About The W .O .W . Project’s Board of Directors

This year we established our Board of Directors as part of The W.O.W. Project’s process of formalizing as a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We were thrilled to welcome back two of W.O.W.’s previous youth leaders, Emily (Em) He and Jade Levine, as well as Dr. Diane Wong, who was so central to The W.O.W. Project’s founding, to be part of our founding board of directors. The Board is working with a team of pro bono lawyers as part of a Fordham Law School Clinic to fulfill our IRS 1023 Long Form registration as well as building an onboarding process for our first board recruitment cycle in 2021. Em, Jade, Diane, and Mei are committed to creating a board culture that is true to our grassroots spirit, ensuring that the Board of Directors are directly involved with WOW’s work on the ground in the heart of Chinatown.

Em He (they/them/theirs)

Em He is a trans/non-binary Cantonese community organizer and former W.O.W. Project Managing Intern. Their roots are in intergenerational diasporic communities organizing against displacement and have found home with trans/ queer people of color on the journey of decolonization and transformative healing. They grew up on unceded Coast Salish lands and now live on occupied Lenape/Canarsie land and organize with public housing residents as CAAAV’s Asian Tenants Union Chinese Membership Organizer.

Jade Levine is a writer, zine-maker, and former W.O.W. Project intern. Her undergraduate studies in urban sociology and her experience working around issues of arts and activism through zine-making and the Girls Rock Camp movement brought her to the W.O.W. Project while she was in college. By day, she works in higher education.

Jade Levine (she/they)

Diane Wong (she/her/hers)

Diane Wong is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, Newark. She writes and teaches at the intersection of Asian American politics, critical urban studies, race and ethnicity, cultural and media studies, and community rooted research. As a first-generation Chinese American born and raised in Flushing, Queens, her research is intimately tied to the Asian diaspora and urban immigrant experience. Her work has appeared in Women’s Studies Quarterly, Amerasia Journal, Urban Affairs Review and a variety of book volumes, journals, anthologies, podcasts, and exhibitions. Her current book project, You Can’t Evict A Movement: Housing Justice and Intergenerational Activism in New York City, documents intergenerational resistance to gentrification in Manhattan Chinatown.

Mei is the 5th generation owner of Wing on Wo and the founder and director of The W.O.W. Project. Mei has grown as a cultural worker and community leader alongside the W.O.W. Project since its beginnings in 2016, receiving recognition as a 2017 emerging voice in the APA community by NBC Asian America, the 2019 Community Builder Award from OCA Asian Pacific American Advocates, and was recently awarded the 2020 Rubinger Fellowship from the Local Initiatives Support Corporation.

Mei Lum (she/her/hers)