Eddie Wong
Introduction (2-3 lines)
One of the founders of Visual Communications, the nation’s premier Asian Pacific American media arts center, Eddie Wong earned his MFA degree in film directing at UCLA, where he produced and directed several documentaries for Visual Communications from 1970 to 1977, including WONG SINSAANG, CHINATOWN 2-STEP, AND PIECES OF A DREAM.
A native Angeleno, Eddie Wong was one of the founders of Visual Communications, a non-profit media company that produced books, slide shows, photo exhibits and films about the Asian American and Pacific Islander experiences. Eddie's filmography includes the classics WONG SINSAANG and PIECES OF A DREAM, yet it was his considerable talents as an author, grantswriter and arts administrator that helped steady Visual Communications' path from 1970 to 1977. Leaving VC to enter the wild world of electoral politics, Wong was a Founding Editor of East Wind: Politics and Culture of Asians in America in the 1980s, and served in 1988 as National Field Director for Jesse Jackson for President campaign. From 1996 through 2006, Wong served as Executive Director of the Center for Asian American Media, formerly the National Asian American Telecommunications Association; and served as Executive Director of Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation from 2008 to 2012. He also served as project director of “A Day in the Life of Asian Pacific America,” an online photographic exhibition under the auspices of Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, and while retired, still actively pursues various media arts-related projects.
