Cecilia Lei
@cecilialei.bsky.social
Bay Area journalist, aspiring optimist. @coyotemedia.org co-founder @kqednews.kqed.org contributor
We started COYOTE because we refused to believe local journalism had to die with the rest of the industry. Help us prove it by joining our pack. 🐺 Use code HOTDOG by 8/8 to get $20 off a new annual subscription — just $60/year. Visit coyotemedia.org!
Last Sunday, San Francisco District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey relaxed after what was, for most, a fun-packed SF Pride by repeatedly prompting xAI chatbot Grok to provide justifications for the killings of civilians in Gaza by Israeli forces. www.coyotemedia.org/s-f-lawmaker...
S.F. Lawmaker Asks Chatbot About 'Suicidally Motivated Civilians' in Gaza
A San Francisco supervisor finds an eager listener in xAI's Grok.
coyotemedia.org
Hey Bay Area folks, just a reminder that I curate the @coyotemedia.org calendar and am always looking for interesting stuff. What are you all up to this week? Do you know of cool things going on? Send them my way! calendar@coyotemedia.org <3
I've been to Out Museum twice - first on the opening day, and again this weekend, where what I planned as a short visit turned into an afternoon of conversation and hanging out with other visitors. It really is more than a museum - it's become a community center! 🏳️🌈❤️ Open Saturdays: outmuseum.org
OUT Museum
全球第一家華語酷兒博物館和檔案館
outmuseum.org
Cecilia Lei@cecilialei.bsky.social · last mo.Before Pride weekend ends, sharing my latest for @coyotemedia.org where I visited a new museum in SF Chinatown that’s telling queer Chinese stories while honoring, and reimagining, tradition. 🌈 (Fun fact I learned: Hu Tianbao, or The 🐰 God, is a folk deity who blesses relationships b/w men!)
I edited this one, by @cecilialei.bsky.social, and what really got me was the story at the end, about a 70-year-old trans man from Guangdong who stopped in at one of Chen's shows to tell his story. 😭
COYOTE@coyotemedia.org · last mo.Today at COYOTE: a look at the OUT Museum, the world's first museum devoted to storytelling and art by and for LGBTQ+ Chinese people. "Chinatown really wants to preserve tradition — and that is important — but it also is capable of pioneering new, fresh ideas." www.coyotemedia.org/out-museum-l...
Before Pride weekend ends, sharing my latest for @coyotemedia.org where I visited a new museum in SF Chinatown that’s telling queer Chinese stories while honoring, and reimagining, tradition. 🌈 (Fun fact I learned: Hu Tianbao, or The 🐰 God, is a folk deity who blesses relationships b/w men!)
A Home for Queer Chinese Stories Opens in Chinatown
‘It’s rare to see Chinese LGBT people or to hear their stories.’ Lesbian artist Xiangchi Chen shares the origin story of the OUT Museum in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
coyotemedia.org
Our founders, though deeply flawed, understood that democracy requires an informed citizenry and a government accountable to it people. That’s why the press is the only profession protected by the Constitution. It’s also why autocrats and oligarchs seek to control and destroy it.
COYOTE's featured alongside a handful of our fellow worker-owned outlets in @niemanlab.org today, talking about the reality of doing democratically managed journalism. Summary: It's a lot of fucking meetings! www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/jour...
Journalism coops seem utopian. What’s it like working in one?
"If I was less self-directed, I'd probably be freaking out."
niemanlab.org
"This is the worst fucking time. But watching people's response to ICE has just been the most affirming thing in the world.” We interviewed our friends over at @racketmn.com about what it’s like to cover the crisis in Minneapolis as community-centered journalists
How Racket, Minneapolis’s Worker-Owned Newsroom, Is Covering Its Hometown Fascist Invasion
“This is the worst fucking time. But watching people’s response to ICE has been the most affirming thing in the world.”
coyotemedia.org
i am so proud of @coyotemedia.org for being a place that can run stuff like this without pulling punches and i also feel it should be known that @soleilho.com wrote this powerful piece in like two hours *with the flu*
COYOTE@coyotemedia.org · 6mo ago"Minnesotans are doing all they can, but they can’t keep fighting alone," writes @soleilho.com. "It’s time for a nationwide general strike: a coordinated withdrawal of labor across industries and regions until ICE is abolished."
wrote a special newsletter today for @coyotemedia.org that's chock-full of mutual aid links for work happening in Minneapolis-St. Paul www.coyotemedia.org/coyote-weekl...
