Wendy Wei
Independent journalist tying global stories to the American Midwest

Select Writing

Photo courtesy: People Matter

​Investigations

• "Feds Used Chemical Weapons On Chicagoans At Least 49 Times --Even After Judge Said to Stop" - co-produced by Block Club Chicago, Cicero Independiente, the Investigative Project on Race and Equity, Invisible Institute, South Side Weekly and The Triibe, Nov 2025
• "Migrant Shelter Residents Were Disproportionately Arrested for Domestic Violence" - South Side Weekly, Oct 2025
• "Chicago Cops are Making Fewer Traffic Stops - But More are Ending in Violence" - Chicago Sun-Times and the Investigative Project on Race and Equity, Mar 2025
• "Chicago Police Traffic Stops Have Left 230 People Injured, Hospitalized in Recent Years" - Chicago Sun-Times and the Investigative Project on Race and Equity, Mar 2025​

​Migration

• "Everyone is Mad at the Wrong People': Black Organizers Call for Focus and Nuance in the Affordable Housing Blame Game" - South Side Weekly, Apr 2024; Finalist for 2024 Peter Lisagor Awards in Best Community Reporting (small or medium print/online) category
• "At a NYC Reticketing Site, Some Migrants Are Choosing Chicago" - ​South Side Weekly, Nov 2023
• "Encontrando Su Camino En Chicago: una guía breve para un sistema muy confuso" - South Side Weekly, Nov 2023 [English]
• "Q&A: Expert Voices on Migration and the Humanitarian Crisis" - South Side Weekly, Nov 2023
• "UN Specialist Warned City Council that Tent Camps Could Become Permanent" - South Side Weekly, Oct 2023
• "Tent Camp Debate Highlights Uneven Burdens in Migrant Response" - South Side Weekly, Oct 2023
• "Robocalls Mislead on Welcoming City Amendment" - South Side Weekly, Sep 2023

Politics/Social Movements

• "More Than Three Years After Russia’s Full-Scale Ukraine Invasion, Aid Workers Question: ‘Is Rebuilding Enough?" - Borderless Magazine, Aug 2025
• "Muslim Advocates Ramp Up the Fight for Reproductive Justice" - Truthout, Jan 2025
• "Forty Years of 'Democrats for Palestine' Continues to Confront Familiar Repression" - South Side Weekly, Aug 2024
• "South Siders Maintain High Hopes for Brandon Johnson" - South Side Weekly, Sep 2023
• "Churches of Color Stand Shoulder to Shoulder at Unity Good Friday" - South Side Weekly, Apr 2023; Finalist for 2023 Sarah Brown Boyden Awards in Features Category  
• "Fear and Disconnection Mask Common Interests Among Asian and Black Communities" - South Side Weekly, Jan 2022
• "China's Development Aims: More Nuanced than "Soft Power" - Asia Global Online, Apr 2021 

Culture

• "Pilsen Murals and Ukrainian Mosaics Teach Us About Artistic Survival" - South Side Weekly, Dec 2025
• "Dance against war: In the midst of invasion, clubs in Kyiv draw on Chicago house music’s spirit of communal liberation" - Chicago Reader, Aug 2025
• "At PO Box, a group show centers the ties that bind global communities" - Chicago Reader, Mar 2024
• "Turtel Onli celebrates the 30th anniversary of his comics movement" - Chicago Reader, Mar 2024
• "The Paglees color the lens of collective feminism" - Chicago Reader, Jan 2024
• "Public and private politics in Vietnamese art" - Chicago Reader, Nov 2023
• "An art project visualizes the migrant crisis" - Chicago Reader, Oct 2023
• "How Women - and Their Hair - Transformed South Korea" - Atlas Obscura, Mar 2022
• "Military Chic, Commodified Protest: The Lost History of the Sukajan Jacket" - Hyphen, Mar 2021

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Select Audio Stories

• "Meet the Latinas Who Are Reconnecting with Ancestral Medicine" - 100 Latina Birthdays, Nov 2024; Winner of 2024 Peter Lisagor Award in Best Audio Community Reporting and Finalist in Best Audio Reporting on Race and Diversity Category
• "Building a Green Chicago" - Home, Interrupted/Feet in 2 Worlds, May 2024; Winner of 2024 Peter Lisagor Award in Best Audio Reporting on Business Category; Finalist for Institute for Nonprofit News "INNY" Insight Award in Explanatory Journalism 
• "How We Deal with Post-Partum Depression Matters" - 100 Latina Birthdays, Oct 2023; Finalist for New York Festivals Radio Awards in Health/Medical Podcast and Narrative/Documentary Podcast Categories 
• "How to Tackle Anti-Blackness" - Change Agents/Juneteenth Productions, Jan 2023; Finalist for 2023 Peter Lisagor Awards in Best Audio Reporting on Race and Diversity Category