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Alice Wong (activist)

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Alice Wong
Born(1974-03-27)March 27, 1974
Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.
DiedNovember 14, 2025(2025-11-14) (aged 51)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Education
Occupations
  • Activist
  • writer
OrganizationDisability Visibility Project
Notable workYear of the Tiger: An Activist's Life (2022), Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century (ed., 2020), Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire (ed., 2024)
AwardsMacArthur Fellow

Alice Wong (March 27, 1974 – November 14, 2025) was an American disability rights activist and writer based in San Francisco, California. Dedicated to amplifying the voices and experiences of the disabled community, her career focused on challenging systemic ableism through storytelling, advocacy, and community organizing. A 2024 MacArthur Fellow and 2013 Obama appointee to the National Council on Disability, Wong founded the Disability Visibility Project, an oral history project with StoryCorps. She authored a memoir, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life (2022), and edited several collected works on disability, including Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century (2020) and Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire (2024). During the Gaza genocide, she co-founded the "Crips for eSims for Gaza" project which has raised millions of dollars to support internet and phone connectivity for Palestinians in Gaza.

Early life and education

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Alice Wong was born March 27, 1974, in the suburbs of Indianapolis, Indiana, to parents Henry and Bobby (Li) Wong who had immigrated to the US from Hong Kong.[1][2] She had two sisters, Emily and Grace.[2] She was born with spinal muscular atrophy, a neuromuscular disorder.[3] Wong stopped walking at the age of seven or eight.[1]

After graduating from high school, Wong initially enrolled at Earlham College in Indiana, autonomy facilitated by Medicaid support of personal care services; however subsequent cuts to the program as well as an episode of respiratory failure obliged her to transfer so she could return to living with her parents.[4][2] She graduated from Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis with a BA in English and sociology in 1997.[5] She received a master's degree from the University of California, San Francisco, in medical sociology in 2004.[6] After graduating, Wong worked at the University of California, San Francisco as a Staff Research Associate for more than ten years, serving from 2006 to 2009 as the vice chair of the UCSF Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Disability Issues.[7]

Career and impact

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Wong at the White House via robot in 2015

Alice Wong was the founder and Project Coordinator of the Disability Visibility Project (DVP),[8] a project collecting oral histories of people with disabilities in the US that is run in coordination with StoryCorps. The Disability Visibility Project was created in 2014 before the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.[9] As of 2018, the project had collected approximately 140 oral histories.[10] The DVP has since expanded to include a podcast, a blog, social media, arts projects, and spaces for connection and community building.[11][12]

Wong worked the Disabled Writers project, which is funded by a grant from Wong and The Disability Project.[13] Disabled Writers is a resource to help editors connect with disabled writers and journalists.[13] #CripLit, is a series of Twitter chats for disabled writers with novelist Nicola Griffith, and #CripTheVote, a nonpartisan online movement encouraging the political participation of disabled people.[14] She discusses her activism in Narrabase.[15]

Wong served as an advisory board member for Asians and Pacific Islanders with Disabilities of California (APIDC). In 2013, she became an Obama presidential appointee to the National Council on Disability, an independent federal agency which advises the president, Congress, and other federal agencies on disability policies, programs, and practices, where she served until 2015.[16][17]

In 2015, Wong attended the reception at the White House for the 25th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act via telepresence robot. She was the first person to visit the White House and the President by robot presence.[18]

In 2022, Wong authored a memoir, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life. In a Washington Post review, Anna Leahy said that in Wong's writing, "incisive critiques, humor, practicality and optimism become compellingly inseparable."[19] In a review for the Los Angeles Review of Books, Laura Mauldin called Wong "at once brilliant and accessible—a storyteller above all—and a leader who knows she has to say what needs to be said, and then rest."[20]

In December 2023 with Jane Shi and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Wong cofounded Crips for eSims for Gaza, a disabled-led crowdfunding effort raising over three million dollars to support phone and internet access for Palestinians in Gaza during the Gaza genocide amid the Gaza war.[21][22]