COYOTE Weekly: Heave ho!
Keep pushing.
coyotemedia.org
At home in the dark during SF’s massive blackout last month, as journalist @idamoj.bsky.social scrambled to save food, she also wondered how we got here. It’s too simple to cast PG&E as the only villain, she argues: Why aren’t we talking about the CPUC? www.coyotemedia.org/in-the-dark-...
In the Dark: Who’s Really to Blame for the Great SF Blackout?
‘The fish rots from the head,’ says one expert — and the smell is coming from the governor’s mansion.
coyotemedia.org
before 99 ranch opened in my city (suburbia baby!), the ranch and the plaza it’s in is the one I frequented the most bc it was the closest at the time. the video store that we would buy dramas there and I rmr my dad bought this one violent movie and the lady was like “don’t watch this with your kid”
COYOTE@coyotemedia.org · 7mo agoThe Bay Area is experiencing an 'Asian Market Boom.' But what does it mean when immigrant cultural spaces become economic solutions? Read @cecilialei.bsky.social's personal essay on Richmond’s Pacific East Mall, the "retail savior" narrative, and why she’s craving a different story.
Loved reading this. “It’s impossible to shake the irony of reading about Asian grocery stores as retail saviors at a moment when immigrants are being framed, yet again, as threats — to jobs, to safety, to the nation itself.”
Cecilia Lei@cecilialei.bsky.social · 7mo agoNew Asian grocery stores are opening across the Bay Area and are positioned as retail 'saviors'. Immigrant culture gets celebrated when it’s profitable — and villainized when it’s not. I wrote an essay about it, and about the mall that raised me: Pacific East Mall ❤️
“What does it mean when essential facets of immigrant life, like our food and gathering places — which were traditionally ‘othered’ and sidelined — go mainstream?” asks @cecilialei.bsky.social. Check out her beautiful essay on the Pacific East Mall and the Asian market boom 👇
What the ‘Asian Market Boom’ Is Missing: An Ode to Pacific East Mall
As shiny, new Asian grocery stores are hailed as retail "saviors," the decades-old Pacific East Mall in Richmond shows how immigrant cultural spaces matter beyond their economic benefits.
coyotemedia.org
Loved this piece by @cecilialei.bsky.social on what the "Asian Market Boom" of 2025 actually feels like when you've grown up going to Asian markets. A lovely ode to Pacific East Mall, family, tradition, change, and food. www.coyotemedia.org/asian-market...
What the ‘Asian Market Boom’ Is Missing: An Ode to Pacific East Mall
As shiny, new Asian grocery stores are hailed as retail "saviors," the decades-old Pacific East Mall in Richmond shows how immigrant cultural spaces matter beyond their economic benefits.
coyotemedia.org
The Bay Area is experiencing an 'Asian Market Boom.' But what does it mean when immigrant cultural spaces become economic solutions? Read @cecilialei.bsky.social's personal essay on Richmond’s Pacific East Mall, the "retail savior" narrative, and why she’s craving a different story.
What the ‘Asian Market Boom’ is Missing: An Ode to Pacific East Mall
As shiny, new Asian grocery stores are hailed as retail "saviors," the decades-old Pacific East Mall in Richmond shows how immigrant cultural spaces matter beyond their economic benefits.
coyotemedia.org
Love, love, love this @coyotemedia.org essay about Pacific East Mall from my colleague (and fellow Albany kid) @cecilialei.bsky.social. Also it's Ranch 99. I did not realize this was up for debate www.coyotemedia.org/asian-market...
What the ‘Asian Market Boom’ Is Missing: An Ode to Pacific East Mall
As shiny, new Asian grocery stores are hailed as retail "saviors," the decades-old Pacific East Mall in Richmond shows how immigrant cultural spaces matter beyond their economic benefits.
coyotemedia.org
New Asian grocery stores are opening across the Bay Area and are positioned as retail 'saviors'. Immigrant culture gets celebrated when it’s profitable — and villainized when it’s not. I wrote an essay about it, and about the mall that raised me: Pacific East Mall ❤️
What the ‘Asian Market Boom’ Is Missing: An Ode to Pacific East Mall
As shiny, new Asian grocery stores are hailed as retail "saviors," the decades-old Pacific East Mall in Richmond shows how immigrant cultural spaces matter beyond their economic benefits.
coyotemedia.org
cleanse your brain, cleanse your spirit: read @rahawahaile.bsky.social and @maggietokudahall.bsky.social in conversation about pigeons www.coyotemedia.org/local-woman-...
