The W.O.W. Project

Based in Manhattan’s Chinatown, The W.O.W. Project is a women, queer, and trans-led community organization working at the intersection of arts, activism, and youth development. W.O.W. grows and protects Chinatown’s creative culture through artist residencies, youth programs, public events, and mutual aid. Our programs and offerings enable collaboration between gender expansive Asian American youth, socially engaged artists, organizers, and local small business owners. We use shared creativity to build intergenerational bridges of understanding and shared political consciousness across Asian American communities and beyond. W.O.W. serves as a political home and dreaming space for preserving Manhattan’s Chinatown. We work together to create a future where community spaces like W.O.W. are protected and resourced, shaping neighborhood growth in a way that serves community interests.

At W.O.W., the arts are a tool for politicization, relationship building, and identity formation—all of which are essential in empowering youth to participate in and lead social justice action. Yet, there is a lack of accessible arts spaces that serve intersectionally marginalized Asian American youth, who are often required to choose between social and organizing spaces that honor their racial identity or spaces that honor gender and sexuality identity. This is the gap that W.O.W. fills: serving youth in Chinatown, the intergenerational population that identifies as Asian-American more broadly in NYC, as well as the English-speaking Asian diaspora worldwide. Our values include:

1. Building long-term relationships with youth, artists, and community partners
   Investing in youth and creating opportunities for them to enter leadership roles.
2. Engaging with the issue of displacement in multiple ways.
3. Approaching organizational growth as an iterative, emergent process that centers community needs.