Jonathan H. X. Lee
President
Jonathan H. X. Lee (he/him), is a professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. His family survived the Cambodian genocide and arrived in the United States in 1981 when he was 5 years old. He identifies as Chinese-Vietnamese-Cambodian American. He received his doctorate in religious studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2009. He has published 16 books, and numerous articles and essays on Asian American histories, folklore, cultures, and religions. Currently, he serves as editor-in-chief of Chinese America: History & Perspectives, a peer-review journal published by the Chinese Historical Society of America. He is dedicated to anti-racist pedagogy in education and has been invited by several Silicon Valley corporations and public institutions to speak on equity, inclusion, and diversity issues. He and his husband are fathers to two adopted sons.
JC Chung
Treasurer
JC (they/them) is a Product Manager at Google and moved to the Bay Area in 2018. They received their degrees from the University of Chicago, B.A. Economics, B.S. Computer Science, and their M.B.A. from the Booth School of Business. With experience as a consultant at Kearney, JC specializes in applying analytics to improve business operations, and has a wide breadth of corporate experience from finance and data science to strategy and operations. JC is passionate about building LGBTQ community, particularly focused on youth leadership development, and can often be found in career conversations at Lesbians Who Tech, Reaching Out MBA and Grace Hopper. In their spare time, they enjoy hosting family and friends for backyard BBQs and home cooking lessons.
Nicole Lapointe
Secretary
Nicole (she/her) began her journey at Rainbow when she was providing HIV testing in 2015 through her position at Contra Costa County Public Health HIV & STD Dept. While working in public health, she pursued her master’s degree in social work with a focus on community mental health at Cal State East Bay, learning under Rainbow’s former Director, Ben Barr. During her program, Nicole transitioned into one of Rainbow’s MSW interns providing case management, leading the Women’s HIV support group, and completing her capstone and final project around women’s programming at Rainbow. Besides raising her three amazing daughters, Nicole now holds her LCSW, works as a Deputy Conservator and is a part time therapist for Path. Nicole is passionate about building LGBTQ community, human rights, advocacy, health equity, social justice, and empowerment. In her free time, Nicole enjoys shopping at thrift stores, buying plants and books, listening to music, going to the beach, dancing and reading.
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Valerie Crowell
Director
Valerie (she/her) moved to Contra Costa county in 2000 to flip a house and never left. She previously spent 15 years in San Francisco and has been involved in the community since the early 80s when a bizarre disease began killing the gay men of San Francisco. She started giving blood to help the patients of Ward 5b with a loose knit group of lesbians under the banner "Our Boys Need Blood". She lost rooms full of friends from that era. She has been through all of the battles that the community has fought and previously had won. Unfortunately, in 2022 we are having to fight them all over again and she is back ready to advocate for our community. She has done seven AIDS/Lifecycle Rides and will be doing her 8th in 2022. She is a full time Realtor serving the San Francisco East Bay. When not slaying dragons or slinging houses, she helps the California Doberman Pinscher rescues save surrendered dogs by doing shelter evaluations and transports. She still gives blood every eight weeks so she can be regularly reminded of what started it all. She is a competitive powerlifter and holds many state and national records. She is also a distance cyclist and a pretty lousy golfer. She additionally sits on the board of the Keller Williams Rainbow Network and the Contra Costa Association of Realtors. She lives in Concord with her Doberman Pinschers, Bill, Frida and Kaizen.
Sara Tucker
Director
Sara is a lesbian wife and mama of three awesome kids, at least one of whom is genderqueer. She was born and raised in the suburbs of Kansas City and spent a few years in Birmingham, AL, but has called the Bay Area home since 2005. She holds degrees in Human Development and Counseling and has spent her career working with children and families involved with the child welfare system. She is passionate about building relationships and advocating for marginalized communities. In her free time, she can be found hiking the beautiful Bay Area trails with her family, cooking without recipes, hanging out with friends, and trying to keep her houseplants alive.
Dee Vieira
Director
Dee is a wife, mother of 3 adult children and is a Bay Area product through and through. Dee's initial foray into activism, started in Antioch with the burrowing owls. It was here where she learned of city politics and dubbed the “Owl Lady”. At the same time, her children were also activating. They showed her that the nuclear family was not the "end all be all" that many in her generation were aspiring to. In fact, this blind pursuit of the American Dream, which generally leaves out the LGBTQI+ community and POC, can be downright dangerous. Dee's eyes were opened, and she vigorously joined her children's activism.
Dee spearheaded the importance of acknowledging our LGBTQI+ community to the city of Clayton. She reached out to community members, including Rainbow to help her convince the City of Clayton the importance to make June our Pride month and to raise the Rainbow flag in 2020 and the Progress Pride flag 2021. Dee has also been an active volunteer in raising much needed funds for schools, community and medical related causes throughout the 90’s and 2000’s.
In Dee’s spare time, she can be found walking daily with her cattle dog, growing
vegetables in her garden, collecting unique succulents throughout California,
crocheting, making art with wine corks, or having family night with dinner and games.
Dee is grateful and humbled to be a part of Rainbow’s community. She is where she
needs to be, a voice, right here, right now with you.