Strengthening Chinatown’s community through arts and activism

Executive Director & Founder

Mei Lum founded the W.O.W. Project in 2016 as a response to the gentrification and displacement threatening Manhattan's Chinatown. As the fifth-generation owner of Wing on Wo & Co., the oldest operating store in Chinatown, Lum sought to preserve her family's legacy while addressing broader community challenges. Her leadership has earned her NBC Asian America’s Emerging Voice Award in 2017 and the Community Builder Award from OCA Asian Pacific American Advocates in 2019.

Deputy Director

Di leads development and communications, where she collaborates across teams to mobilize resources and tell the stories of W.O.W.’s work and Chinatown community. A feminist researcher and community organizer, Di has worked in program design, donor advocacy and participatory research to move resources to the frontlines of social change. She holds a PhD in Sociology at the University of Wisconsin−Madison. Her research focuses on how LGBTQ and feminist activists mobilize art, cultural lineage and family discourse to sustain social movement.

Youth Programs Director

Jade oversees youth and public programs at W.O.W. A former intern and founding board member who served as Secretary and Chair (2020–2024), Jade brings youth work experience from NYC's girls rock camp movement and is inspired by intergenerational connection in social movements.

Programs Manager

Yuki first joined W.O.W. in 2018 as a public programs intern, later serving as Managing Intern and part-time worker before becoming Program Director. She now oversees youth and artist programs, previously working as a Nonprofit Management Fellow at Phillips Brooks House Association.

Marketing & Communications Coordinator

Tiffany joined W.O.W. as an intern in 2022 and now serves as their Marketing & Social Media Coordinator. She is curious about the intersections of art and activism, as well as how design can be utilized as a tool for social change. Currently, she is pursuing a BFA in Advertising & Digital Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Former Teaching Artist, Board Chair

Emily Chow Bluck is an artist, educator, and organizer based in New York City. Working primarily with communities of color in urban neighborhoods, Emily uses her art praxis to build local campaigns for social justice. These creative campaigns harness experiences of struggle and oppression to manifest new narratives of overcoming, social value, and self-determined futures.

Youth Organizer, Board Member

Emily Mock (she/her) grew up in San Francisco and at her cousins’ homes across the Bay Area. Emily was the 2018 点面 Storefront Artist-in-Residence at The W.O.W. Project, where she and community members created the Sweeping Away Evil Shadow Puppet Theater through 17 paper cutting and shadow puppetry workshops at 26 Mott St and Columbus Park. Using creative and cultural practice to support political education and leadership development of working class people is still her favorite as the Lead Youth Organizer at Chinese Progressive Association San Francisco. She was formerly the Lead Organizer of the Chinatown Tenants Union at CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities and Program Associate at The Laundromat Project, both in New York City.

Software Engineer, Board Secretary

Elizabeth Moy is an artist and activist born and raised in Chinatown, New York. She holds a BFA in Studio Art from NYU and is interested in how modes of cultural production can be used as tools of mass displacement, or alternatively, as grassroots defenses against cultural cleansing projects. She is also passionate about critical geography and prison abolition.