Earlier this summer, I chatted with Raymond Liens about his life work as an activist organizing workers to secure their rights, regardless of ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
ED Hello. Raymond! Thanks for agreeing to the interview.
RL My pleasure, Eric.
ED I understand that you have had quite an active career in community and union organizing. How did this all begin?
RL Well, I was born in Vietnam, where our family had settled for many generations, but after the American withdrawal in 1975 we were persecuted because of our Chinese heritage and our bourgeois status. Everything was taken from us—home, business, properties. We fled for our lives as boat people. In 1979, after months in a Malaysian camp, Canada took us in as refugees. We
