5 Questions: Former MLA Katrina Chen on breaking barriers for B.C.’s Chinese-speaking community

Katrina Chen has spent the past decade working on community initiatives in B.C. During her years as NDP MLA for Burnaby-Lougheed, she helped roll out childcare initiatives and rallied for more affordable housing in the province.  

But this year marks a turning point in her career. As an immigrant single mom in Burnaby who is also a survivor of gender-based violence, she admits that the nature of working in politics—which required her to travel all over B.C., leaving her nine-year-old son at home—took a toll and prompted her to step back from politics. 

As she begins a new chapter at AnXin Community Savings, an arm of Community Savings Credit Union that will serve B.C.’s Chinese-speaking community, Chen reflects on her journey here and highlights why growing a brand like AnXin is not only important for the province, but for herself as well. 

1. Congratulations on your new role at AnXin. How is this credit union different from others in B.C.? 

This is the first credit union brand that is dedicated to serving Chinese-Canadian and Chinese-language communities. We provide all the banking services just like other financial institutions and credit unions, but the unique thing about AnXin is that we are the first brand that’s led by people with lived experiences like myself and our team members to serve Chinese-language communities. We want to make sure, down the road, that we can invest in great community initiatives such as anti-racism initiatives or maybe affordable housing for Chinese-language communities or for newcomer services. 

2. What kind of challenges are you hoping to address through AnXin? 

Newcomers face financial challenges such as coming here without a long employment history or a long credit history, but they need to borrow a small loan or use financial services that they may not be eligible for. We are going to look at our members’ experiences to learn from them and see what type of product we can develop to serve the unique needs of newcomers.  

There are also many people who have lived here for a long time but continue to face systemic racism. We need to be really frank about the fact that racism and discrimination do exist in our community. For example, ever since I started sharing this brand with local contacts—and many people may have good intentions—one question I noticed that continues to come up is, ‘Are you going to make sure you do really good financial practices, like you’re anti-money laundering, right?’ When people think about Chinese-language communities or newcomers, they tend to be worried about international transactions and they tend to think about stereotypes. Unfortunately, a lot of it is untrue. That’s why we want to fight against it. If you think about a bank that opens a branch down the road from your neighborhood, that’s not normally one of the first questions you ask, so why do you ask that to some certain communities?   

3. AnXin recently had a soft launch—how did that go?  

It was two weeks ago. Everybody was really, really excited. I saw a lot of my friends and people I’ve known from the very diverse Chinese community all come together in one room. One of the frequently asked questions was, ‘What’s the difference between a credit union and a bank?’ That shows the Chinese community really doesn’t know much about credit unions. [Credit unions are] social purpose-driven, member-owned, and then we also work together with our members to give it back to the local community. So I think this is a great learning experience and also an opportunity for cultural collaboration. 

4. Do you feel like your background in politics has prepared you for career in finance? 

Most of my work in politics was to serve people on a daily basis with their challenges, with governments for cases and benefit applications. I was very fortunate that as soon as I became the MLA and joined provincial politics, I was also appointed as the minister of state for childcare. I led [the creation of] the $10 a day childcare plan, which is really a plan that’s focused on equity, gender-equity, equitable starts for families and their children. 

I had a few tough years and needed some time to heal from my own personal trauma that I’ve experienced as a survivor of gender-based violence. I’m an immigrant here without family, I have a young child and having a job that I had to travel around the province for was really difficult.  

Even though I stepped back from politics for personal reasons, as a single mom who really wants to focus on my child here, having this opportunity to work with Community Savings and continuing my community activism through a financial institution is something [I’d love to do]. I’m really blessed that now I still get to work with the grassroots community, especially focusing on the Chinese-language community that I come from and am very familiar with.

5. What do you hope to achieve through your role at AnXin? 

We had a senior who was in the branch the other day. She was having a hard time creating a banking password. But we helped her out, we wrote it down for her and used facial recognition to set up everything for her. In the end she said, “Can I just come here whenever I have issues?” I’m like, yes, of course we’re here any day.  

We want to create this type of personalized services for people who may have language barriers or other challenges. We’re currently creating online banking in Mandarin, so we have traditional and simplified Chinese. That’s why we needed a soft launch to learn and see what experiences members need. So hopefully for the senior, she’ll be able to use online banking more easily because it’s in her own language. And also down the road, I want to learn from members about what initiatives they want to invest in to give back to the Chinese language community. 

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.