Michelle Wu was born to immigrants who came to the United States from Taiwan. Her grandparents fled China after the Chinese Civil War. Growing up, she was expected to get a stable, well-paying job. Instead, the now-leading Boston mayoral candidate found her calling to be politics.
Since high school, Wu has been a natural-born leader. She was the president of many of her high school clubs and was finished valedictorian of her graduating class. After high school, she studied at Harvard University where she studied biology with an intention to become a doctor, before switching to economics shortly after. But after her mom started suffering from severe mental health problems, she moved to Chicago to take care of her mom and younger siblings. In Chicago, she tried to open a cafe, which exposed her to the many problems faced by small businesses.
Frustrated, she decided to apply to Harvard Law School, where she was admitted. This time her family moved with her to Boston. During her time in law school, she was taught by Elizabeth Warren, and Wu later became the constituency director for Warren’s 2012 Senate campaign.
Now, Wu is a leading candidate for Boston\’s Mayoral elections, occurring in November 2021. She has become the frontrunner in the preliminary mayoral election that occurred on September 14, 2021, winning 33% of all votes. If elected, Boston would get its first Asian American mayor in its history.
Wu has taken a bold approach to her campaign. She has proposed a city-level “Green New Deal” and pledges to carbon neutrality by 2040. She also wants to make public transportation cost-free in Boston. She also wants to enact rent control to help families.
“I move with urgency — what some might call impatience — because I know how wide the gaps are for families, and I know what it means when our government doesn’t work,” she said to The Boston Globe.
This is not the first time Wu has broken barriers, taken positions never assumed before by Asian American women. She is the first AAPI woman to serve on the Boston City Council and the first woman of color to become the President of the council.
Her experiences as an Asian American woman, daughter of immigrants, and as a mom of two kids shapes her policies. She is an advocate for having more parents in politics. “We need more working parents in leadership roles. It makes a difference when moms are in charge, and for me, being a mom and raising two boys at this moment in our city and in our country’s history gives me an urgency to make sure that we’re getting things done,” Wu said to NBC News.
Michelle Wu’s mayoral campaign is historic for the Asian community, and in less than a month’s time we will find out if she will be the next mayor of Boston.