A Century of Serving Others - At 101, Amy Guen reflects on her role in founding a key Chinatown social agency, and her own grandfather’s legacy

Photo Credit by Adam Smith

Amy Guen has been interviewed enough times to know how the process works. Sitting at Jiangnan, a Chinese restaurant near Boston Common, she gave a rundown of the early years of her life that no doubt many are familiar with by now: born in Boston’s Chinatown, Guen then spent 12 years in China and returned to the United States in 1946, where she became a medical social worker and started the Chinese American Civic Association that would go on to help and enrich the lives of so many inhabitants of Boston’s Chinatown.

But Guen’s story doesn’t start 101 years ago, when she was born near where this interview took place. It starts even earlier, with her grandfather and the railroads. “You hear about the railroad, back in the 1800s,” Guen said. “The laborers”—many of them Chinese—“they came to work in the railroad, (but) they didn’t have Chinese herbs to keep them healthy.”

That was where Guen’s grandfather came in. “He was not only a scholar, he’s also a herbalist,” Guen said. “So, as a professional pharmacist, he was recruited by the railroad company to come to the U.S. to take care of the laborers. Then my father came to succeed him.”

By the time Guen was born, “a lot of people knew my family,” Guen said. “I’m very proud to be born in Boston Chinatown and to have come back after living in China.”

Guen quickly became involved in helping Chinese hospital patients who didn’t understand English upon her return to the U.S.

“That’s when I met people there, in the hospital, and they said that I should study medical social work.”

Guen earned a Master of Social Work degree from Boston College and by 1965, had started the Chinese American Civic Association — now the Asian American Civic Association, publisher of the Sampan — with the help of relatives and other educated individuals who wanted to “help Chinatown.”

Within two years, she said, the civic association “became quite a large organization,” Guen said, “with the ability to have three divisions.” One of these eventually became the South Cove Community Health Center, which today has expanded to five locations total and is the largest Asian primary care provider in Massachusetts. Another division became the Golden Age Center, which offers a range of programs serving elderly Chinese in the Boston area. A third division became the Multiservice Center, providing immigration and citizenship counseling.

She also started the newsletter that would become the Sampan.

“Originally, we called it the CACA newsletter,” she said, noting the effort was a collaborative project with other earlier founders — Anna Yee, the late Ron Con and Eugene Tong. Eventually they identified Gloria Chun, who was from Hawaii, to help turn the newsletter into a newspaper, said Guen.

“We started the newsletter for a couple years, until Gloria came in and said, ‘We should do it this way.’ That’s how we started the Sampan. I have one early copy, it has handwritten Chinese.”

Guen is extremely proud of the work AACA has accomplished. “Our health center is better than all the other health centers in Boston,” she said. “We started a 5-star nursing home. All the immigrants who come in who do not have English capabilities get excellent service. Our AACA is better than other social service agencies.”

For Guen, though, it’s the people she’s met and continues to meet in her work that she’s the proudest of: the original one hundred members of the Chinese American Civic Association — all educated in the U.S., all wanting Chinatown “to benefit from what American society has” — and the people involved in the AACA of today.

“I get to meet all these people who continue the project I started. That’s the most important thing,” Guen said. “Now I’m retired, I would continue to support all these organizations, which is being taken over by good people.”

Now, at 101, Guen confronts new challenges. “Because of my age, I don’t have the physical ability to do all the things I want to do. A lot of people still call me up, wanting help. I have to sit down and think how much (I can help them).”

But Guen’s conviction remains unwavering. “My principle is this: I’m born with potential. My life is to make my potential useful and helpful to serve.”

When asked what she does to stay healthy, she said, “I have to give God that credit. I don’t know why.”

Adam Smith contributed to this story.