Jeff Chang

“Like Bruce Lee himself, Jeff Chang is blessed with the vision to see things we do not yet see, thinking and writing with a restless, chasm-crossing, almost prophetic ambition.”—Hua Hsu, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Stay True

Jeff Chang is a renowned social historian, organizer, and author; his groundbreaking work in politics, music, culture, and activism has shaped how we understand culture and politics for over two decades.

His most recent book, Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America (out September 2025), is both a biography of the legendary martial artist and a page-turning history of Asian America and America as a whole. Emmy-award-winning producer W. Kamau Bell writes, “With the number of words written about him, Bruce Lee is up there with the likes of Jesus Christ and Muhammad Ali. And keeping all those words and perspectives about Bruce in mind, Jeff Chang has done the impossible. He has found something new to say about Bruce Lee. And in the process he has gone deeper than all the rest.” Water Mirror Echo was named one of Kirkus‘s best books of the year—in a starred review, Publishers Weekly writes that “this definitive account cements Chang as a preeminent chronicler of Asian American history.”

Along with Renee Tajima-Peña, Jeff co-founded The May 19th Project, a social media and video campaign promoting solidarity within Asian and Pacific Islander communities and all other communities. Viewed over 40 million times, this project was born from a desire to change the narrative “from one of anxiety and fear to one of agency and power—returning to our stories of solidarity to find the strength and inspiration to move forward.” A driving force behind the deeply emotional #StopAsianHate video (featuring Olivia Munn and Simu Liu), Jeff shed light on anti-Asian violence for millions of viewers by elevating the most influential Asian and Pacific Islander voices of our generation. Jeff was also crucial in the creation of the Cultural New Deal— an urgent call for policy makers to do their part in ending racial injustice, created alongside beloved activists, filmmakers, and artists—and co-founded CultureStr/ke (now the Center for Cultural Power): a vibrant community space for writers, musicians, and other cultural workers who fight hate by sharing the stories of migrants.

In his powerful book We Gon’ Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation, Jeff boldly explores the impact of recent tragedies and widespread protests, linking #BlackLivesMatter to #OscarsSoWhite, and Ferguson to Washington D.C. The Washington Post called it “the smartest book of the year.” Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, Jeff’s epic saga of music, politics, and activism, won the American Book Award and was selected by Slate as one of the most important books of the past twenty-five years. In Who We Be: A Cultural History of Race in Post-Civil Rights America, Jeff dives deep to uncover a hidden history of the American social movements that still impact how we see each other today.

For his vital advocacy and organizing work, Jeff was named one of The Guardian’s Frederick Douglass 200 and one of The Utne Reader’s 50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World. He is a USA Ford Fellow in Literature. He has written for the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, Salon, Slate, Buzzfeed, and Medium, among many others. Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawai’i, Jeff is a graduate of ‘Iolani School, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of California at Los Angeles. He formerly served as the Executive Director of the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University.