Forging Solidarity: Multiracial Coalition Building and Intersectional Movements for Justice in Los Angeles

• In Event: Place and Space in Multiracial Organizing

Abstract

Social movements in the United States have historically been shaped by racial and issue-based siloing, where organizations primarily organize within the confines of single-issue areas or racial and ethnic groups. While these approaches have created strong community-based mobilization efforts, they have also contributed to internal divisions hindering collective struggles for liberation. This paper examines how multi-racial coalitions emerge and sustain themselves despite movement fragmentation.

This study focuses on the Beloved Community, a Los Angeles-based coalition of 20 Black- and Brown-led grassroots organizations reimagining justice, including Community Coalition, Homies Unidos, Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural, Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN), Creative Acts, Dignity and Power Now, Youth Justice Coalition, and the TransLatin@ Coalition, among others. These organizations work across a range of justice-centered issues, including criminal legal system reform, immigrant rights, economic justice, and community-led alternatives to policing, demonstrating the power of multi-racial coalition-building in advancing systemic change.

Grounded in Ethnic Studies, Critical Race Theory, and social movement scholarship, this research explores how settler colonialism, anti-Blackness, xenophobia, and nationalism shape coalition dynamics and movement divides. The study asks: Why do coalition members consider multi-racial organizing necessary? What specific practices and frameworks enable sustained cross-racial solidarity? Through in-depth interviews and participant observation, this paper argues that trust-building, cross-racial dialogue, and shared political education are critical components of coalition longevity. Through participatory action research (PAR), this study documents the coalition’s strategies, challenges, and successes in fostering intersectional movement building and cross-cultural solidarity.

This study situates the Beloved Community within a broader historical context of multi-racial movement building, drawing parallels to past coalitions such as the Black Panther Party’s Rainbow Coalition, the Brown Berets, and the Young Lords. While historical coalitions often faced state repression and internal ideological tensions, contemporary movements must also navigate the ongoing racialization of social issues, philanthropic funding constraints, and the co-optation of activist narratives. This paper highlights how the Beloved Community has built sustainable relationships across organizations through intentional relationship-building, collective strategizing, and community-led initiatives.

By foregrounding the voices of movement leaders, this research challenges dominant narratives that depict multi-racial coalition building as inherently unstable. Instead, it highlights how coalitional practices—rooted in trust, accountability, and shared struggle—can be a powerful strategy for resisting state violence and advancing collective liberation. This study contributes to broader discussions on intersectional movement building by offering a framework for sustaining solidarity in an era of deep political division and systemic fragmentation.

Biographical Information

Irene Franco Rubio is a PhD student in Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. As a first-generation Latina scholar of Guatemalan and Mexican descent, her research focuses on intersectional coalition building and movement solidarity. She examines how multiracial coalitions emerge and sustain themselves in the face of movement siloing, state repression, and systemic fragmentation. Drawing on Ethnic Studies, Sociology, and History, her work explores how settler colonialism, anti-Blackness, xenophobia, and nationalism shape movement divides and opportunities for cross-cultural solidarity. Her scholarship critically engages with questions of power, racial formation, and the political strategies that grassroots movements employ to resist structural oppression.

Beyond academia, Irene has worked extensively in social justice advocacy, community organizing, and media activism. A Soros Justice Fellow from the Open Society Foundations, she has been recognized for her media, social impact, and public scholarship contributions. She has collaborated with organizations such as #SchoolsNotPrisons and Detention Watch Network, focusing on immigrant justice, prison abolition, the criminal legal system, and intersectional movement building. Her work bridges research and activism, emphasizing community-engaged methodologies that center the voices and experiences of those directly impacted by state violence.

At Berkeley, Irene continues to examine how historical and contemporary coalitions challenge state-sanctioned violence and political fragmentation. Her research explores both past and present formations of multiracial solidarity and contemporary grassroots organizations resisting racialized policing, border militarization, and carceral expansion. Through archival research, ethnography, and participatory action research (PAR), she seeks to document the complexities of coalition building, illuminate the conditions that foster solidarity, and contribute to ongoing discourse on cross-racial alliances as a strategy for social and racial justice. Irene is committed to making critical scholarship accessible beyond the academy. She uses digital media, public writing, and collaborative storytelling to amplify movement histories and activist strategies. Her work is driven by a belief in the transformative power of solidarity and the necessity of cross-racial coalitions in the struggle for collective liberation.

Author

• Irene Franco Rubio, University of California-Berkeley