Meet Annie

My tale begins in Guangzhou, China, in the early 1980s. I was born to a mother who endured much to bring me into this world, including a prior miscarriage and hospital bed rest in her last two trimesters. In those days in China, I was undernourished and often sick as a child. My mother said my loud cries were her only reassurance of my vitality—a trait I would use just as fiercely later on.

My family had the opportunity to immigrate to the US when I was 3 years old, and my parents made tremendous sacrifices to make it happen. On our immigration voyage, we had a layover in Japan, where I saw a blonde-haired boy that I tried to befriend. Bewildered at my attempts to talk with him in Cantonese, he hid behind his mother. Even at that age, I was trying to connect across a cultural divide.

As we settled in San Francisco’s Mission district, my parents found jobs wherever they could—garment factories, sweatshops, a fishmonger shop. Life was a patchwork of small joys and the challenges of poverty, racism, and generational trauma. Our modest one-bedroom apartment housed me, my parents, a younger brother, and two grandmothers. It was a crucible of experiences—some heartbreaking, others enriching.

From a young age, I became the de facto language translator, bureaucracy navigator, and general fixer for my family. I learned to be really competent—like my life depended on it, because with the responsibility I carried for my family, it kind of did.

At 14, my life took an unexpected turn. A full scholarship to a private school was my gateway out of poverty and to discovering what was important to me. In a class discussion, I fell silent when a classmate from a very different social class opined that sweatshop workers didn’t deserve better working conditions because they were either illegal or not smart enough to get better jobs. I’ll never forget the fury and indignation I felt for my parents. I vowed to fight for justice for those that my classmate looked down upon.