Come November, Boston will be electing its first female mayor of color in the city’s nearly 200-year history. Who that mayor will be, however, remains to be determined by residents of the city in the upcoming election that features two women of color going head to head against each other for the role.
Steve LeBlanc of the Associated Press has reported that “City Councilors Michelle Wu and Annissa Essaibi George topped the five-person race in Tuesday’s preliminary runoff. They bested acting-Mayor Kim Janey, City Councilor Andrea Campbell and John Barros, the city’s former economic development chief. All five were candidates of color — a major shift away from two centuries of Boston politics dominated by white men.”
While the two candidates are both Democrats, they’re very different culturally; Wu’s family immigrated from Taiwan, while Essaibi George is a self-described first-generation Arab-Polish American. Whichever candidate wins in the Nov. 2 mayoral race will make history, becoming either the city’s first elected female mayor — and in Wu’s case, first Asian American mayor.