Wong also played a fictionalized version of herself on the second season of the Netflix adult animated sitcom, Human Resources.[23]

Personal life and death

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Wong resided with her parents for many years before moving into an apartment of her own in San Francisco, where she lived with her cats Bert and Ernie beginning in 2024.[2]

Wong died of an infection in a San Francisco hospital, on November 14, 2025, at the age of 51.[2] Her final message, shared by her friend Sandy Ho, included reflections on her life and hopes for the future of the disability community, saying she believed it will "light the way". She concluded: "Don't let the bastards grind you down. I love you all."[24]

Awards

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For her leadership on behalf of the disability community, Wong received the San Francisco Mayor's Disability Council Beacon Award in 2010,[25] the first-ever UCSF Chancellor's Disability Service Award in 2010,[26] and the 2007 Martin Luther King, Jr. Award at her alma mater of UCSF.[27] In 2016, Wong received the 2016 American Association of People with Disabilities Paul G. Hearne Leadership Award, an award for emerging leaders with disabilities who exemplify leadership, advocacy, and dedication to the broader cross-disability community.[14] Wong was selected as a Ford Foundation Disability Futures Fellow in 2020.[28] The same year, Wong was on the list of the BBC's 100 Women announced on November 23, 2020 as well as the Time list of 16 notable people fighting for equality in America.[29][30] In 2021 Alice Wong won "Best Supporting Actor" at the New Jersey Web Fest for her performance in Someone Dies In This Elevator.[31]

In 2024, Wong was named a MacArthur Fellow.[32]

Bibliography

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  • 2018: Resistance and Hope: Essays by Disabled People. Ed.[33]
  • 2020: Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Ed.[34][35]
  • 2021: Disability Visibility (Adapted for Young Adults): 17 First-Person Stories for Today. Delacorte Press.[36]
  • 2022: Year of The Tiger: An Activist's Life. Vintage.[19]
  • 2024: Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Ed.[37]

