Life, Values & Legacy: Our Chat with Kristina Wong of Koreatown Los Angeles

Kristina Wong shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.

Kristina, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. When have you felt most loved—and did you believe you deserved it?
Between 2022-2023, I was single and racking up a shit-ton of professional accolades after having created and toured my solo show “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord”. I was a Pulitzer Finalist, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Doris Duke Artist (that’s when you get a surprise call that a jury of your peers decided that you’re about to get $550k!), a Drama Desk Award– I was coming into NYC every other week to pick up a theater award, I was picking up accolades in LA too. I kept telling myself: “Well, maybe it’s because there weren’t that many shows produced in 2021 that I got this or maybe people felt bad for me for sewing so many masks in the pandemic.” But people would shush me when I would talk that way. I actually asked aloud, “Does this happen to every show in NYC?” I couldn’t believe it was real.

These years gave me a confidence that felt like love. It gave me a sense of self love and validation like I never felt before. And surprisingly I didn’t really experience any haters get really jealous or weird on me. Which is crazy, because pre-pandemic, I had a lot of online haters. I theorize that the pandemic wore them down, and also, that they don’t come to theater.

But suddenly I had this confidence and self respect that had me thinking that I actually don’t want to share this moment with some rando from a dating app. And I’ve unfortunately spent too much time in my adult life with randos from dating apps. But suddenly, I had a respect for myself and my time, and I just really liked enjoying savoring these good feelings for myself.

My media critic friend Jennifer Pozner was like “It’s too bad it took all these awards happening to you for you to feel who you should have known you were this whole time.” And she’s right. And if I could talk to the younger me, I would say, “Just really know you are as valuable as the awards you don’t have yet.”

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Kristina Wong. I am a solo performer and playwright. I am the first Asian American woman to be named a Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama. I also had a few lines on General Hospital. I’ve made eight original solo shows and most of them have had my name weaved in them: Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Wong Street Journal, and Kristina Wong, #FoodBankInfluencer to name a few.

But! Right now the three things I’m most excited about sharing with the world is a 100% FREE theater workshop called “FEAST MODE” that I lead on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings in January and February 2026 at World Harvest Food Bank in Los Angeles. Participants aren’t just going to get a little morning creative shake-out but leave with free groceries! I also have a new podcast out called “Killing Your Number” featuring the stories of formerly incarcerated APIs and exploring the impact of incarceration on our community. I also have a kids’ book coming out in April 2026 called “Auntie Kristina’s Guide to Asian American Activism” (Beaming Books).

Okay, so here’s a deep one: Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
I was very much NOT raised to be the freewheeling artist I am now. I was supposed to be a Miss Chinatown doctor piano player with a bilingual Chinese doctor husband and our bilingual doctor kids. In other words, a super achiever. I was insanely competitive. My mother wouldn’t read me bedtime stories, but instead coach me on how I could beat Steven Matsumoto in our 3rd grade math assignment. I certainly, was NOT supposed to be an activist shaking up systems and throwing my middle finger to authority.

But you know, we learn to get wiser on our own.

Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Yes. It was in my 30s. I had hit that “benchmark” dream I had of making a living as an artist for about five years. But the living was very much “surviving”. As it turns out, as an artist, nobody steps in to ensure you are still working, indefinitely. There’s no “tenure” if you will. I was in the 6th or 7th year of touring a show called “Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (now available on vimeo) which was a tragic-comic show looking at the high rates of depression and suicide among Asian American women. I desperately wanted to retire this show but wasn’t sure what or how to move on to the next thing. I was making enough from my touring to survive month to month, but couldn’t save much money to take a pause to make new work, or stop and try to get a graduate degree, or just chill. I was also becoming really burnt out and isolated from performing alone on stages, booking myself, and keeping the topic of depression so front of mind.

I remember trying to get some financial advice from a woman who advised a very established performance artist and she looked at my numbers and told me do my art on the weekends and go to nursing school. I couldn’t believe someone who was recommended by other artists would tell me this. It was like my parents reincarnated into this financial advisor. I left in tears.

And while I did eek out new shows, the one consistently in demand was the depression suicide show. I had friends tell me to suck it up, take out loans and get an MFA so I could teach, I gave a one time fee of $500 to a terrible “comedy coach” who told me that my aspirations of being a social commentator weren’t possible, and I even went to a career coach who basically talked me out of doing an MFA because it was clear that I would only be doing it to teach at a college so I could have steady income, which wasn’t my ultimate dream. The ultimate dream was to see a creative life through, just with more support, less isolation, and more opportunities to try out new ideas.

So how did I get out of the funk and keep going? I Airbnb’d my bedroom and slept at other people’s homes to save up money. (Which btw, might have been part of where the mania was coming from.) I went on a one month trip to Southeast Asia. I made another show called “The Wong Street Journal” after fundraising to go to Uganda and work at a microloan organization. And I learned that the future projects I take on shouldn’t mine my own pain and pathos, but instead teach me something new I have yet to learn. That’s why this latest show led me to learning more about food justice and food banks– something I was always interested in but didn’t know everything about.

I’ve been happier since and know more about the world.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What’s a belief you used to hold tightly but now think was naive or wrong?
I used to think that in order to stop hunger, we just had to feed people, like with a food bank. Sometimes this meant our leftovers or rusty cans in the back of our pantry. Even if it was processed and unhealthy food, there apparently was some desperate person willing to eat it and we would be heroic to discard it in their direction. If we could give our unwanteds to these unseeable “less fortunate” people, we could save them. I credit the highly problematic “Save the Children” commercials of the 1980s for this thinking.

Yes, we can QUELL hunger by feeding people. And it’s not a bad thing to support food banks but in researching my latest solo show “Kristina Wong, #FoodBankInfluencer” I’ve learned that there was a pre-Reagan time when hunger was only at 3% and the slashes he made to federal safety nets grew us into a culture of food banks and emergency food for working class people. In fact the cuts we are seeing now to Federal funding and emergency food is Reagan on steroids. It’s scary. Food banks are a stop gap. What we really need is the political advocacy that gets us to a place of total social equity– economic justice for all. But of course, that feels way too hard to do quickly, so we seem to have gotten fixated on collecting canned food instead.

Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What do you think people will most misunderstand about your legacy?
Because the work I make is theater and disappears in the moment, what’s left of me for the people who don’t get to see my nuanced writing and performing live is what the internet tells them.

Thanks to Ai journalism, I will be remembered as NBA Superstar Jeremy Lin’s wife. Partly true, it was a performance piece. Thanks to celebrity net worth sites (which btw are just random number generators), I might be remembered as someone worth anywhere from $400k-$10million, depending on what browser you check. I also think because of the negative perceptions of activism and the quicktakes people have from political writing on the internet, people will think I hate white men (only some of them).

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kristinawong.com
• Instagram: mskristinawong
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thekristinawong/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/kristinawong
• Other: Podcast: www.killingyournumber.com

  Book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/auntie-kristina-s-guide-to-asian-american-activism-anna-michelle-wang/ca4060f7b4e12cb6?ean=9781506496412&next=t

  Upcoming workshop “FEAST MODE”: https://www.kristinawong.com/upcoming-blog/feast-mode-free-writing-and-performance-workshop

Image Credits
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