This entry highlights the reporting of Zhe Wu at the San Francisco Public Press, focusing on overlooked political dynamics in the city’s Chinese American communities, particularly among older, monolingual and immigrant residents in the westside Sunset and Richmond neighborhoods. These stories emerged through months of deliberate listening, trust-building and language-accessible reporting designed to meet community members where they are.
Wu’s reporting began with a seemingly narrow ballot issue: a proposal to close part of the Great Highway along Ocean Beach. While much local press coverage framed the debate as a clash between drivers and climate activists, Wu uncovered a deeper tension. She was the first local journalist to identify backlash among Chinese American residents who felt excluded from decision-making and betrayed by their district supervisor, who supported the closure. Her reporting revealed long-standing frustration with perceived political marginalization and documented how this discontent grew into a recall campaign targeting the supervisor.
Wu continued to follow these themes of exclusion and language inaccessibility. In a subsequent story, she reported that San Francisco was failing to meet its own standards for language interpretation at public meetings, leaving immigrant residents confused and unheard on civic issues. Her investigation was rooted in the city’s own data and interviews with multilingual community members.
In response to demand from monolingual readers, Wu translated her work into Chinese. These translated stories circulated in WeChat groups and email chains where much of the political discourse happens in the local Chinese-speaking community. This direct approach not only informed residents but also invited them to contribute perspectives for follow-up stories.
Wu’s journalism helped spotlight a complex local dynamic: a well-established immigrant community that feels sidelined in policymaking, even as it is widely perceived as politically powerful. Her work challenges dominant narratives and expands what gets counted as news in San Francisco politics. Her sourcing, translation and sensitivity to political nuance exemplify a community-centered process that surfaces underrepresented voices and perspectives.