References

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  1. ^ a b Wong, Alice (April 3, 2014). "A Mutant from Planet Cripton, An Origin". The Nerds of Color. Retrieved October 23, 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e Risen, Clay (November 15, 2025). "Alice Wong, Writer and Relentless Advocate for Disability Rights, Dies at 51". The New York Times. Retrieved November 15, 2025.
  3. ^ Mitzi Baker (March 22, 2016). "Alice Wong Wins National Disabilities Organization Award". University of California San Francisco. Retrieved February 28, 2017.
  4. ^ Hernandez, Angie Orellana; Werner, Erica (November 16, 2025). "Alice Wong, disability rights advocate and wordsmith, dies at 51". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 16, 2025.
  5. ^ "Alumni & Giving". School of Liberal Arts. Retrieved October 23, 2020.
  6. ^ "Sociology graduate Alice Wong publishes NYT Opinion Piece | Sociology Doctoral Program". UC San Francisco. Retrieved October 23, 2020.
  7. ^ "Biography: Alice Wong". National Women's History Museum. Retrieved December 4, 2025.
  8. ^ "Alice Wong Sets Out to Chronicle Disability History". NBC News. August 20, 2014. Retrieved November 3, 2016.
  9. ^ "Telling Our Stories: Why I Launched the Disability Visibility Project". July 30, 2015. Retrieved November 3, 2016.
  10. ^ "The visibility of disability: an interview with activist Alice Wong". www.adolescent.net. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
  11. ^ "Alice Wong". www.macfound.org. Retrieved December 4, 2025.
  12. ^ "Disability Visibility Project". Disability Visibility Project. August 24, 2025. Retrieved December 4, 2025.
  13. ^ a b "About Us – Disabled Writers". Retrieved October 11, 2020.
  14. ^ a b "About". Disability Visibility Project. June 3, 2014. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
  15. ^ Wong, Alice (November 16–21, 2016). "Social Media Narrative: Issues in Contemporary Practice". Narrabase. Retrieved November 21, 2022.
  16. ^ Cisneros, Lisa (January 30, 2013). "President Obama Appoints Alice Wong to National Council on Disability". University of California, San Francisco. Retrieved November 3, 2016.
  17. ^ Powell, Angel (January 10, 2019). "The visibility of disability: an interview with activist Alice Wong". Adolescent.net. Retrieved August 14, 2020. I served one term as a member of the National Council on Disability from 2013–2015.
  18. ^ Shumaker, Laura (July 22, 2015). "San Francisco's Alice Wong's historical White House visit". Laura Shumaker. Retrieved November 24, 2020.
  19. ^ a b Leahy, Anna (September 9, 2022). "Review | How disability advocate Alice Wong turned her anger into action". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved November 15, 2025.
  20. ^ Mauldin, Laura (September 15, 2022). "Modern-Day Oracles: On Alice Wong's "Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved November 15, 2025.
  21. ^ Sheehan, Dan (May 12, 2025). "Authors are auctioning signed books to raise money for Crips for eSIMs for Gaza". Literary Hub. Retrieved November 15, 2025.
  22. ^ Griffis, Miles W. (November 16, 2025). "Alice Wong, disability activist and luminary, dies at 51 - The Sick Times". thesicktimes.org. Retrieved November 16, 2025.
  23. ^ Kirichanskaya, Michele (June 15, 2023). "This Cameo Makes 'Human Resources' Final Season Better". Collider. Retrieved November 15, 2025.
  24. ^ B, Marke (November 15, 2025). "Disability activist and oracle Alice Wong passes away at 51". 48 hills. Retrieved November 15, 2025.
  25. ^ "Archive: Advocate Receives Mayor's Disability Council Beacon Award". UC San Francisco. September 2, 2010. Retrieved November 15, 2025.
  26. ^ "Archive: First Annual Disability Service Awards to Honor Three Members of UCSF Community". UC San Francisco. February 17, 2011. Retrieved November 15, 2025.
  27. ^ "Archive: UCSF to Honor Three with MLK Awards". UC San Francisco. December 18, 2006. Retrieved November 15, 2025.
  28. ^ "Disability Futures Fellows". Ford Foundation. Retrieved November 3, 2020.
  29. ^ "BBC 100 Women 2020: Who is on the list this year?". BBC News. November 23, 2020. Retrieved November 23, 2020.
  30. ^ Staff, TIME. "These 16 People and Groups Are Fighting for a More Equal America". TIME. Archived from the original on September 27, 2025. Retrieved December 4, 2025.
  31. ^ "2021 Award Winners". New Jersey Web Fest. Retrieved April 20, 2022.
  32. ^ Blair, Elizabeth (October 1, 2024). "Here's who made the 2024 MacArthur Fellows list". NPR. Retrieved October 1, 2024.
  33. ^ Carrie (January 24, 2019). "Resistance and Hope Dares Us to Go Beyond Activism 101". Autostraddle. Retrieved November 15, 2025.
  34. ^ Swift, Brenna (March 31, 2021). "Review of Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the 21st Century edited by Alice Wong". Disability Studies Quarterly. 41 (1). doi:10.18061/dsq.v41i1.7909. ISSN 2159-8371.
  35. ^ Rodriguez-Roldan, Victoria M. (2021–2022). "Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century – Alice Wong (ed.)". Journal of Legal Education. 71: 186. Retrieved November 15, 2025.
  36. ^ O’Malley, Ragan; Sch, Saint Ann’s. "Disability Visibility (Adapted for Young Adults): 17 First-Person Stories for Today". School Library Journal. Retrieved November 15, 2025.
  37. ^ Brown, Keah (April 26, 2024). "'Disability Intimacy' starts a long-overdue conversation". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 15, 2025.
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