Jean Quan elected Oakland's next mayor

On November 8, 1911, two Oakland Chinese American women, Clara Lee and Emma Tom Leung, made American political history. They were the first two women of their race to register to vote in the United States. They did that in Oakland, where almost a century later, Jean Quan will become the first Chinese American/Asian American woman mayor.

Jean Quan was among the next wave of Oakland Chinese American political barrier-breakers. She and Wilma Chan won seats on the Oakland school board in 1990, the first Chinese American women to do so. Oakland Chinatown and Chinese American/Asian American activists worked successfully to get new boundaries drawn for District 2 to include three neighborhoods with sizable Chinese American/Asian American populations. Before that, the three neighborhoods were in three different political districts. (Approximately one in five Oaklanders is of Asian descent.)

Henry Chang and Danny Wan won Oakland City Council seats in the 1990s, and Quan, after serving 12 years on the Oakland school board, won a council seat herself in 2002.

Quan's 20 years of public service in Oakland indicates a broad-based liberal agenda that crosses gender and racial lines with an emphasis on education, environment, and social justice issues. (Source: William Wong, San Francisco Chronicle, Nov 11, 2010).