{"id":55627,"date":"2025-11-16T11:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T11:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/55627\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T11:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T11:14:08","slug":"california-disability-rights-leader-alice-wong-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/55627\/","title":{"rendered":"California disability rights leader Alice Wong dies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Alice Wong, the California disability rights activist who employed wit, creativity and at times shock to fight for justice, has died at age 51.<\/p>\n

The San Francisco-based radical, a self-styled \u201ccyborg oracle,\u201d rose to national prominence in 2013, when President Obama appointed her to the National Council on Disability. Wong attended a 2015 White House reception in virtual form as a \u201ctelepresence robot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that really gives me joy is the fact that there are so many amazing, brilliant, creative disabled people out there,\u201d Wong told comedian W. Kamau Bell on the City Arts & Lectures podcast in 2020. \u201cBut part of my rage \u2014 and it\u2019s a very real rage \u2014 is that most people don\u2019t really know about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

A prolific advocate for disability justice, Wong authored a memoir, penned numerous essays, edited two anthologies, hosted a podcast and founded the Disability Visibility Project<\/a>, a platform for disabled writers and artists. Her nonpartisan #CriptheVote hashtag forced national candidates to pay attention, and in 2021 she helped prioritize access to COVID vaccines<\/a> for thousands of high-risk Californians. Wong even challenged San Francisco\u2019s attempt to ban plastic straws, pointing out that many disabled people need them. <\/p>\n

In 2024, she was awarded a MacArthur Foundation<\/a> \u201cgenius grant,\u201d for calling attention to the \u201cprejudice disabled people face and to the policies that adversely affect them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHi everyone, it looks like I ran out of time,\u201d Wong said in a prewritten message released<\/a> after her death. \u201cI have so many dreams that I wanted to fulfill and plans to create new stories for you … as a kid riddled with insecurity and internalized ableism, I could not see a path forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was thanks to friendships and some great teachers who believed in me that I was able to fight my way out of miserable situations into a place where I finally felt comfortable in my skin. We need more stories about us and our culture. You all, we all, deserve the everything and more in such a hostile, ableist environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlice has a plan for everything,\u201d her close friend and collaborator, Sandy Ho, told The Times<\/a> in 2022. \u201cShe describes herself as a disabled oracle, and that\u2019s a part of it. She foresees the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"President <\/p>\n

President Obama greets Alice Wong via robot during the Americans with Disabilities Act 25th Anniversary reception at the White House in 2015.<\/p>\n

(Lawrence Jackson\/The White House)<\/p>\n

Wong was the daughter of immigrants from Hong Kong, grew up in Indiana, and spent most of her adult life in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

Wong succumbed to infection on Friday while at UCSF Hospital. Ho posted the announcement of Wong\u2019s death on her X account. It was relayed as well to her GoFundMe page<\/a>, which asked donors to help cover her ongoing daily care costs while decrying the need for such charity as \u201cableist oppression.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe state pays to shut us away in medical institutions, but we must fight like hell to live in the community,\u201d the pinned fundraising request noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe will be remembered as being a fierce luminary in disability justice, a brilliant writer, editor and community organizer,\u201d the post said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs we mourn the incomprehensible loss of Alice, we share the words she gifted us with from her memoir, Year of the Tiger:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real gift any person can give is a web of connective tissue. If we love fiercely, our ancestors live among and speak to us through these incandescent filaments glowing from the warmth of memories.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alice Wong, the California disability rights activist who employed wit, creativity and at times shock to fight for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[34357,8269,7,9,8,179,34553,339,5615,34557,34554,18624,1459,34556,3137,34358,34555,11717],"class_list":["post-55627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-alice-wong","tag-attention","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-community","tag-creative-disabled-people","tag-death","tag-disability","tag-disabled-writer","tag-lectures-podcast","tag-memoir","tag-part","tag-rage","tag-san","tag-sandy-ho","tag-time-shock","tag-wong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}