09/06/2025
Dear friends and partners,
We write today to share the bittersweet news that Karen Chen will transition from her role as the Chinese Progressive Association’s Executive Director on November 30, 2025. She will be spending more time in Texas to provide support to aging family members.
We know that many of CPA’s supporters will empathize with Karen’s decision, and that some might even be facing similar crossroads in life. The CPA board wholeheartedly supports Karen and we are grateful that she is assisting a thoughtful transition process, which we share more about below.
First, a few words about Karen. She came to CPA as a youth program participant in 1997, was elected to the Steering Committee, and has served on staff as Workers Center Coordinator, Lead Organizer, Co-Director, and now Executive Director since 2017. Over the past three decades, Karen has become one of the Boston region’s most ardent and effective champions for the empowerment of working people. Her contributions to justice and equality have been central to many of the major struggles for immigrant worker rights and affordable housing, and have lifted the political voice of our communities to new heights.
As Karen often reminds us, this work is done collectively. Thanks to strong, ongoing collaboration with our partners, CPA approaches our 50th anniversary moving full steam ahead on key priorities:
- Continuing our organizing efforts with rideshare drivers—recognizing that the right to unionize was hard-won. We will also expand our outreach to other gig workers.
- Organizing home care workers to improve their working conditions, wages, and benefits—as immigrant rights are under attack and potential significant cuts to Medicare threaten to reshape the industry.
- Building out our year-round integrated voter engagement program, working to further increase civic participation among Chinese voters.
Our next executive director will join an engaged CPA board and staff on moving forward these and other initiatives.
To design the right process and ensure a thoughtful transition, we have formed a hiring committee with support from Boston-based organizational development consultant Harry Smith. We hope you will circulate this job posting among your networks and encourage prospective applicants to apply, as we will conduct interviews this fall.
We know that many of you would like the opportunity to send your best wishes to Karen before her transition. We will keep you informed about an event we are planning for later this fall to celebrate Karen’s contributions to CPA and beyond.
Sincerely,
Suzanne Lee, President Emeritus
Wayne Yeh, CPA Co-Chair
Full announcement text: https://conta.cc/4p6FJbQ
Job posting: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kMn__OOOVfUqfGQGO7pXdvK5cpir5muAMYJMvSvJoAA/view
