Meet the 2011 Point Scholars

Emma Qing Wang
- from Amherst, Mass.
- pursuing a BA in social sciences at Harvard College

How do you feel your Point Scholarship will change or help your future?
The Point Scholarship has already changed my past and present. By making more visible mentors and leaders in the LGBTQ and allied community, I have been inspired to engage in LGBTQ-related activism and efforts knowing that I am not alone in these endeavors. In the immediate to long-term, I see the Point Scholarship as bringing me in touch with inspiring and strong individuals who have unique stories and shared experiences; being part of a queer and allied community confers immense strength and efficacy to any project. Moreover, I will be able to engage in discussions on LGBTQ issues at Point Foundation conferences in ways I hadn’t imagined previously, and challenge my current views of social justice to make my future advocacy work all the more self-aware. I hope, too, that the Point Scholarship will change my future allowing me to help shape others future, because mentorship and community is not unidirectional, and I believe that if others reach out to me, from seeing my bio on the Point website or anywhere else, I will also lead a more fulfilled life.

In conjunction with Point, how do you wish to make difference in the LGBT community?
With the other Point Scholars, alums, mentors, and all others involved in the community of the Point Foundation, I hope to reach across divisions through the shared understanding of being supporters and members of the LGBTQ community. I understand that being, for example, an 1.5 generation immigrant from China (my parents are first generation, and I was born in China, but I moved to the United States when I was in preschool), female-identified, and queer individual who attends Harvard College, I have certain experiences and perspectives that are transmutable to others, and certain others that are not as relatable. The uniqueness of an individual experience, however, cannot be discounted or too readily subsumed under other larger, more entrenched identities or agendas. To do so would result in a real loss to the diversity of our community, and reflect a misunderstanding of the extent to which prejudice is intersecting and interwoven. Therefore, I intend to bring forth recognition of traditionally marginalized groups within our community, namely, the female-identified LGBTQ community, the non-gender conforming community, the LGBTQ community of color, and the LGBTQ immigrant community. I would raise the question of intersectionality in whatever advocacy work I do in the future, while all the while continuing to learn from, and being actively supporting of others visions of a more socially just world.