Meet Antonia Crane

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Sed ut perspiciatis unde.

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Antonia Crane. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Antonia below.

Antonia , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

One of the most meaningful projects I’ve worked on was founding Strippers United in order to create a space where strippers could meet and discuss their specific labor rights with the goal of improving them— and ultimately unionizing their clubs. This is important to me because I was one of the Live Nude Dancers at the Lusty Lady Peepshow and part of our successful union effort in San Francisco which became SEIU Local 790: The Dancer’s Union. That union win was a bold move in the 1990’s and it improved our working conditions and gave us a way to talk back to the boss and change our lives for the better. I always hoped that the Lusty Lady wins would inspire dancers to resist the unchecked, unregulated poor working conditions being thrusted upon them at every turn. Instead of more clubs unionizing, they shut down or cleaved their roster at any mention of resistance. Now, 27 years later, I have been able to champion and celebrate the recent organizing effort here in Los Angeles in north Hollywood as the Star Garden Dive Bar in North Hollywood won their union election after a dirty fight and now are negotiating their first contract. It’s been exciting and dreamy to stand with them as a friend, ally and unionizing veteran stripper friend. It’s been an honor to be trusted by them and to be able to write about their remarkable triumphs for The Nation and other places.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Sure, I realized I was not going to be hired anymore at any local strip clubs in 2019 as my stripper activism was becoming more visible. Club owners were watching our social media accounts in an effort to screen for strippers who were aware of and cared about the craven, illegal ways clubs were operating. In 2020, the pandemic also shifted the sex industry, and it moved online in creative and powerful, great ways. But stripping online was not an easy pivot for me. So I applied for the PhD program at USC and, miraculously, was accepted as one of 3 CNF PhD Candidates at USC.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

As an angry optimist, I thought sharing information about the ways strip clubs were extorting them, harassing and discriminatory in the extreme would have a more clear trajectory. But the sex industry is a diverse, vibrant and deeply stigmatized population that exist at the intersections of race, class and gender. Challenging the way people survive economically and asking them to speak truth to power is risky and frightening to many of them. When we talk about the sex industry, we are talking about power, we are talking about emotional and psychological liberation from craven club owners and even our own community. I had to learn how to listen better and new ways to provide support and care. I had to unlearn the concept of community. Sometimes a community is tense or contentious. Sometimes a community is uninhabitable and dysfunctional. I had to unlearn my tendency to try to manage other people’s feelings or ideas. It’s okay that community is sometimes a place where we work together. I had to unlearn that organizing is something people want to do. In fact, organizing sucks and is hard and people will do almost anything to avoid it. It demands that workers collaborate with people they may dislike or may not relate to or may resent. Organizing requires that one must do it anyway out of love, because everyone deserves safe, fair working conditions. I underestimated the eerie and pervasive malaise workers have as well as the insistence on quick fixes. At the same time, impatience is a virtue and some changes need to happen quickly, so I had to grapple with that. I’ve received a lot of pushback and I’ve had to learn to be courageous and caring, but don’t stop creating art ever. I can’t fight every battle, but I can remain passionate and keep returning to the facts of history: like over a hundred years of labor history that proves workers—everyday people—can change the world. I had to learn to meet people where they are at. Maddening as that is sometimes.

Contact Info:

Website: https://www.antoniacrane.com/
Instagram: @antoniacrane
Youtube: https://youtu.be/h6ESxsgRgsc?si=qrlyI2rjzhWSlLsd

Image Credits
Photos by Antonia Crane of: [top] Jordan Palmer, activist and Lawyer Unite Here Local 11
[2] Photo of “Charm”
[3] Cover of Pandemic Peepshow: Art book created by Antonia Crane, Jed Bell and Sym Coronado
[4] Selfie of Antonia

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Meet Antonia Crane

Meet Antonia Crane

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Antonia , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

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