Sept 2020 | PAIGE CHUNG

Image description: Paige is indoors smiling at the camera.
Image description: Paige is indoors smiling at the camera.

Paige (she/they) is a poet and a skater. In their own words, “My last writing project Nail Trap is juicier than your neighborhood gossip and my current project is hotter than your cousin’s mixtape. I’m based in Los Angeles, but I roll everywhere.”

Paige first came to APIENC in the 2017 summer cohort of POP! People Over Pride camp. In 2018, she returned as both a winter and summer organizer, doing work to lay the foundation for the Dragon Fruit Network. Even while attending school in Kalamazoo, Michigan, for the last four years, Paige has continued to stay involved. Most recently, she helped coordinate the Dragon Fruit Project Phone Tree and is leading a Black Lives Matter Learning Group within APIENC. 

Paige keeps coming back to APIENC because people are so down to build relationships. They are always in awe of the kind and generous people they meet, every time they return. They keep coming back because people want to do the work and not only do folks show up, but they show up time and time again. Paige’s favorite APIENC memory is when someone grabbed their hand at the APIENC office and they walked over to grab someone else’s hand. The three of them then went over to grab another and then another, until everyone was a concentrated cluster of cheering people in the office holding hands.

Outside of APIENC, Paige credits the Critical Ethnic Studies and Writing Center communities in college for leading her to where she is today:

My Critical Ethnic Studies community, back in college, challenged me to think critically about authoritative discourses and pushed me to argue well. This community invigorated a love for learning and rooted me in reading, writing, storytelling, and relationship building.

The Writing Center community was integral to my growth as a writer. Outside of working there, I went to the writing center every week to get consultations on my own writing all four years. It’s one of the most radical spaces on campus: we/they are thinking about language and storytelling in transformative ways.

However, now Paige is exhilarated to not be preparing for the fall semester for the first time in 18 years! They are currently spending their time reading and writing, learning how to play piano, and roller skating at the beach. You can keep up with them at miublue.com and @miupaige on Instagram. Also, fun fact: they love playing Bananagrams and Monopoly.