This week is bittersweet -- yesterday marked the one year anniversary of launching Welcome to Chinatown. On one hand, we feel more courageous, inspired and empowered than ever to do the work we’ve been doing in the last year, but on the other hand, we can’t help but feel a sense of despair, the same feeling we felt last year when we started, seeing that our community continues to hurt and be disproportionately marginalized because of the way we look, speak or exist. 

When we started Welcome to Chinatown, we saw ourselves simply as two residents of the neighborhood -- we had yet to realize what it meant to be a female-founded grassroots organization. We’re grateful to be surrounded by a supportive community of fellow female founders and leaders as well as allies who remind us each day: Asian and Asian American women change the world.