Nellie Wong was a groundbreaking Asian American feminist poet, an outspoken socialist and a cherished Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) comrade and Radical Women (RW) sister. She died of ovarian cancer aged 91 on Jan. 2, 2026.
How to capture 60 years of radical agitation?
Her awakening began in the 1970s tumult of student organizing when she took creative writing classes at San Francisco State University. There, she was inspired by feminists and radicals Sukey Wolf and Karen Brodine who were fighting racism and sexism on campus. When they formed the Women’s Writers Union, she was one of its first members.
It was then that she discovered her life-long love of writing as well as her political home, joining both RW and FSP. She wrote, “Finding voice, letting my silences explode through organizing, my world split open.”
When Nellie met Merle Woo, a lecturer at UC Berkeley, a powerful sisterhood was born out of the desperate need for “yellow” feminist visibility. In 1981, the two appeared in the unprecedented book, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. They helped form the Asian American performance group Unbound Feet.
Wong brashly challenged stereotypes and took heat for it: “I’m treated as if white women put words in my mouth … if I talk about class and race, then petty-bourgeois feminists think I’m not ‘sticking to the subject.’” Despite being disparaged, she never backed down.
Fighting for a collective goal
Nellie was the organizer for the Bay Area Freedom Socialist Party for twenty years. She led a vibrant multi-racial chapter at protests, hosting public forums and Marxist study groups, mobilizing against neo-Nazis and anti-abortion bigots, while maintaining a public bookstore and meeting hall. As an elected member of FSP’s National Committee, she guided the party.
Wong was a powerful voice for RW at cultural and political events. In 2008, she delivered a rousing keynote address at the 41st Anniversary Conference of National Radical Women. She told the participants that one of her revelations was that office workers — mostly women and people of color — could shut this country down!
She was a leader in the Comrades of Color Caucus, a multi-hued grouping of members of color in FSP and RW. In her introduction to Talking Back: Voices of Color, she says of the caucus, “We argue, we debate, uniting together with a mighty body of voices for revolutionary change that spans history and the globe.”
Nellie began working at nine, helping at her family’s blue-collar Great China Restaurant. As a secretary, she developed a deep respect for the working class. Later, she represented her union at the San Francisco Labor Council.
Asian American luminary
Throughout her decades of activism, Wong never stopped writing, using her verses to urge revolutionary change and to highlight images of Chinese America. She authored five books (see link below) and was published in numerous anthologies. She was renowned in literary and Asian American communities, especially in the Bay Area.
Her prominence led to guest lecturer gigs at the University of Minnesota and Mills College in Oakland, Calif.; having excerpts of poems inscribed at two different sites of the San Francisco Municipal Railway system; and a 2022 Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Award from PEN Oakland. In 2011, students at Oakland High School chose to honor their distinguished alumnus by naming a building after her.
Despite her fame, Nellie was never elitist, encouraging all artists and activists. She inspired young people, especially young women of color. She was easy to talk to, a down-home woman who loved good food and cared deeply about making the world a better place.
In “For an Asian woman who says my poetry gives her a stomach ache,” she explains her fighting spirit “… my anger moves, a storm in the sunlight / where women and men fight alongside each other / in the battles against degradation …”
Nellie Wong was a revolutionary role model. Read more about her organizing here: A leader in words and action. For her writings, tributes and more, go to nelliewong.ddns.net.
Luma Nichol lived collectively with Wong and was also an organizer for Bay Area FSP. Sukey Wolf was a founding member of the branch and introduced Wong to FSP.
A later incarnation of Unbound Feet, the Unbound Feet Three performed in 1985. PHOTO: Caty Cade
Nellie’s spirit of solidarity in sisterhood with all women, workers and oppressed peoples, will continue to shine and impress those … who will discover the beauty, strength and joy of her poetry, which she crafted with love till the very end. — Genny Lim, San Francisco Poet Laureate
Nellie Wong shattered the limits placed on Asian American women of her era, transforming herself from a Chinatown restaurant worker and corporate secretary into a defining poet of resistance. Her voice helped ignite the Asian American movement, blending feminism, socialism, and creative fire to challenge racism, patriarchy, and silence. — Christopher Chow, AsAmNews
