Sally Wong—A Brief History of The Building, the Advocate, & Her Legacy

The ‘Sally Wong Building’ over on University Ave is gone.

For us, it’s exciting news because of what the space will eventually become: affordable housing for people in the community and office space for nonprofits serving the community. This housing will help families stay who may have had to pack up and start over. It will help retain the rich history and diversity of City Heights because it’ll keep people here.

It’s pretty common in this work to just celebrate, just look to what’s ahead, but we want to stop a second to share what this building meant to people. There’s a rich history to this building all on its own, and rather than blowing past that in the name of progress, we want to honor the legacy of this place and, more importantly, we want to acknowledge the community advocate after whom the building was named: Sally Wong-Avery.

Sally Wong-Avery at California Western School of Law. Source.

Sally Wong-Avery with Stephen Hawking. Source.

Originally from Hong Kong, Sally Wong-Avery was a UCSD alum who founded the Chinese Historical Society of Greater San Diego and Baja California. She spoke at least five languages and dialects—Cantonese, English, Mandarin, Hakka, and Toisan—and was extremely active in the community. Ms. Wong-Avery founded the San Diego Chinese Historical Society and received a Juris Doctorate degree from Cal Western School of Law.

Most exciting to us, though, was how active she was in the community. As a lawyer, she represented and advocated on behalf of community members in need, was a great philanthropist, and even won the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 2009.

Her personal motto was “Give and don’t count the cost,” and she clearly lived it.

So we acknowledge and honor Sally Wong-Avery and the building that held her name, and we look forward to all that’s ahead for this space and what it will mean for our community!