AAPI Month 2023 – David Wu Q&A
In honor of AAPI Month 2023, GG+A is celebrating members of our team and the ways that they, as Asian Americans, enrich our community with their heritage, insights, and perspectives. Today, meet David Wu, Vice President.
1. What is your cultural heritage? In what ways has your cultural heritage shaped your identity and values?
I was born into an interracial family. My mother was of English and German heritage and my father was Chinese. He was a political refugee. When the communists took over in China he was basically stranded in America and found his way through the U.S. through various pathways, similar to lots of refugees.
My father, in particular, is my most significant role model. . . . He taught me to continue to lift myself up and lift others up.
He ended up in St. Louis, Missouri, where he met my mother. At the time they couldn’t get married in the state of Missouri because of laws prohibiting interracial marriages. So, they had to go across the Mississippi River to Illinois to get married. They were one of the first interracial families in St. Louis. My mother lost half of her friends who thought she had done wrong and made an inappropriate decision in her life, and we were treated very poorly.
My mixed heritage has really developed me into the person that I am. It has been instrumental in forming my North Star of advancing equity. Every single job that I’ve held, every single board I’ve served on – almost every single decision I’ve made in my life is based on aligning with that North Star.
2. What are some distinctions and traditions from your culture that are particularly meaningful to you?
Neither one of my parents knew how to cook. My aunt on my dad’s side flew out to St. Louis from San Francisco and spent two weeks teaching them how to cook Chinese food, because my dad was so hungry for homecooked meals!
Through that, they learned how to create amazing Chinese dinners, and to this day that is a central part of how I express my love for others and celebrate my heritage.
3. Who are your greatest influences? Do you have any role models?
I think we all turn to lots of individuals who have shaped our lives. At the firm, John Glier, Martin Grenzebach, and others have all been enormously influential in my life. They may have few words, yet their few words have great weight and meaning.
My father, in particular, is my most significant role model. I learned so much from him about resilience, and the ability to adapt and ultimately not wallow in a past that may not have been as pleasant as it should have been. He taught me to continue to lift myself up and lift others up.
His family lived through the Japanese occupation, where they feared for their lives, and feared being shot in the street by the Japanese army. And as the communists took over China, his family has stripped away of everything that they had worked so hard to achieve.
My heritage and the North Star of advancing equity have impacted every area of my life.
All of that lived experience was a lot of trauma, and despite that trauma, he was able to demonstrate how to live a full and rich life. It was fascinating to go back to that during the pandemic. We have a 26-year-old daughter. Helping her to hear those stories again and instill that resilience through those stories was a profound way to have his words live on. It helped us all deal with what was a very difficult period.
3. How has your heritage influenced your academic and professional life?
My heritage and the North Star of advancing equity have impacted every area of my life. My career has taken me into public higher education, where I spent about 50% of my career serving institutions like the University of Washington and UCLA, which are amazing on-ramps of opportunity for our society.
I went into global health, where I served moms and babes who needed the most in terms of health equity; I worked for PATH, a large implementing partner for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. From there I was invited to move into the conservation world. What you find is that animals in wild places [experience the least equity among] living creatures on the planet. Being their voice and helping to save [these animals] was an extraordinary calling.
That’s where I was exposed to my current work in the social services sector. I worked in the conservation world for Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, which is one of the top zoos in the country. We were developing a mission to be “a zoo for all.” With that vision, we began engaging communities of people that we knew were underserved and had to retrofit the zoo to be more welcoming. That’s when we took a pledge to essentially become a zoo of inclusion for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. And through that exposure to the Special Olympics and its global movement of inclusion, I joined the Special Olympics in my current role as CEO of Washington State’s program.
4. Do you have a favorite author or book about the Asian/Asian-American experience that you recommend?
Orphan Bachelors, by Fae Mynee Ng.
The story is about her experiences being around men that were not allowed to have families because they were males, and they were Asians. Such laws were similar to what was done to the Native Americans – and African Americans – to control and bend and modify their existence. So, I’m looking forward to reading it.
Learn more about David and his role at GG+A.