About Monique

Monique Tú Nguyen currently serves as Executive Director of the Mayor's Office for Immigrant Advancement in Boston, where she leads comprehensive equity initiatives fostering stability, economic opportunity, and belonging across the city's diverse communities. A dedicated social justice leader with expertise in transnational coordination and global affairs, she has devoted her career to advancing human dignity, racial equity, and systemic change through strategic communications, community organizing, and cross-border collaboration across public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

Before her current role, Nguyen spent over a decade as Executive Director of Matahari Women Workers' Center, where she championed economic justice for workers, women, and marginalized communities through both local organizing and international solidarity networks. Her leadership catalyzed transformative initiatives including the $1M MassUndocuFund COVID-19 relief program and the successful passage of the Massachusetts Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in 2014, which brought crucial labor protections to over 100,000 workers across racial and economic lines while connecting to global domestic worker movements.

Her impact and commitment has earned numerous awards and prestigious fellowships from the Move to End Violence Movement Maker/NoVo Foundation and Roddenberry Foundation and recognitions, including the May Takayanagi Making Waves Award/Asian American Resource Workshop, Salt of the Earth Award/Community Labor United, Horace Seldon Emerging Leader Award/Community Change Inc., and Immigrant Hero Award/Immigrant Learning Center.

A respected voice in social justice, global affairs, and transnational organizing, Nguyen has shared her insights through media outlets including the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, and Huffington Post Live. Her organizational leadership extends to co-founding coalitions for worker rights and community spaces like EMW Bookstore: Art, Technology, and Community Center. She has served on boards advancing economic justice, racial equity, and movement building including the Massachusetts Coalition of Domestic Workers and National Domestic Workers Alliance, United for a Fair Economy, and the Stories Inspiring Movement.

Born in Vancouver Canada to Vietnamese refugee parents, Nguyen's passion for building multiracial democracy is deeply rooted in her lived experience navigating systems of exclusion while working to create a society of true equity and belonging for all. Her transnational perspective and global network have informed her approach to local policy development, local, regional, and international coalition building, and cross-sector partnership development. Though she proudly calls Boston home, Nguyen carries with her the influences of Vancouver, Houston, and her family's refugee journey—experiences that continue to shape her vision for inclusive community building, narrative change, and systemic transformation toward justice for all people through both local action and global solidarity.