Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is a shining example of the unprecedented rise of Asian American women in Massachusetts politics. But she’s one of several women who have recently risen to power in the state.
Wu made history in November of last year, when the former Boston City Council president became the first Asian American, woman, and person of color, to be elected mayor of Boston — a city where Asian Americans make up about 10 percent of the city’s residents. This Chicago-born daughter of immigrants from Taiwan also made history years earlier as Boston’s first Asian American female city councilor and youngest council president.
But Wu is joined by several other women who also made their own history in recent years.
A newly published report from the University of Massachusetts Boston’s Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy (CWPPP) and the Institute for Asian American Studies profiles the five Asian American women elected to the state house of representatives in recent years. They include Vanna Howard, a former refugee who arrived in Massachusetts in the early 1980s after surviving the Khmer Rouge; and Erika Uyterhoeven, a biracial daughter of a single immigrant mother from Japan. Both women were elected for the first time in 2020. Another is Tram Nguyen, who was born in Vietnam and arrived as a refugee in Massachusetts with her family at age five and flipped the 18th Essex District blue in 2018. Maria Robinson, a Korea-born adoptee, won an overwhelming share of the votes in the crowded open-seat race for the 6th Middlesex District the same year. And finally is Keiko Orrall, a Republican and the daughter of a Hawaii-born Japanese American father and white mother, who became the first Asian American woman elected to the House in 2008.
Despite serving in their first elective office, these Asian American women had prior experience in public service or were involved in candidate campaigns, women’s organizations, AAPI organizations. Their multiple identities and community attachments shaped their decision to run and make fundamental change. Their groundbreaking victories are recognition of the significance of their leadership for advancing a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive democracy.
However, as the delayed appointment of Robinson by the Biden-Harris administration to the Department of Energy and the unsuccessful bids for higher office by Rep. Orrall and Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz suggests the sustainability of political representation for Asian American women is not certain nor is it reaching higher levels of elective office. Experiences of racism and racialized sexism on the campaign trail and in office are also not uncommon. For example, Reps. Nguyen and Robinson have been mistaken for legislative aides a countless number of times because they do not “look like” politicians. During her re-election campaign, Nguyen was the target of robocalls that disseminated misinformation to residents across her district and sought to incite racial division. Reps. Uyterhoeven and Howard thought their campaigns were impacted by high-profile violent attacks, including the 2021 mass shooting of Atlanta-area spas that killed four China-born and two Korea-born women. During her campaign and now as mayor, Wu has also dealt with racist messages and racialized sexist rhetoric.
The first Asian American woman elected to a Massachusetts city hall was current mayoral candidate Amy Mah Sangiolo of Newton in 1997. It was only in 2007 that Lisa Wong became the Commonwealth’s first Asian American woman and youngest woman elected mayor. Born in Massachusetts to immigrants from Hong Kong, Wong served four terms as Fitchburg’s mayor while also encouraging people of color and women to become politically active through various national and local-level organizations, including the Asian American Women’s Political Initiative and the CWPPP. Sumbal Siddiqui, who immigrated from Pakistan in the late 1980s as a child, became Cambridge’s first Muslim mayor after being elected to the city council the same year and a year after graduating from EMERGE Massachusetts. Mayor Siddiqui, who experienced intense anti-Muslim hate online and in person following her appointment, has challenged anti-Asian hate and racism and discussed the importance of educating community members about hate crime laws and their rights. The 2020 selection of Quincy City Councilor and EMERGE MA Executive Director Nina Liang as Council President represents another important milestone for a community that has shown dramatic growth in its Asian American residents.
Like pioneering Asian American women first elected over a half century ago in Hawai’i and California, Asian American women in Massachusetts are contesting dominant meanings and practice of leadership in electoral politics in greater numbers and across levels of office. Their experiences with racism and racialized sexism and poverty, often tied to war and imperialism, help explain their commitments and efforts to advance a more reflective and equitable democratic process. Nonpartisan and partisan women- and ethnic-specific organizations, especially those that maintain deep connections to grassroots community concerns have helped. Their example and performance will ensure the development of pathways and electoral infrastructure that will help to make certain that these notable firsts for Asian American women will not be the last.
Katie Mai, a grad. student at BU’s School of Social Work and author of the recently published report On the Rise: Asian American Women Elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Dr. Nicole Filler, Program Coordinator and Research Associate for the Anti-Asian Racism Project at UMass Boston’s Institute for Asian American Studies.
