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[Mayor Wu (Boston) studied with Elizabeth Warren at Harvard. Warren grooming of Chinese Americans to take over Boston and Cambridge leadership. Reminder: Mayor Wu threw a government Christmas Party that EXCLUDED ALL WHITE PEOPLE.]
Michelle Wu's path from immigrant daughter to the pinnacle of Boston politics
(excerpt)
Wu, 36, grew up in Chicago — the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants. She was often the unofficial interpreter for her Chinese-speaking parents. And she never imagined that she would enter politics, let alone run for mayor of Boston.
Growing up in a Chinese family, Wu said she was discouraged from talking about herself in public or being confrontational. And she didn't have the traits she normally associated with politicians.
"I was none of those things," Wu said. "Not tall, male, angry, loud.”
In 2003, Wu moved east to attend Harvard. And after she graduated, she began a journey that would eventually take her into politics.
Her mother suffered from late onset schizophrenia, which developed into a full blown mental health crisis. That compelled Wu to return to Chicago to help care for her ailing parent and her two younger sisters. She opened a small teahouse, but struggled to make it work. Then, she headed back to Massachusetts to attend Harvard Law School, this time with her family.
One of her sisters, for whom she was then serving as official guardian, attended the Eliot School, where Lydia Torres was the assistant principal. Torres recounted how Wu became actively involved in her sister’s education, even joining the city-wide parent council.
"I remember a lot of the parents would ask, 'When did she have this kid again?' " Torres recalled. "This was her sister and she became her guardian. She was very young and she knew how to be a parent at the young age."
While at Harvard, Wu studied contract law with Elizabeth Warren — who she said was "brilliant and terrifying."
Warren, who has endorsed Wu for mayor, recalled a bright student who sat in the front row, and who later worked on her first campaign for the Senate. Warren said back then, Wu was already focused on how to help working families.
“Michelle and I have talked for years now about the importance of investing in child care," Warren said. "So that moms can go to work, so that daddies can go to work, so that children have good early learning opportunities from the time they're really small.”
Wu says her own experience, including struggling with her mother's mental health crisis, her sisters' schools and her own effort to start a small business propelled her into politics.
She said those experiences "burst the bubble on trying to stay away from politics and government."
"It just mattered so much, and so many other people in similar situations were struggling with that," Wu said.
After she graduated from law school in 2012, Wu married Conor Pewarski, who is now a Boston banker. She also made the leap into politics.
https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/10/18/michelle-wu-boston-city-councilor-mayor-election-chicago