Canada’s first Filipina cop, Sgt. Maria Keen, has retired after serving 29 years in the Ottawa Police Service (OPS).
She had joined the service in August 1992 and the Toronto-born Keen had surprised her parents by becoming a police officer. Brought up in a traditional Filipino household, her parents wanted her to be “either a nurse, a doctor or a lawyer.”
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After graduating from Carleton University in Ottawa, she had joined a police placement program of the National Capital Alliance on Race Relations, leaving her parents shocked.
Over a period of time, they came to “accept it,” she said. Since then, her cousins have become police officers and her parents have talked to the family of another potential recruit to convince them for the job.
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Keen was turning 22 when she got the job and working as a community police officer and as a school resource officer. She has since mentored a second Filipina police officer.
“I’m still that Filipino girl that goes home to her parents and has a Filipino meal. And just because you wear the uniform doesn’t change that,” she said, talking about her background. (AW)
