Executive Director, Chinese Progressive Association

For over 20 years Lydia Lowe has been part of building the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) and is currently its Executive Director. CPA is a grass-roots organization that works for full equality and empowerment of the Chinese community in Boston and beyond to raise the living and working standards of Chinese Americans and to involve ordinary community members in decision-making.

Ms. Lowe began her organizing career as a high school student in the 1970s. During her years at CPA, she has co-founded its Workers Center for immigrant workers to organize for their rights; secured bilingual job training for displaced garment and electronic workers; helped stop construction of a parking garage in the center of residential Chinatown; and established multilingual access to public meetings through an interpreter system provided by the City of Boston.

She has led and/or been active in the Asian Pacific American Agenda Coalition to promote collective political empowerment, the Chinatown Initiative to draft an updated Chinatown Community Masterplan, and the Campaign to Protect Chinatown, focused on resident empowerment, environmental justice and gentrification. Ms. Lowe works with other neighborhood activists across the city including the Boston Tenant Coalition and Action for Regional Equity (a Barr-funded initiative working on regional equity).

Lydia's cross-community coalition work has included serving on the boards of the Massachusetts English Plus coalition, the Immigrant Worker Resource Center, and, in the past few years, the developing New Majority coalition. Lydia is a second-generation Chinese American, whose parents came from mainland China, and the mother of two daughters.

Ms. Lowe was awarded an Alston-Bannerman Fellowship in 2002 (also a sabbatical program).