Lisa Lei

Lisa Lei (she/her) is the Asian American Racial Justice Coordinator at the UCLA Labor Center. In this role, she works closely with the Asian Pacific Islander (API) labor movement through partners such as the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), building towards collective liberation and cross solidarity. She believes that violence against people of color stems from structures of white supremacy and anti-Blackness; the way to stop the hate is to educate, grow the movement, and organize workers and communities for respect and dignity. 

Lisa brings over a decade of labor organizing experience. While at Unite Here Local 11, she led comprehensive and strategic fights that took on the bosses from contract campaigns, unionizing drives, political campaigns, and boycotts. One of her first union fights was with the DoubleTree in Downtown Los Angeles, formally known as the New Otani, where she organized workers to win a union after a historic 20-year campaign. She also served as the President of APALA LA and continued to build a pipeline for API youth and workers into the labor movement by creating API labor programs, as well as organizing trainings, workshops, and spaces. As a student organizer at the University of California, Irvine, she worked with AFSCME 3299 and mobilized over 400 students in solidarity for workers on strike. She co-founded the United Student Against Sweatshops at UCI and was an active member of Asian Pacific Student Alliance (APSA). 

Lisa graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a bachelor’s degree in political science, sociology and a minor in Asian American studies.

Outside of work, Lisa enjoys ocean water swimming, quality time with her loved ones and playing with her pit bull Raisin.