Oct 2, 2024 2 min read

2024 MacArthur Fellows Program: Alice Wong

Graphic with a light purple background. In the center is a photo of an Asian American woman in a wheelchair with a tracheostomy at her neck that has a tube connected to her ventilator. Her head is tilted to the left side, she is smiling, and she is wearing a magenta lip color. Her shirt is plaid with pale pink and other pastel colors and she is wearing pink pants. Behind her is a lot of greenery from bushes and trees at a park. Photo by @allisonbusch_photography

Hard to believe but I am a 2024 MacArthur Fellow! This has been a year with lots of highs and lows so receiving this was a surprise and it means a lot. I remember Ed Roberts was in the first cohort of fellows, later on Ralf Hotchkiss, Josh Miele, Susan Sygall, and perhaps a few others. There are so many disabled people out there doing amazing things and I hope there will be more disabled MacArthur fellows (disabled people of color in particular) in the future. Philanthropy is hella problematic and I hope I can use this opportunity to push for systemic change grounded in disability justice and anti-ableism and encourage more funding of disability culture and systemic change grounded in disability justice and anti-ableism.

I am accepting the MacArthur Fellowship amidst the genocide happening in Gaza and indiscriminate terroristic attacks in Lebanon by the state of Israel on the 76th year of their occupation of Palestine. I stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine in their struggle for freedom and self determination. In times of crisis, writers, like all artists, have a responsibility to speak truth to power–to say the unsaid, to think the unthinkable, to question narratives that frame what is considered the truth. Disabled liberation is intertwined with the liberation of all people. By being in community with others, I learned that mutual aid and community organizing are acts of love. I also learned that activism isn’t supposed to be palatable or convenient. Change cannot occur without friction in resistance to systems and institutions centered on accruing power. As a disabled person in a nondisabled world, I do not have the luxury to be apolitical. My writing is a form of activism–presenting ideas that provoke, inviting readers to interrogate their beliefs, and prompting action against ableism. Everyone has a voice and collectively we can move mountains.

Check out the video featuring me