Ai-jen Poo
| Ai-jen Poo | |
|---|---|
Poo at the 2012 Time 100 gala
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| Born | 1974 (age 42–43) Pittsburgh |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Phillips Academy |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Occupation | Labor organizer |
| Known for | National Domestic Workers Alliance, Caring Across Generations |
| Awards | MacArthur Fellow |
Ai-jen Poo (pronounced / ˌaɪ d͡ʒn puː/) (born 1974) is an American activist. She is the director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. She is also the co-director of Caring Across Generations, a national coalition of 200 advocacy organizations working to transform the long-term care system in the US, with a focus on the needs of aging Americans, people with disabilities, and their caregivers.
She is a 2014 recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Award.
In February 2015, The New Press released her book, The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America.
Ai-Jen Poo's Taiwanese parents instilled her with strong "social justice values". Her father was a scientist and one-time political activist who immigrated from Taiwan in the 1970s. Her mother had a PhD in chemistry as well as an MD, and was an oncologist at two of the top cancer centers in the nation. She was born in Pittsburgh, and graduated from Phillips Academy in 1992 and Columbia University, where she was one of more than 100 students who occupied the rotunda in Low Library; this occupation led to the creation of Columbia’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race.
Ai-jen Poo began organizing domestic workers in 1996, with CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities. She is the founder and former lead organizer of Domestic Workers United, an organization of Caribbean, Latina, and African nannies, housekeepers, and elderly caregivers in New York that organizes for "power, respect, and fair labor standards".
In 2010, Domestic Workers United was instrumental in New York state passing the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights into law; this law was the first in the United States to guarantee domestic workers basic labor protections such as overtime pay, three days’ paid leave, and legal protections from harassment and discrimination.
DWU helped to organize the first national meeting of domestic worker organizations at the US Social Forum in 2007, which resulted in the formation of the National Domestic Workers Alliance that year. She has been NDWA’s director since April 2010. In 2011, Ai-jen Poo helped launch Caring Across Generations.
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