OCA Intern Alum: Christine Chen

Interview by Kent Tong / Written by Kent Tong

FOR THE LAST 15 YEARS, Christine Chen has served as the face of Asian American Pacific Islander Vote (APIAVote), the nation’s leading national, nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to empowering AAPI voters. Her tenure as its executive director has seen the organization through milestones like co-hosting the first-ever AAPI presidential town hall in 2008 (now a tradition every presidential election cycle); launching the first Get Out the Census campaign in 2010 to address the historical under-counting of AAPIs, resulting in the first census to show Asian Americans as the fastest growing racial group in the U.S.; and AAPI voters becoming the margin of victory in the 2020 elections. 

APIAVote was the brainchild of Chen’s in 1996 when she was a staff member at OCA (when it was still operating as the “Organization of Chinese Americans”). An election year, she saw other groups doing work to get out the vote in their respective communities and felt compelled to do the same. She formed a coalition of national and regional organizations to launch the National Asian Pacific Voter Registration Campaign (NAPAVRC). “We didn’t really know what we were doing, but at least it was the start of us trying to focus on the fact that we’re not as powerful in advocating for our issues if our own community was not voting,” she says. NAPAVRC established the 1-888-API-VOTE hotline to provide multi-language assistance to voters and created the first televised PSA targeting AAPI voters. In 2004, a grant from the Ford Foundation allowed OCA to hire a full-time project manager to work on APIAVote as an official project under the OCA umbrella. By 2007, the project grew large enough to spin off into a standalone organization, with Chen as its first executive director. 

Creating a job for herself isn’t new—in fact, it’s how Chen came to work at OCA in the first place. She first met OCA Executive Director Daphne Kwok when she was an undergrad student organizing the 1992 Midwest Asian American Student Union spring conference and the latter was guest speaking. In 1992, Kwok invited her to co-facilitate their first-ever college student program at the OCA National Convention in New York City. She then interned for OCA in 1993, continued volunteering afterwards, and after graduating from The Ohio State University in 1994, Chen remembers asking, “Okay, so I’ve helped you guys out. So, are you guys going to hire me?” 

When Kwok departed OCA in 2001, Chen was her natural successor: She was well-respected in Washington, D.C.; she had relationships with staff on the Hill, in the White House, with allied orgs; and she had the support amongst members. “The leadership of all the OCA chapters really trusted me because they would always reach out to me to get guidance” on any issues they faced locally, she says. Among the many activities that took place during her tenure, which coincided with the organization’s 30th anniversary, OCA continued speaking out against several incidents of racism and anti-Asian violence; hosted hate crimes education workshops; introduced new scholarships and co-founded the APIA Scholarship Fund (which now operates as its own nonprofit, APIA Scholars); and released a book, Voices of Healing: Spirit and Unity After 9/11 in the Asian American and Pacific Islander Community, paying tribute to all the victims and heroes of September 11 while also shedding light on the AAPI community, whose 9/11 narratives were often excluded. 

Chen attributes her high school involvement with Key Club for laying the foundation for her leadership. And by the time she was in college, her various on-campus activities (Circle K, Asian American Association, Student Alumni Council) formed a winning coalition that propelled her successful campaign for undergraduate student body president—becoming the first Asian American, first woman, first minority to serve in this role. "That only happened because I was able to bring a coalition of different communities,” she says, “from the dorms, to the commuter students, communities of color, the LGBTQ community, international students, and others [who] have never been involved with elections.” What she did to win is relevant to what she’s doing now at APIAVote: turning out disengaged voters by understanding what issues are important to them and helping them connect the dots as to how the election impacts them. 

Building that level of trust and maintaining relationships is key to this line of work, Chen says. Meeting the cast of The Joy Luck Club at the 1994 OCA National Convention made it possible to recruit them two years later for the historic get-out-the-vote campaign targeting AAPIs. “I think it's harder when we don't have the relationships and that's why it's really important that we always continue to expand our relationships and our scope of who we're working with.” Personally, thanks to the friendships she made in her 20s, she and her peers are able to leverage their professional relationships whenever any of them need support. In fact, she and her friend Keith McAllister have been by each other's side ever since they were interns, then staff members, together at OCA. Today, they still work together at APIAVote. 

Even while juggling multiple roles on top of leading APIAVote—running her own consulting firm, being a member or serving on the board of a half dozen organizations, being a resident fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics—Chen's never gotten burnt out. “Everyone knows I’m really bad about going on vacation,” she laughs. “I haven’t gone on a sabbatical, right?” But because she’s able to merge her personal and professional lives together, she enjoys the work. “It’s all part of [the] totality of who I am.” Her passion has always been supporting the community. “I’m just . . . most proud that my reputation is that I’m always willing to help,” she says, “That people trust me and that they trust my intentions. And whatever I’m doing, or the advice or strategy I’m trying to implement, it’s really about helping uplift the AAPI community.”