Multi-ethnic Immigrant Worker Organizing Network (MIWON)

 MIWON’s Mission:

The Multi-ethnic Immigrant Worker Organizing Network (MIWON) is a network of low-wage immigrant worker-based organizations in Los Angeles committed to the struggle for dignity, justice, and the human rights of immigrant workers and all peoples. We ground our work in the experiences and leadership of immigrant workers in Los Angeles, an international perspective, and a commitment to build alliances with U.S.-born low-wage workers and other communities fighting for justice. We seek to transform the conditions in which we live through campaigns that build the power of low-wage workers, expand the worldview of workers and residents of Los Angeles, build worker-to-worker alliances, and win concrete victories for legalization and worker rights.

Who We Are

MIWON is an alliance of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of L.A. (CHIRLA), Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance  (KIWA), Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California (IDEPSCA), and Pilipino Workers Center (PWC)

Our History

In a time when the voices of immigrant workers in the informal economy were scarcely heard, when International Workers Day in Los Angeles was celebrated by a small few, and when no coalition was uniting low-wage immigrant workers of different ethnicities, the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA), the Pilipino Workers’ Center (PWC), and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) came together to form a historic formation, the Multi-ethnic Immigrant Worker Organizing Network (MIWON). Since its founding in 1999, MIWON has inspired workers, community residents and activists for social change in Los Angeles and indeed throughout the state, country and international community.

MIWON formed in 1999 as a long-term strategic network for the participating organizations to support each other’s immigrant worker campaigns, to work together on issues of immigrant rights and legalization, and to cultivate the relationships of workers of different races and ethnicities. MIWON was the first-ever multi-ethnic network of immigrant worker centers in the country and has pioneered model initiatives on how to build multi-ethnic coalitions and take collective action. In 2000, the Garment Worker Center (GWC) joined MIWON and became a key organizational leader. In 2005, the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California (IDEPSCA) joined MIWON as the fifth strategic partner.