Our Mission
The Chinese Progressive Association is a grassroots community organization which works for full equality and empowerment of the Chinese community in the Greater Boston area and beyond.
Our activities seek to improve the living and working conditions of Chinese Americans and to involve ordinary community members in making decisions that affect our lives.
Our History
CPA was founded in 1977 out of a series of community organizing campaigns around issues such as Chinese parents’ input into the Boston school desegregation process and organizing for community control over land development in Chinatown.
Our membership is made up predominantly of Chinese immigrants and the Chinese-speaking; most are workers in low wage industries, working families, or low-income elderly.
CPA has no single issue focus because we believe that people have many concerns–jobs, education, freedom from discrimination, a clean and safe living environment.
We have seen that once people achieve their rights in one aspect of their lives, they will be more likely to actively participate in solving other community problems.
For more information, check out our 40th Annivesary Video Below.
Major Accomplishments
1980-1989
1985: Launched campaign for justice for police brutality victim Long Guang Huang, who was awarded an $85,000 settlement by the City of Boston.
1986: Organized 400 dislocated garment workers to win the first Chinese bilingual retraining programs in New England after an 18-month campaign.
1990-1999
1994: Anchored community-wide struggle to preserve Parcel C for community use rather than a parking garage, now the Metropolitan and home of CPA’s permanent home and community organizing center.
1997: Won multilingual services for the unemployed and the reopening of 15 local unemployment offices across the state.
1999: Enabled Chinatown residents to establish the first community-wide resident association and to win long-term affordable housing contracts at three HUD developments, saving 500 homes.2001: Unified the dislocated Power-One electronics workers to win $1 million in new job training programs.
2000-2009
2001: Convinced the City of Boston to provide multilingual access to all public meetings and hearings through a simultaneous interpretation system.
2003: Played a core role in launching the New Majority, a coalition working to unite Boston’s communities of color for social and political change.
2004: Worked in six Chinatown-area developments, totalling more than 500 units of housing, to help tenants remain in their homes, reduce proposed rent increases, and improve healthy living conditions and quality of life.
2005: Helped give Chinatown the highest increase in voter turnout of any Boston neighborhood, and worked with both the US Department of Justice and the City of Boston to secure bilingual Chinese and Vietnamese ballots for Boston voters.
2005: Organized laid-off electronics and rubber stamp manufacturing workers to win over $400,000 in severance pay and seek increased job training opportunities.
2006: Supported youth activists to win City of Boston funding of a feasibility and siting study to revive a Chinatown branch library.
2007: Completed four-year $1.5 million capital campaign and fully paid off our mortgage to establish CPA’s permanent center for grassroots organizing in Chinatown’s Metropolitan project on Parcel C. Asian American voter turnout surpassed the citywide average for the first time in Boston’s history.
2008: Helped Chinese wait staff win a $110,000 unpaid wage settlement affecting 80 tipped workers who were employed by Jin Asian Cuisine in Saugus.
2010 – now
2010: Anchored a campaign for Boston to continue to have Chinese and Vietnamese bilingual ballots. On July 31, Governor Deval Patrick signed into law the bilingual ballot Boston home rule petition.
CPA Historical Records
With our donation of our historical records to Northeastern University, you can now look online to see what is available for viewing at Northeastern.
Chinese Progressive Association records, M163. Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections.
Follow the link below to see what is available in our archives:
https://archivesspace.library.northeastern.edu/repositories/2/resources/946