san francisco — Alice Wong, a disability rights activist and author whose independence and writing inspired others, has died. She was 51 years old.
Sandy Ho, a close friend who had been in contact with Wong’s family, said Wong died of an infection on Friday at a hospital in San Francisco.
Ho described her friend as “a superstar in the disability justice movement” who wanted a world where people with disabilities, especially marginalized populations of people of color, the LGBT community and immigrants, could live freely and have full independence in their lives and decisions.
Wong, the daughter of immigrants from Hong Kong, was born with muscular dystrophy. She used a powered wheelchair and a breathing assist machine.
Ho shared a statement on social media that Wong wrote before her death in which she said she never imagined her path would end the way it did in writing, activism and more.
“Thanks to my friendships and some great teachers who believed in me, I was able to work my way out of miserable situations to a place where I finally felt comfortable in my own skin. We need more stories about us and our culture,” Wong wrote.
Ho said she advocated for people to “get people out of institutions and stay in society,” and also shared her work — including books she has written and edited and the blog Disability Visibility Project, which she started — in her writing, the voices and perspectives of others.
Wong was a funny person and a fun writer, which was not an easy skill, Ho said. She added that her memoir, “Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life,” is full of humorous excerpts but also humanizes disability.
The legacy of Wong’s work is that people with disabilities “speak for themselves and no one speaks for us,” Ho said.
Wong was among the 2024 class of John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur, Genius Grant recipients.