Page 7 - Work Force May 2021

Life experiences help foster labor, social activism
BEACON — For CSEA Southern Region Director Charisse Señeres, mentors from
a Villanova
University
on-campus
social justice
group helped her
discover a passion
for advocacy, a passion she turned into a career.
“Making friends in that group is where I found my line to the union,” said Señeres.
Her experiences as a child helped put her on this path. Señeres was just a toddler when she, her mother and siblings immigrated to the United States from the Philippines. Her father had established residency the year before. The family first settled in New Rochelle, moving six years later to Salem, N.H.
“When we went to school
in New Rochelle, it was such a diverse community,” said Señeres.
“Everybody was from a different nationality and ethnicity in our school. When we went to New Hampshire in 1986, it felt like me and my cousins were the only people of color in the whole town. Now, there is a huge Filipino community there.”
That experience drew her to the Villanova campus group Students Against Racism, where Señeres helped support different community initiatives. In one, she helped host members of a group marching
from Washington, D.C. to the
United Nations in New York City to advocate for the poor and homeless.
“To see that people have made a career of supporting movements like this made me realize this
is something I could really do,” Señeres said. “That’s where I got the bug of fighting for basic human rights.”
Thanks to a mentor from that group, Señeres joined the labor movement post-college. Her career path began with helping organizing home health care workers, where
she learned how unions could help the mostly immigrant workforce providing home care.
After working for another AFSCME affiliate union, she joined CSEA, serving as a deputy director of organizing before taking her current position.
Activism growing
Taking into account her own experiences and seeing the recent uptick in hate crimes against members of the Asian-American Pacific Islander community, Señeres said she sees activism growing.
“In the last year, given the pandemic and the social injustice and unrest, my biggest hope is that activism is seen, especially to the younger generation, as a viable career,” Señeres said. “There are opportunities for more people from Asian communities to be involved in higher positions of the unions. I’m the first woman of color in my position. It speaks volumes that CSEA is intentionally planning for
the future and ensuring the union looks more like the membership.”
Education and community are both keys to that growth. When she first joined the labor movement, Señeres was active with the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance,
an AFL-CIO constituency group and hopes to become involved again.
“It was a great experience seeing lots of Asian sisters and brothers in the same space,” Señeres said.
All of these experiences have better equipped Señeres for a career with CSEA.
“Having been born in another country and coming to this country, specifically to a diverse area in
New York and transferring to a non- diverse area like New Hampshire, but still finding more roots there too, has given me the experience
to be relatable in many different communities and with the diverse membership we represent in our union,” Señeres said.
— Jessica Ladlee
Señeres
Sikh Indian Americans endure racism, discrimination
ALBANY— CSEA Chief Information Officer Amritpal Singh wants union members to know that Asia is a vast continent, and people from India are also considered Asian.
Singh
degree, and has worked in the field of Information Technology for over 25 years. He joined CSEA in 2016.
In practicing his Sikh religion, he keeps his hair uncut and wears a turban. He wants to correct the maligned image of people wearing turbans as being terrorists.
“99.9 percent of the people wearing a turban in USA are Sikhs. We are not terrorists, as has been the image since 9/11. Sikhs are peace-loving people, and our image of the turban and beard represents our identity,” Singh said. “We look this way so we can be identified in a crowd and called upon for help.”
He believes his values as a Sikh Indian align perfectly with CSEA’s mission of diversity and inclusion.
“I feel my beliefs as a Sikh Indian align with what CSEA stands and fights for,” Singh said. “As a Sikh, I believe in equality for all, regardless of race, sex and social status.
In our union, we value diversity
and represent and treat all of our brothers and sisters the same and fight for their rights to social justice and equality.”
Singh proudly fosters that diversity in CSEA’s Information Technology Department.
“Our staff is a microcosm of the membership we represent,” he said. “In my department, I have staff from various countries, backgrounds, races and ethnicities. Like CSEA,
I strongly believe diversity brings innovation and new ideas on how to solve problems and make us a better union.”
Yet Singh worries about the escalating racist treatment of people of color in America.
“It’s very sad to see escalating
hate crimes against Asians in this country. Since 9/11, Indians, and Indian Sikhs in particular, were targets for hate crimes because of their skin color and appearance,”
he said. “We continue to endure this hateful rhetoric today. Now with COVID-19, people from East Asia are being targeted because of their facial features. The recent shooting at the Indianapolis FedEx facility, where mostly Indians worked and half of the victims of the shooting were Sikhs, makes us all wonder if this was a hate crime.”
Singh said that to foster tolerance, people must look beyond skin color to recognize everyone’s shared humanity.
“We are all human beings first, before we are black, white or brown,” he said. “Boundaries to countries are drawn by humans, but humanity has no bounds, and we should all help anyone in need.”
— Mark M. Kotzin
“Asia is a very
diverse continent holding half of the world’s population,” Singh said. “India is part of Asia among 47 other countries. All Indians come in different colors.”
Singh immigrated to the United States at age 17. He went to college in New Jersey and New York, earning a master’s in business administration
The Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) is an AFL-CIO constituency group of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) workers, most of who are union members and allies who advance worker, immigrant and civil rights. APALA has more than 20 chapters, including one in New York City. Learn more about APALA at https://www.apalanet.org.
May 2021
The Work Force 7