American labor organizer and social justice activist Ai-jen Poo, co-founder and CEO of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, will be the inaugural guest for the Asian American Distinguished Speaker Series by the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies on March 11. The virtual event is cosponsored by Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns and its Higgins Labor Program.
The livestream will take place at 7 p.m. EST through the Liu Institute website, asia.nd.edu/aijenpoo.
Marie Lynn Miranda, Notre Dame’s Charles and Jill Fischer Provost and the University’s first woman and person of color in that role, will moderate the conversation, which is free and open to the public.
About Ai-jen Poo
Ai-jen Poo is a 2014 MacArthur “Genius” fellow and was formerly named one of Fortune’s “50 World’s Greatest Leaders,” and one of Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World.” She has served on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Partnership for Mobility from Poverty and currently serves on the Ford Foundation board of trustees. She is author of The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America.
A daughter of Taiwanese immigrants and a lifelong activist, Poo’s advocacy for domestic workers—caregivers, house cleaners, and nannies— began when she was a student at Columbia University and volunteering for an organization that focused on the Asian community. Upon learning about the difficulties of domestic workers, she started holding meetings with Filipina domestic workers. These meetings grew into a career spanning more than two decades.
Describing domestic work as “the work that makes all other work possible,” Poo has successfully led efforts to bring fairness, dignity, and protections to this fastest-growing yet “invisible” professional work sector, which is overwhelmingly represented by immigrants and women of color. Through efforts by the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), nine states and two cities have passed a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights to offer paid overtime, sick time, safe working conditions, and freedom from harassment among other rights.
Poo has successfully partnered with politicians, activists, and celebrities to advance the cause of domestic workers. In collaboration with then-Senator Kamala Harris, NDWA introduced the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Act to the U.S. Congress in 2019. NDWA also worked with filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón to amplify his 2018 Academy Award-winning film “Roma,” which portrays the life of a domestic worker.
