based in the United States. They have a long tradition of feminist, abolitionist, and anti-colonialist activism.
The AF3IRM comrades joined the 36th Plurinational Meeting held in Bariloche in collaboration with Las Rojas and SiTraRepA, after coming together in SiTraRepA’s participation in labor-related meetings held in the United States earlier this year. The First International Gig Workers Congress took place in Los Angeles last April, driven by SiTraRepA from Argentina and other labor unions from the United States and other countries around the world.
The comrades participated in the Labor Union Workshop held during the Meeting and shared their experiences and the significance of the organization of many comrades within the American labor movement. This was exemplified by the significant teacher strikes that swept across the United States in recent years.
Rochelle Sugawa of AF3IRM participated in Environmental Activism and against Extractivism Workshop. Rochelle shared the experience of the native community in Hawaii, a territory unlawfully occupied by the United States. The American occupation has had a devastating impact on the native environment, as it exploited Hawaiian land and the labor force of the native population through the sugar industry. The devastation of the land and its biome has resulted in severe environmental consequences, including the voracious wildfires fueled by hurricanes (which are increasing and worsening due to climate change), leading to the destruction of hundreds of homes in recent times.
A testimony emphasizing the need for an anticapitalist perspective in environmental activism. Rochelle Sugawa stressed the importance of taking labor-related actions within the workers’ movement to address this issue.
Rochelle Sugawa participated, along with Connie Huynh, in the central talk organized by the feminist organization Las Rojas. There, they recounted the tremendous achievements of the feminist movement during the right-wing and misogynistic government of Donald Trump.
“When Trump won, we began to organize and take to the streets in protest. This movement converged in the Women’s March,” the AF3IRM comrades recounted. “Trump did harm by attacking abortion rights, but he couldn’t push everything through, and women managed to put a stop to him and prevent him from having a second term. If Milei declares war on women in Argentina, we have no doubt that the women’s movement will confront him and put a stop to it,” the comrades concluded.