May 2020 | Zoe Chen

Zoe marched with us at 2019 Trans March and is now part of APIENC’s Trans Justice Committee! Her pronouns are she/her/hers and identifies as a transgender woman.

Image description: Zoe is sitting and smiling outdoors on some steps with an amphitheatre and some buildings in back of her.
Image description: Zoe is sitting and smiling outdoors on some steps with an amphitheatre and some buildings in back of her.

When Zoe is not with community at APIENC, she is a MFA student in acting at the American Conservatory Theater, but in the past she has been a barista and an educator. She says she feels so grateful to be a part of the APIENC community.

Community has always been important to Zoe both in her art and her work as an educator. One of the highlights of her undergrad experience was working in an underprivileged preschool for the Jumpstart Early Childhood Literacy Program. The opportunity to make visible, positive changes in young children’s lives was incredibly meaningful to Zoe. In her art, she has presented work at the Japanese American National Museum on the intersections between violence, immigration, and the environment and has toured a four person production of Taming of the Shrew around New England that challenged gender roles. Zoe hopes to be able to create social change through art.

The reason why I volunteer for APIENC is the people. I have felt so welcomed ever since my first event, the 2019 Trans March. Marching with the APIENC contingent, I felt for the first time that I was surrounded by people who not only shared my values, but also supported my needs as a person.

Zoe Chen

Zoe wants to continue to create the change we want to see. She hopes that the QTAPI community continues to work with other communities to pursue not only liberation for us, but for other queer folx and POC.

And in case you missed it, check out Zoe’s Resilience Reminders reminding us that “even in this isolation, we can count on each other.”