By Lily-Grace Ng and Joanna Jacob
Year 9 STEAM English and Social Studies

On Friday 5 August, the Year 9 STEAM classes were very fortunate to be visited by Labour List MP and former Westlake Girls student – Naisi Chen.

She is currently the second youngest member of Parliament at 26 years old. She is the only MP of Chinese ethnicity. Naisi Chen came to New Zealand from China when she was five years old and grew up here for most of her life. She told us about how she became what she is today and what she does at her job. 

Naisi was studying law and had never imagined that she would one day become a  MP. Naisi Chen was the president of the New Zealand Chinese Students Association and was passionate about stopping Asian hate crimes in NZ’s universities. When Raymond Huo – a Labour MP – first approached Naisi, she thought he was going to offer her a job at his law firm but to her surprise, he encouraged her to run for Parliament. Naisi lost the first East Coast Bays electorate in 2017 but in 2020 she got into parliament.

The STEAM classes were very lucky to have her visit and were inspired by the way she is breaking stereotypes.