Immigration advocate Kent Wong dies at 69

Kent Wong, the longtime director of UCLA Labor Center and prominent advocate for immigrant and worker rights, died Oct. 8 at a Los Angeles hospital due to cardiopulmonary failure with complications from endocarditis.

About Wong: As a fifth-generation Chinese American, Wong’s family history shaped his commitment to immigrant justice. Both his grandmothers lost their U.S. citizenship after marrying Chinese nationals under the Chinese Exclusion Act. During his tenure leading the UCLA Labor Center from 1991 to 2023, Wong oversaw substantial expansion, with staff growing from three employees to 42, and created programs including the Los Angeles Black Worker Center and Dream Resource Center.

Beyond UCLA, he helped create the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance in the 1990s and extended his work internationally, brokering sister-city agreements in 2007 between the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and labor councils in both Beijing and Shanghai.

What people are saying: Wong’s son, Ryan, remembers his father’s character. “I would say he lived by his principles of nonviolence and equality and love also in the home,” he told the Los Angeles Times. Saba Waheed, current director of the UCLA Labor Center, said Wong’s “internal compass was guided by justice,” noting he “challenged the legal systems restricting undocumented students, pushed for a more inclusive labor movement and ensured that the university was accountable to the communities it was meant to serve.”

Wong remained active in his advocacy through the summer, training more than a thousand workers and union organizers for peaceful protests against federal immigration enforcement actions in Los Angeles.

Wong is survived by his wife, Jai Lee, sons Ryan and Robin, and siblings.