Nellie Wong is a poet and activist for feminist and socialist causes based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is co-featured in the documentary film, Mitsuye and Nellie, Asian American Poets (1982) and was featured in the film Just Say It: A Revolution in the Making (2004). Wong's awards include Woman of Words from the San Francisco Women's Foundation and her poem, "Sailing with Memories of Li Hong," was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2005. The collection consists of 37 boxes of personal and professional materials generated by Wong during the period 1972-2013.

A Chinese-American poet and union activist, Nellie Wong was born and raised in the Oakland Chinatown of the 1940's. After the incarceration of over 120,000 Japanese Americans to relocation camps during World War II, Wong worked in her family's great China Restaurant in Oakland's Chinatown. Later, she traveled across the Bay to pursue studies in creative writing at San Francisco State University. Meanwhile, Wong worked at the Bethlehem Steel Corporation as a secretary from 1964-82. Wong began writing poetry in the early 1970's. Wong is one of the founding members of Unbound Feet, a writing collective of Chinese-American women who read together and lectured at universities throughout California, in the late 1970's. Wong's poems deal with themes involving Asian Americans, especially the sense of leaving "home" behind. "I care about the roots of Asian-American culture and how and why they came here," says Wong, referring to the long history of Asians' immigration to America. "It's something every Asian family has experienced."

16.43 Linear Feet; (1 carton, 32 document boxes, 2 half-document boxes, 1 flat box)

Property rights to the collection and physical objects belong to the Regents of the University of California acting through the Department of Special Research Collections at the UCSB Library. All applicable literary rights, including copyright to the collection and physical objects, are protected under Chapter 17 of the U.S. Copyright Code and are retained by the creator and the copyright owner, heir(s), or assigns.

The collection is open for research.