Bridge Fellowship
Building Bicultural Leadership for Chinese Communities
The Bridge Fellowship is a nine-month leadership and learning program for bilingual and bicultural Chinese activists, organizers, communicators, and community leaders across the United States. Through trilingual learning spaces, mentorship, political education, and in-person gatherings, fellows strengthen the relationships, narrative skills, and organizing practice needed to build power with Chinese immigrant and Chinese American communities.
Application deadline:
TBD - Applications will open in August.
For questions, please send an email to bridge@chinesenarrative.org.
Program Overview
Where Organizing and Narrative Meet
The Bridge Fellowship is a nine-month program for bilingual and bicultural Chinese activists, organizers, communicators, and community leaders across the United States—including 1.5-generation immigrants, members of the diaspora, and Chinese Americans.
Launched by Chinese Narrative Hub, the fellowship creates a courageous, caring space to respond to the political challenges facing our communities. Fellows strengthen their relationships, practical organizing skills, and ability to communicate across language, generation, and political difference.
Organizing and communication are inseparable. Fellows learn how to listen closely, meet people where they are, tell strategic stories, and move communities from concern toward shared action. Together, we build a network of bilingual and bicultural organizers and communicators equipped to help Chinese communities shape the stories—and futures—we need.
Language Justice
Using the Languages of Our Diaspora
As the Chinese diaspora, our languages reflect our migration histories—Mandarin, Cantonese, Taishanese, Fukienese, and more—each shaped by complex political and personal experiences.
At the Bridge Fellowship, we co-create spaces where we can be our full selves, flowing across languages without asking for permission and interpreting for one another.
While we currently offer Mandarin, Cantonese, and English interpretation, we are committed to expanding practices that uphold language justice and embrace the full range of dialects our fellows bring.
Program Highlights
A Place to Learn, Practice, and Build Together
The Bridge Fellowship brings bilingual and bicultural Chinese organizers into a shared space for learning, reflection, and action. Through trilingual sessions, mentorship, in-person retreats, and peer connection, fellows build the skills, relationships, and confidence to help their communities make meaning, tell new stories, and organize for change.
Program Elements
Monthly trilingual virtual sessions (Mandarin, Cantonese, English)
Two powerful in-person retreats in Bay Area, California
Coaching and personalized mentorship support
Network and community with alumni fellows
What Fellows gain
Strengthened narrative and organizing skills with Chinese working-class communities
Access to Chinese Narrative Hub’s multilingual political education tools and networks
Peer connection and national alumni network
Deepened clarity around the role of Chinese diaspora in US social justice movement
Time Commitment & Support
Two in-person gatherings (Bay Area, California): October 2026 and June 2027
Monthly virtual sessions (weekdays); 80% attendance required
Financial assistance available for travel and participation
Participant Reflections
“Being on Angel Island, honoring our ancestors’ resilience, and then dreaming together—that was everything.”
“My fellows showed me the possibilities of experimenting in various fields and building a just world.”
Fellowship Coaches
Meet the Coaches
Joyce Lam
Joyce Lam (she/her) is the Director at the Chinese Narrative Hub and has almost 15 years of experience in organizing in the Chinese immigrant community, communications, movement building and campaigns.
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Joyce identifies as a 1.5 generation Chinese American/diaspora movement builder based in Bay Area, California.
She is a frequent commentator on Chinese language media outlets and consulted by Chinese media on issues affecting the Chinese community. Born and raised in Hong Kong, Joyce has a degree in Social Welfare from UC Berkeley and is bilingual and biliterate in Chinese and English.
Jean Tong
Jean Tong is a 1.5-generation queer Chinese social justice facilitator, coach, and healing justice practitioner with over 20 years of experience in labor movement organizing.
They have campaigned with unions and immigrant workers to improve workplace conditions and advance labor rights. Jean is dedicated to bringing liberatory design, relationship-building, and resilience practices into social movement spaces to help build the infrastructure we need to sustain our work, particularly for immigrant, neurodivergent, disabled, and BIPOC communities.
They are currently focused on creating an organizing training pipeline to support Chinese-speaking activists across the United States. Jean is also a SHIFT Innovation Fellow at Rutgers University’s Center for Innovation in Worker Organization (CIWO).
Apply Today
Join the Next Bridge Fellowship Cohort
Bring your experience, questions, language, and commitment to a growing community of bilingual and bicultural Chinese organizers across the country. Together, we will build the relationships, skills, and shared practice needed to help our communities tell new stories and act with greater power.
Applications will be open in August, 2026.