(BONUS) Hunger Strike! How Immigrant Taxi Drivers Took on City Hall

When Augustine Tang’s father passed away, Augustine decided to inherit his taxi medallion – the license that had allowed his father to drive a yellow taxi cab in New York City for decades. But the medallion came with a $530,000 debt trap and years of struggling to escape it. Augustine’s friend Kenny, a fellow taxi cab driver, committed suicide. So did several other drivers who were crushed under the weight of these impossible debts. In hopes of preventing another death, Tang joined a push by the local taxi drivers’ union, to campaign for debt relief. And eventually, city resistance to worker demands culminated in a 15-day hunger strike to convince City Hall that immigrant taxi drivers deserved a fair deal. The drivers’ struggles for livable working conditions showed how political power doesn’t just come down to votes. It’s a reminder how strong collective will can be, especially for those often silenced and ignored by our imperfect democracy.

Resources and Reading

Special Thanks To

Augustine Tang, Jaslin Kaur, Kuber Sancho-Persad, Maria Santana, John Duda + Maximillian Alvarez, Michelle Faust Raghavan + Alec Saleens, and the New York Taxi Workers Alliance media team

Credits:

  • Produced by Self Evident Media

  • Reported by Sahil Nisha, with help from Alina Panek and Janrey Serapio

  • Interview recordings by Sahil Nisha, Stacey Wong, and James Boo

  • Public protest and demonstration recordings by NYTWA, Augustine Tang, CM Zohran Mamdani, and Former CM Brad Lander

  • Edited by James Boo and Julia Shu

  • Fact checked by Harsha Nahata and Tiffany Bui

  • Sound mix by Timothy Lou Ly

  • Music by Epidemic Sound

  • At the Moment theme music by Satoru Ohno

  • Our Executive Producer is Ken Ikeda

  • This episode was made with support from the Solutions Journalism Network’s Advancing Democracy program

 

2356 232