By Jennifer Lee | October 4, 2022

In June 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, a form of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Upon countless months of hospitalizations, surgeries, and treatments, discovering my chronic illness shifted the very foundations of my life as I knew it. It was only after grueling weeks of trial-and-error diagnoses by doctors that I finally learned about this disability, an invisible disease. Truth be told, the news was a shock to my family, but not for the reasons you might expect. …

August 23, 2022

PINK with Purpose Project began in 2019 as a way for PINK to support the community and power its dreams. This year, ten inspiring young adults received the award to fund their projects in support of PINK’s brand values: People, Purpose, or Planet.

By Amy Fong | July 12, 2022
Amy Fong, a mathematical statistician in the department’s Office of Disability Employment Policy, recently interviewed Justin Tsang, Hanna Lee and Shruti Rajkumar of the Asian Americans with Disabilities Initiative to ask about the importance of ensuring research considers the unique experiences of this population in the United States. This is the latest in an ongoing series of data snapshots about different subgroups of people with disabilities; previous snapshots explored Black workers with disabilities and women with disabilities.

By Natasha Ishak | May 20, 2022

After her diagnosis with Crohn's disease two years ago, Jennifer Lee decided she wanted to create a community for Asian Americans with disabilities. But she quickly found little institutional support for her project.

"I was told by multiple professors, administrators, just grantmakers in general that the idea was too niche," said Lee, a Korean American student at Princeton University. …

By Mary Chao | April 22, 2022

There are days when the pain is too much to bear.

Growing up in Ridgewood, Jennifer Lee suspected something was wrong with her body. But her family would insist that nothing was awry

In Lee's Korean American immigrant family, anything less than perfection was unacceptable, she recalls. In 2019, she was still trying to meet that impossible standard, seemingly bound for the American dream as an immigrant about to enroll at Princeton University. …

By Sarah Tardiff | March 17, 2022

It’s been one year since the Atlanta spa shootings, in which eight people were killed — six of them were Asian women. According to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, reports of anti-Asian hate crimes across the country increased by 339% in 2021. However, some have estimated that these crimes go widely underreported because of factors like distrust of police and language barriers. …

February 20, 2022

“New episode premieres tomorrow Sunday February 20th, your host Robert Handa @rhandanbc welcomes Owner of

The Parade Guys Stephanie Mufson, Dr. Clifford Wang from the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, and Jennifer Lee Founder of AADI.” …

By Naomi Hess | February 15, 2022

In June 2020, after months of doctors appointments and medical testing, Jennifer Lee ’23 was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. Although she had many of the typical symptoms of the condition, Lee said her doctors at first hesitated to consider Crohn’s because of its rarity among Asian Americans. …

By Shruti Rajkumar | January 23, 2022

Jennifer Lee had suspected that she had a chronic illness for a long time, but was often told that it was all in her head. Despite undergoing several genetic panels in 2020, her doctors struggled to diagnose her. After several weeks, Lee received a diagnosis for Crohn’s Disease—a delay that was due to her being Asian. …

January 20, 2022

(Translation) Young people, including Koreans, have established an organization for the disabled of Asian descent and are actively engaged in activities. …

By Victoria Namkung | January 20, 2022

The Asian Americans with Disabilities Initiative wants to provide the next generation of leaders with resources to help combat cultural stigma, anti-Asian racism and ableism. …

January 10, 2022

The intersection of disability and Asian American identity presents a complex sphere of cultural and social nuances that are yet to be properly explored, both in academia and in advocacy. The CDC estimates that 1 in 10 Asian Americans have a disability, yet nearly no research or resources exist in response to the specific challenges of being disabled in the Asian Pacific Islander and Desi American (APIDA) community. …

December 13, 2021

Filling the gap of a lack of disability support platforms for the younger AAPI community, The Asian Americans with Disabilities Initiative launches as the first of its kind …

December 01, 2021

Three of our members, Jennifer Lee, Megan Liang, and Xuan Truong, were featured in the Assembly, a publication by the Malala Fund and an “inclusive platform for people who identify and/or are socialized as girls, genderqueery, and non-binary young people.”

