Every woman has endless possibilities no matter what race, origin, or background!
Yesterday, Chinese women made history!
In the just-concluded Boston mayoral election, 36-year-old Chinese female congressman Wu Mi (Michelle Wu ) was elected, becoming the first female mayor, the first colored mayor, Asian mayor, and Chinese mayor! After winning the election, Wu Mi's joy was unspeakable and she dressed in red and delivered a victory speech to her supporters.
In her speech, she mentioned her child:
"One day my son asked me, can a boy be the mayor of Boston ?"
When it comes to family, Wu Mi smiled as gentle as all Chinese who value family, but her answer was full of sonorous and powerful things belonging to women:
"They used to be, and they will, in the future, but not tonight. Because today, Boston chose your mother."
01
Wu Mi: Suffering makes life
In 1983, Wu Mi's parents immigrated from Taiwan, China to Chicago, USA.
However, parents who successfully immigrated as engineers are not very good at English, so Wu Mi, born in the United States, has to speak English to her friends at school, and at the same time, she has to go home and speak Chinese to her parents.
When we arrived in public, Wu Mi became his parents' "temporary translator" to help them interpret and translate.
And her parents' expectations for her are almost the same as all Chinese families: study hard, find a good job, and earn money to support her family.
Under such strict "Chinese family education", Wu Mi has been "other people's children" since childhood.
In 2003, Wu Mi, who was in the twelfth grade, won the "U.S. President's Scholarship" with his outstanding results. Because of his outstanding leadership, he was elected as the chairman of the "American High School Students Alliance". After
, she received an offer from the world's top institution - Harvard University economics major. At the high school graduation ceremony, Wu Mi, "Quick Harvard Freshman" gave a graduation speech as an outstanding student representative.
At that time, Wu Mi may not have expected that the podium that belonged to her could be paved from the high school auditorium to Boston City Hall. After graduating from
, she came to Boston from Chicago and started her college career with anticipation.
However, during college, fate played a huge joke with her.
Her parents divorced, and her father and her adult younger brother left them, leaving only her, her mother, and two unemployed sisters to depend on each other.
At first, her mother was able to take care of her two sisters, but as time went by, Wu Mi was told by her sisters that her mother's mental state was becoming more and more unstable.
Once, she even ran away from home on a rainy night. Wu Mi, who was at home, chased her out and saw her mother standing by the roadside with an umbrella in one hand and a suitcase in the other, insisting that a driver would come to pick her up at a secret meeting.
Seeing Wu Mi coming in a hurry, she spoke coldly: "You are no longer my daughter, and I am not your mother."
After diagnosis, My mother Wu suffered from delayed schizophrenia.
During that time, Wu's mother was in the hallucination of being monitored for a long time. She dared not go out, eat and sleep. She even called 911 in the middle of the night and called the police and said that she heard someone calling for help...
In order to support the entire family, 23-year-old Wu Mi had to give up working in a wealthy consulting company in Boston and return to Chicago to start from scratch.
In order to make your family live a better life, Wu Mi almost tried his best. She ran around the Taxation and Food and Health Bureau and tried to run a tea restaurant alone. She walked over an hour a week to Barnes and Noble to tutor students so she could earn some pocket money.
At the same time, she also had to assume the custody of her two sisters, participated in the city-wide parent committee, and participated in the sister's parent meeting with various weird eyes, patiently explained to the school that she was just an older sister, not a mother.
Until 2009, her mother's illness gradually stabilized, and Wu Mi no longer needed to take care of her family wholeheartedly. She finally had the opportunity to think of her studies - she returned to Harvard campus again.
Because while taking care of her family, she was rushing around her family, hospitals and government departments, she felt that there were too many shortcomings in public services, so this time, she chose to pursue a doctorate in law in Harvard.
02
200, Boston's first Chinese woman!
In 2012, Wu Mi, who graduated from Harvard University, chose the most difficult path - to enter politics.
She first went to the Boston City Council for an internship, and then in 2013, when she was only 28 years old, she began to try to run for Boston City Council.
For this decision, almost everyone told her: You can't.
Because she is a person of color, Chinese, female, and is too young, and is not a native Bostonian, and is obviously incompatible with the political world dominated by white men.
But this did not scare Wu Mi.
