Lily Lee Chen

Learning From Asia

When she first set foot on American soil in 1957, Lily Lee Chen was representing Taiwan at an international youth leaders’ event sponsored by the State Department. As Chen remembers it, the conference was designed mainly as an opportunity for foreign students to learn from America. But even then, Chen believed that Americans had something to learn from Asia.

She took to wearing a traditional Mandarin cheong sam dress as she toured the country, hoping to spark questions about China and Chinese culture. More than 40 years later, she continues her mission—but with much more experience and power.

Last fall, Chen’s career as a diplomat, politician and activist came full circle when the former mayor of Monterey Park—the first Chinese American woman to lead a city—was appointed by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to the Board of Governors of the East-West Center, an education and research institute established by Congress in 1960 to improve relations between the United States and Asian countries.

“It’s really a great opportunity for me to apply my background to help promote a better relationship and understanding between Asia and America,” said Chen, who is replacing former house speaker Tom Foley on the 15-member board.

Asian Americans with multicultural backgrounds can play a unique role in the new global economy, Chen said, adding that she hopes the three-year appointment gives her the chance she desired decades ago to impress upon Americans the growing importance of Asia.

The role of the Honolulu-based center has, like her own, changed over 40 years, she said. “It’s no longer the job of America to tell other countries who we are ... now we should learn from them.”

This is not Chen’s first appointment to a national board. That came in 1975, when she was named to the National Council on the Rights and Responsibilities of Women. Four years later, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the National Council on Adult Education. Since 1994, she has served on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Industry Policy Board.

Chen said her experience as a first-generation Chinese-American puts her in a unique position to promote understanding and cooperation between the peoples of Asia and America. Born in the northern port city of Tianjin, China in 1936, Chen and her family fled to Taiwan in 1949 just before the Communists came to power. She went to high school in Taiwan and relocated to the United States in 1957 to attend what was then known as San Francisco State College, where she received a bachelor’s degree in communications.

She met her husband Paul at a party in Berkeley where the two discovered that they fled China on the same boat. “It was a sort of fate,” she said. After the couple married, they moved to Washington state, where Chen received a master’s in social work from the University of Washington at Seattle.

Chen began her professional career in 1964, working for the Los Angeles County Department of Social Services, where she started as a social worker and was promoted to administrator. Over the next few years, she became involved in the budding Asian American movement, joining other Asian American social workers to protest the firing of the county’s Japanese-American coroner, Dr. Thomas Noguchi.

“It was my first experience in terms of working with other Asian Americans towards a common goal,” she said. “We all looked alike. So when Dr. Noguchi was being discriminated against, we felt a camaraderie among us.”

Since then, Chen has been one of the country’s leading Asian American activists. She was instrumental in founding many of the nation’s most prominent Asian American organizations, including the Organization of Chinese Americans, the Asian Pacific Legal Center, the Committee of 100, and the Organization of Chinese American Women, for which she has served as national president.

Chen’s four years of service on the Monterey Park City Council coincided with an influx of Asian Americans into the area, with the city’s population now mostly Asian American. She took her first stab at a council seat in 1981, and lost by only 28 votes. Eight months later, she ran again and won the most votes in city history. Two years later, under a rotating mayor system, she became the city’s leader.

Chen said her unsuccessful bid for Congress 11 years ago was her last foray into politics. Instead, she said she prefers to work behind the scenes to get more Asian-American candidates elected and move Asian Americans toward being involved in the democratic process. To that end, Chen, who now lives in nearby Glendale, serves on the board of directors of the National Immigration Forum.