By Jennifer Lee | October 30, 2021

Susan Sontag once wrote, “Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick.” To be chronically ill is a (quite literally) never-ending battle, one that always seems to pull me back into darkness just when I feel as though I’ve made it out. I often feel that my body is an accomplice to its own pain. However, I have found immense strength in reflecting on my story, on the very roots that inform who I am. …

By Dennis Tran | September 28, 2021

Throughout 20-plus years of navigating life with family mental health traumas, being partially blind with glaucoma, and having autism, there were a lot of struggles and hardships along the way that caused an identity crisis for me and the people surrounding me. I never felt as close to others as I should be based on the circumstances and hands I’ve been dealt in life. The intersectionality of being Asian-American and living with disabilities is pretty complex, considering one has to navigate life with both their Asian and American identity, but also life with disabilities. …

By Megan Liang | September 20, 2021

A few months ago, I hung up the phone and sighed in defeat for what felt like the hundredth time. Since the end of 2020, I have been on the search for a therapist for the first time in my life. At this point, I had repeated and memorized the summary of the past 26 years of my life: “I was diagnosed with osteosarcoma at the age of 5, and they later had to amputate my leg at the age of 6. I know I have struggled with anxiety, and I am pretty sure that my childhood history with cancer has caused me some form of PTSD. I would also like to work with someone who also has a cultural understanding of growing up as an Asian-American. So… do you think that we can work together?” …

September 03, 2021

The winner of August's Awesome Foundation Disability Chapter (#AwesomeDisability) grant is Jennifer Lee with The Asian Americans with Disabilities Initiative. Visit https://www.awesomefoundation.org/en/projects/174835-the-asian-americans-with-disabilities-initiative to learn more about the project!

By Jennifer Lee | August 12, 2021

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic turned the world upside-down as we knew it -- that, in and of itself, is already the understatement of the year. Disability activist Alice Wong spoke of how the nation’s need for ventilators in hospitals directly conflicted with her needs as a disabled patient; Tiffany Yu, founder of Diversability, used her platform to raise awareness of transparent masks for easy lipreading access. Already, at-risk patients suffered from a lack of attention and space, only for this to be exacerbated by a public health crisis. …

By Jennifer Lee | July 30, 2021

Almost exactly one year ago, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease after a grueling few months of trial-and-error diagnoses by my medical team. Truth be told, the news was a shock to my family, but not for the reasons you may first think of. …

By Jennifer Lee | July 8, 2021

July marks the start of Disability Pride Month! Crohn’s disease, and Inflammatory Bowel Disease overall, is covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a landmark civil rights legislation that was passed in 1990. The ADA effectively prohibited discrimination against those with disabilities by law, and although it has not completely eliminated obstacles for the disability community (far from it, in fact), significant strides have still been made towards progress for the disabled community. …

By Jennifer Lee | February 1, 2021

Recently, I’ve started receiving care from the Susan and Leonard Feinstein Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinical Center at Mount Sinai. This was my first time visiting an IBD-specific clinic, ever. Prior to visiting Mount Sinai, I was lucky if there was a gastroenterologist or a colorectal specialist on call at my local hospital. ….

May 29, 2022

The Asian Americans with Disabilities Initiative, or AADI, today announced the promotion of Dennis Tran, Justin Tsang, Kim Chua, and Shruti Rajkumar to AADI’s inaugural Vice Core. These four members have previously shown great dedication to the organization’s mission and initiatives. The promotion to their respective positions is to recognize the hard work of these members and to include them in the strategic development of the organization’s values and programs. These members were doing a great job managing their leadership roles within the organization and have been selected based on their tremendous impact on the nonprofit at large. …

January 10, 2022

The intersection of disability and Asian American identity presents a complex sphere of cultural and social nuances that are yet to be properly explored, both in academia and in advocacy. The CDC estimates that 1 in 10 Asian Americans have a disability, yet nearly no research or resources exist in response to the specific challenges of being disabled in the Asian Pacific Islander and Desi American (APIDA) community. …

December 13, 2021

Filling the gap of a lack of disability support platforms for the younger AAPI community, The Asian Americans with Disabilities Initiative launches as the first of its kind …