We thought that it would be helpful to introduce our members and friends to the Democrats Abroad France National Leadership Team. Today, we start with our National Chair, Ada Shen.
About Ada:
Ada Shen is the National Chair of Democrats Abroad France (DAF),where she leads the national strategy for mobilizing the overseas vote to elect Democrats.
Ada has been contributing to the success of Democrats Abroad (DA) for over 12 years. Originally from California, she initially became involved with DA from Beijing, China in 2007 “as part of a group of folks fired up to take back the White House.” She eventually went on to help found the DA China committee.
“Some of my favorite moments were watching Obama win Ohio in 2008; Obama's surprise win in Florida in 2012,” she explained. “In 2016, a man walked in to our voter registration event announcing that although he was a lifelong Republican and had been a field director for Romney in 2012, he was there to register and vote for Hillary. We became friends, and are still friends to this day."
In 2017, Ada and her husband Emmanuel, a French national, moved to Paris. Prior to being elected Chair in May 2019, Ada served as DAF’s “Get Out The Vote” (GOTV) Officer and Database/IT Officer, where she grew voter engagement and participation dramatically by reaching out to the groundswell of those who rose up in the aftermath of 2016 – within DA France and its Caucuses (Youth, Women’s and Diversity), with fellow activist organisations (PAGE, Indivisibles, Our Revolution), and across DA France Chapters.
Under Shen’s leadership, DA France expanded its phone-banking initiatives, SMS and postcard campaigns; voter registration at protests, rallies and special events; hosted voter outreach on campuses and in the community throughout the fall — and connected it to the social media conversation.
Now, on to some fun facts about Ada:
- Her favorite political icon is Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
- Her top 3 issue areas are climate change, healthcare reform (and women's reproductive choice), and common sense gun reform.
- Her first political memory was “either President Ford falling down some airplane stairs or it was Chevy Chase as President Ford falling down some airplane stairs …”
And, when asked what she would do if she were President of the United States for a day, she responded:
“If I was an imaginary magical unicorn President for a day, I would like Thanos-snap my fingers and undo all the damage Trump has done for the last 2.542 years (928 days, 22 hours, and 43 minutes) since he took office. But I'm not a magical unicorn President, and we are not going to get one, so instead as a Nation, a People, and a Party, we are going to have to roll up our sleeves and get to work, to take our country back and set things right — not only to save our Republic, but to truly make it as great. This is why we are Democrats, and we will do our part to this end as DA France.”