NEW YORK�For the last three years, activists have formed a picket line every Saturday in New York City�s Chinatown to draw attention to what they call "slave-like" working conditions.

"Our people work long hours for low pay," explained Kwong Hui, an organizer for the Chinese Staff Workers Association, whose members man the picket line. "We have finally been able to get the restaurants to raise their workers salary to $2.90 an hour up from 75 cents, and the owners still want half of the tips," said the 33-year-old activist, who has been with the Workers Association for five years. Some people have to pay $5,000 just to get the jobs, said Mr. Hui.

There are approximately 30,000 Chinese restaurant workers and another 20,000 women working in garment industry sweatshops, he said.

In the 1960s the American media needed a group to use as a measuring stick to show the so-called "American Dream" could work, Asian activists say. The term "model minority" was used to show a difference between Chinese and other Asians to counter the demands by Blacks and Latinos for equality, they argue.

Today the model minority theory is increasingly questioned by Chinese Americans. Greater ethnic consciousness and political activism in the Asian community has created a backlash against the image.

"Who are we a model for?" asks Professor Peter Kwong, who heads the Asian Studies Department at Hunter College, located on Manhattan�s east side.

"Model minority means happy slave. That is the perception of society, and that is why we have been out there in the streets for the past three years," explained Wing Lam of the Chinese Staff Workers Association.

"It is extremely important that people understand that we will not continue to suffer in silence," adds Mr. Hui. "We have come full circle in how we politicize ourselves. It is not just about a job, yes, we stand together as workers, whether it is in the sweatshops, the restaurants or in our fight for construction jobs," Mr. Hui said.

The bottom line, he said, is improving the quality of life for all Chinese Americans.

The struggle for dignity is not new for Chinese Americans. As early as 1848, the United States welcomed Chinese as an inexpensive source of farm labor. Later Chinese workers came West to build railroads. Many migrated to the mid-west where they became cigar workers, but white union hostility forced them out.

"Our history as workers in this country is riddled with contradictions," said Professor Kwong, noting one contradiction lies in the belief that all Chinese Americans are professionals. "In the 1870s the Chinese came here as indentured servants, and for the most part we still work in this country as indentured laborers," said the professor. "The terminology has changed, they now call it �contract labor.� "