Members
Alice Y. Hom
Alice Y. Hom (she/her & they/them) is a community builder invested in bridging diverse and overlapping communities to raise resources, to nurture leaders, and to build the capacity of organizations & individuals for social change. She is the Director of Equity and Social Justice for Northern California Grantmakers. As a Soros Equality Fellow she created the Historically Queer podcast, stories of activism by LGBTQ people of color, then and now. While on staff at Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (AAPIP), Alice created the Queer Justice Fund and helped inspire LGBTQ AAPI giving circles in various cities. She is a board member of Borealis Philanthropy and is on the Advisory Council for the Conscious Style Guide, a resource for inclusive, empowering, and respectful language. Alice co-edited the anthologies, Q & A: Voices from Queer Asian North America (2021), Q & A: Queer in Asian America (1998) and has published in various journals and anthologies. Alice has a Ph.D. in history and is committed to sharing the stories of activism and organizing by LGBTQ Asian American communities. She is a dapper dandy who loves brightly patterned socks and shirts and is a foodie who enjoys trying out new places with friends.
Ray Hsia
Ray Hsia (he/him) is the former Head of Instruction for Business and Design at General Assembly, a global technology pioneer in education and career transformation that believes in fostering a community of professionals to pursue the work they love. With over 15 years of experience in experiential marketing, Ray has designed and activated sponsorship programs for the Olympics and FIFA. His work has been recognized by the Event Marketer Experience Design & Technology Awards in 2008, 2012 and 2014.
Ray has organized and volunteered with the Gay Asian Pacific Islander Men of NY (GAPIMNY), Audre Lorde Project, the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA), APEX for Youth, Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW), and the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice.
In his off time, he is an avid comic book and poetry reader, enjoys reality TV, and while he lacks a sartorial eye, Ray is the kind of gay that will pick you up at the airport.
Peggy Saika
Peggy Saika is the Interim CEO of Common Counsel, which focuses on community-oriented philanthropy by expanding resources for progressive social movements across the United States. To this work, she brings four decades of experience as a social justice leader who has worked to empower women, achieve environmental justice, fight hate crimes and support immigrant and worker rights. Her philanthropic leadership includes many years as Executive Director of Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy. Her quest for social justice is influenced by her own experience being born in an Arizona internment camp where her family was among 120,000 Japanese Americans unjustly detained during World War II.
A. Sparks
Sparks (she/her) values and is deeply committed to promoting equity based on her experience as a queer, multi-racial, next generation, woman in the field of philanthropy. She is currently Executive Director of Masto Foundation, a US-based family foundation rooted in the Japanese-American community. Prior to taking on leadership at the foundation, Sparks worked in philanthropy for 12 years as a Program Officer and founded Queer Leaders in Philanthropy (a national network of LGBTQ-identified philanthropic professionals focused on changing the culture of philanthropy to be more empowering of LGBTQ individuals through advocacy and community building).
Prior to entering philanthropy, Sparks worked as a clinical social worker for foster care youth in Harlem, New York and received a BA in Psychology from Vassar College; an MSW from UC Berkeley; and an MBA from the University of Washington. When travel allows she splits her time between Seattle for work and San Francisco where she lives with her partner, Sierra, and adorable Morkie named Panda.
Doreena Wong
Doreena Wong directs the Health Access Project at Asian Americans Advancing Justice–Los Angeles, working to increase affordable, quality health care for California’s Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities, including culturally and linguistically appropriate services for immigrants and limited-English proficient populations. Previously, she worked for the National Health Law Program, the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, the National Women's Law Center, and a Los Angeles civil rights law firm. Doreena graduated from New York University School of Law in 1987 as a second career after nine years as a health professional. Before law school, she was a board member and volunteer for the Lyon-Martin Clinic in San Francisco, the first community clinic to serve lesbians.
Outside the office, Doreena has been a leader of the Asian American LGBTQ movement for nearly 40 years. She has co-founded community groups of Asian American lesbian and bisexual women in San Francisco, Philadelphia, DC and Los Angeles, as well as the first national network of such groups. She also is a founder of API Equality-LA, which first advocated for marriage equality and now educates broadly for LGBTQ equality and empowerment within Asian and Pacific Islander communities in Southern California. Doreena is a founding sister of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum and was a board member of Asians and Pacific Islanders for Reproductive Health, which eventually birthed "Khmer Girls in Action," a Cambodian young women's reproductive health and empowerment project.