May Ying Chen was born in beautiful Boston, Massachusetts in 1948 and was the daughter of Chinese immigrant parents. Growing up in a multicultural environment, Chen developed a passion for social justice from a young age. Chen obtained her BA from Radcliffe College and her master’s in Education from the University of California of Los Angeles. While living in California she had taught in adult and high school classes. Chen taught subjects related to Asian and Asian American studies at the California State University, Long Beach. She also founded her own daycare center in Los Angeles, Chinatown.

Chen retired in 2009, before she was an officer and a founding member of the AFL-CIO’s Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), and was also the International Vice President of UNITE HERE. Chen has worked on The Immigration Project, the first union that established a legal advocacy section for immigrant workers, and helped members with US citizenship applications and sponsorship petitions on behalf of family members. Chen moved to New York City with her husband and two children in 1979. She worked for the Chinese Committee of Local 6 (the Hotel, Restaurant, Club Employees, and Bartenders Union) during the 1982 garment workers’ strike in New York’s Chinatown.