What do Boston, Seattle and Cincinnati have in common? Their new mayors signal change
Early in Aftab Pureval's political career, a peer gave him a word of warning.
“‘Brown guy named Aftab, that’s gonna be tough,’” recalled Pureval, now the mayor-elect of Cincinnati.
In the Midwest, Asian faces are scarcer than on the coasts, and South Asian mayors are almost unheard of. But Pureval, who is of Indian and Tibetan descent, doesn’t take issue with what he was told — in fact, he recognized the truth in it.
“The conventional wisdom was that you had to have an Irish name or a well-known name to run,” he told NBC Asian America.
Cincinnati was one of three cities that elected their first mayors of Asian descent on Tuesday: Boston elected Michelle Wu, and Seattle chose Bruce Harrell. Experts say the wave reflects the emergence of a generation of Asian Americans, who are largely children of immigrants, better poised than their predecessors to become agents in the political process, as well as proof that the stereotype of Asian Americans as lacking the necessary leadership qualities has begun to dissolve.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/asian-american-were-elected-lead-223433743.html
Bruce Harrell is like Kamala Harris. Both have a black father and an Asian mother. In Harrell's case his mother is of Japanese descent.