In order to promote her campaign philosophy, she went door to door to voters' houses and knocked on the door, explaining her political promises over and over again: she will promote food truck in Boston, allow customers to bring their own drinks at small restaurants...Everything starts from the perspective of working class, helping the city of Boston become the home of every citizen.
There will always be rewards when paying.
In 2013, Wu Mi was elected with the second highest vote among the eight candidates for non-district city council members, and was successfully re-elected three times in 2015, 2017 and 2019.
Until now, she has created enough history:
Boston's first Chinese female city councillor, the first woman of color to serve as speaker in the United States, and the third female speaker in the 106-year history of the city council.
In 2020, Wu Mi, who already had enough political experience, set a bigger challenge for her political path -
She decided to compete for the mayor of Boston.
You should know that in the past 199 years, all those who can sit in this position were white men.
Not to mention Chinese women, even white women have never served as mayor.
Wu Mi and his campaign team implemented a systematic and detailed political program, committed to building Boston, which was originally surrounded by universities, into a greener, livable, more comfortable, convenient and more inclusive city.
Historic Boston has established the first public school in the United States, the first park, and the first subway rail transit, but over time, the once advanced infrastructure has aging.
And she wants to rejuvenate this slightly old city:
Ensure that every child of the right age can get the corresponding education, strictly control rent increases, provide free public transportation, strengthen social assistance to the homeless, mentally ill, and drug addicted patients...
All this is difficult, but Wu Mi feels that this is not just her own political concept, but it should be from the whole of Boston, because she believes:
"In Boston, that anything is possible when we do it "
Perhaps, in the eyes of many people, the "American Dream" that once inspired countless people has slowly broken down, and Boston, which is full of tall buildings, is no longer glamorous, but Wu Mi feels that as a second-generation immigrant, everything he has done for the United States and for Boston is worth it.
After all, her father came to the United States for a better life and a better opportunity, so she should also work hard to correct the current shortcomings of the United States and let the United States keep its promise of the "American Dream".
On the evening of October 2, US time, the election results were announced:
Wu Mi defeated his competitor - Annissa George, who grew up in this city, became the first Chinese female mayor in Boston!
What is more worth mentioning is that she is only 36 years old this year.
Her victory was the victory of Chinese, and it also broke the barriers of women that had been lying across the United States for many years.
03
In Boston, the double victory of Chinese and women
We all know that people’s long-term views on Chinese women have been: quiet, obedient, and gentle.
In American politics, white men still control most of this voice. Even if women's voice is gradually increasing, there are still few Chinese women.
But this time, Boston made history.
As a city with more than 100 universities, perhaps every international student has a university located in Boston on the list of dream schools.
And Boston has always attracted people of all races, classes and genders with a unique academic and elite atmosphere.
complement each other, and the people who come to Boston have also made the city more inclusive and diverse.
As Wu Mi, a second-generation immigrant, said in his victory speech:
We are already to become a Boston for everyone.
We’re ready to welcome all who call our city home.
She was wearing a red lipstick and stood on the victory-election podium and laughed happily. severely shattered the American society's stereotype of Chinese and women :
China Americans are restrained, hardworking, and only good at studying; Chinese women should take care of their husbands and children at home. Even if they go out to work, they are only suitable for being clerks, secretaries, waiters, nurses, teachers...
On Wu Mi, it shines with more characteristics of Chinese and women:
optimistic, cheerful, dare to take responsibility, pay attention to career, have people's livelihood, love challenges, and never admit defeat!
Over the years, "female power" has frequently appeared in the public eye.
In China, we learned about the mother of ten thousand infants Lin Qiaozhi , saved millions of lives, Tu Youyou, Guo Jianmei, who sued women who were raped for free, and Zhang Guimei, who sent thousands of mountain village girls to college...
In foreign countries, the figures of Chinese women are also seen on the top stages in various fields.
In the historical community, there are Zhang Chunru who exposed the atrocities of the Japanese invasion of China; in the field of science and technology engineering and business circles, there are AMD who led AMD to turn the tables against the wind and create hundreds of millions of wealth; in the entertainment industry, there are Liu Yuling who conquered Hollywood ...
And today, in the Boston political circle, Wu Mi lets us see again that the characteristics of Chinese women are not only quiet, obedient, gentle, but also tenacity, ambition and sense of responsibility.
Everyone of them is telling us with actions-
Every woman, no matter what race, origin, and background, has endless possibilities!
Source | INSIGHT Horizon (weinsight), Shaoguan, Author | Manki
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