Local Woman Has Hobby: Maggie Tokuda-Hall’s Pigeon Paintings
“Everything that we think is disgusting about human life, pigeons wear without shame.”
coyotemedia.org
Proud of my colleague @emmaruthless.bsky.social for breaking this important story, and for highlighting how interconnected our local independent creative networks are. What an honor to be trusted, and what a responsibility that @coyotemedia.org takes seriously as we navigate uncertainty together.
Emma Silvers@emmaruthless.bsky.social · 7mo agobeen thinking about what it meant that BotH came to us with this story I think it points to how alt-weeklies and small music venues used to be part of the same independent culture ecosystem. Arts infrastructure as a public utility — but totally separate from city govt. We so desperately need it
❤️ this shoutout (takes a bow) FYI Oakland residents!! Right now, a year of @coyotemedia.org costs less than that time you forgot your parking meter expired. Use promo code COYOTE26 before Jan 1!
Lex Roman@lexroman.com · 7mo agoIf you're doing an end of year subscriber drive, here's the 8 best appeals I found in my inbox. @coyotemedia.org's "A $68 COYOTE subscription is cheaper than an Oakland parking ticket" is a particular standout www.paidnewsletterplaybook.com/examples-the...
20,000 words, 150 footnotes, 100+ timeline events = our attempt at documenting and synthesizing all the ways that the federal government has attempted to destroy access to gender-affirming care since January unbreaking.org/issues/trans...
Transgender Healthcare: Explainer — Unbreaking
How the administration is breaking the government, and what that means for all of us.
unbreaking.org
$68! A full year’s worth of journalism for $68. It’s like a doordash order that benefits you year-round
COYOTE@coyotemedia.org · 8mo agogreat idea! also, if someone you love is in the Bay Area, why not grab them a gift subscription to COYOTE? 15% off this month! www.coyotemedia.org/gift-subscri...
Highly recommend you making beans🫘 the @soleilho.com way. I used their guide when I was crammed to make a quick lunch, and wanted to clear my fridge and pantry. Not a pretty pic, but wow delicious! www.coyotemedia.org/how-to-make-...
If you’ve been cheering on @coyotemedia.org from afar (thank you!) or have been enjoying our stories until you hit the paywall (we get it!), THIS is the time to subscribe. Get 15% off annual subscriptions (+ gift subscriptions!) and help us reach 2,026 paid subscribers before 2026.
Bay-area based COYOTE needs to get to 2026 paid subscribers by end of the year. They're only a few hundred away. Back their project and tell your coolest friends! www.coyotemedia.org/media-coop-m... @coyotemedia.org
Forget Girl Math — Welcome to Media Co-Op Math
What we’ve learned from 2.5 months on the job.
coyotemedia.org
COYOTE Media Collective is launching ‘Sprint to 2026’ — our ambitious/maybe a little delusional quest to hit 2,026 paid subscribers by Dec 31! 🐺👟💨 We’ve published more than 70 pieces in 2.5 months with a tiny, feral team. To keep doing that, we need ~600 more members.
Come for the tote bags and live DJ set, stay for the inevitable journalism gossip. luma.com/f2jy4dho
COYOTE@coyotemedia.org · 8mo agoTONIGHT! SF! Join us at Casements in the Mission for food, drinks, a live DJ set from @bff.fm, priceless gossip with journalists and indie music folks, tote bags… what more could you want, truly luma.com/f2jy4dho?tk=...
“…if you need to talk to your trying-to-be-down auntie about how a land acknowledgement at dinner isn’t enough, please do let her know she can simply text FREESAM to 53-555 and make a tax-deductible donation to actually change the material conditions of Natives.” Also here: givebutter.com/c/9qW07O
COYOTE@coyotemedia.org · 8mo ago“Our ‘Thanksgiving meal’ is usually to the tune of gas station roller hotdogs and chips, supplemented with caffeine and cigarettes,” writes Lydia Grijalva, who heads to Alcatraz Island every year to greet the sunrise with Native comrades and elders. www.coyotemedia.org/thanksgiving...