Emily grew up in ‘Taipei, Taiwan’ where their family is from. There, Emily learned the chaos of scooters, the courage of street vendors, and the complexity of being colonized and colonizing peoples. Emily moved to ‘Portland, Oregon’ to attend Reed College and has been based there since 2008. Emily is fluent in two imperial languages: English and Mandarin.
Emily is motivated by the transformative power of queerness and queer movements. As Grants Program Officer, Emily is excited to support movement building that centers the agency, healing, and joy of queer trans people of color (QTPOC). They understand how responsive and reflective grantmaking can help sustain powerful movements beyond precious and precarious moments. Emily served on a grant committee at Third Wave Fund -a national funder resourcing movements that are unapologetically queer, trans, intersex, and sex worker-led.
Emily comes to Pride Foundation with experience in community organizing, youth programming, mutual aid, and nonprofit management. Prior to joining Pride Foundation, Emily was the Executive Director of a youth-of-color-led social justice nonprofit: Momentum Alliance. There, she learned from incredible youth how to address anti-Blackness, indigenous erasure, colorism, ableism, rape culture, and misogyny. She helped organize the youth campaign for HB2845 -resulting in ‘Oregon’ becoming the first state to require Ethnic Studies in K-12 schools. She is proud that the campaign never compromised on including queer justice and disability justice in the definition of ‘Ethnic Studies’ -even though they were repeatedly asked to by some legislators.
Emily enjoys making salads, swimming, lifting weights, and sharing stories with people who also have lifelong STIs. He has been learning how to grow vegetables and flowers. He hopes to learn carpentry and woodworking soon. These days, he is excited to spend more time in ‘nature’ connecting with our non-human kin and all the landscapes. Emily is fascinated by oceans and aquatic life. Otters? Yes! Sea slugs? Yes! Tide pools? Yes! He is obsessed with pugs and dreams of having two pugs in his old age.
Favorite Quotes:
“My trans agenda is not to turn cis children into trans, but to turn trans children into adults.” -NiiLee Cyrus
“As you are. As you will be.
There is not one minute in which you are not in
someone’s heart, mind, and good thoughts.”
-Gretchen Carvajal aka BRWNGRLZ
“Queerness in a way saved my life…Often we see queerness as a deprivation, but when I look at my life, I saw that queerness demanded an alternative innovation from me, I had to make alternative routes. It made me curious, it made me ask this is not enough for me because there’s nothing here for me.” – Ocean Vuong
Favorite Places in the Northwest: ‘Peninsula Park’ for colorful roses, ‘Rooster Rock’ for queer beaches, ‘Cape Kiwanda’ for ocean sunsets.
*Emily is learning how to show respect to indigenous communities beyond land acknowledgements, which entails dedicating time and resources to support indigenous sovereignty.