Jennifer Pae for Oakland City Council & Emerge California

Over a week ago, I had a chance to briefly meet Jennifer Pae, a candidate for Oakland City Council at the annual Emerge California fundraising event. If you haven’t heard of Emerge California, it’s “part of a national movement to address the under-representation of women in elected office at the local, state, and federal level.” Apparently, the US. ranks 84th (!) in the world in terms of women being represented in elected office, behind Mexico, China and Pakistan, a country who had a female Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto. Given the fact that women are the majority on college campuses, law school and medical school, they only make up 17% of the U.S. Congress.

Jennifer took Emerge California’s seven-month training program with classes that teaches skills like Public Speaking and Communication, Fundraising, Media and Messaging, and more. It’s exciting to see more and more Asian Americans, especially women like Jennifer and Jane Kim, running for public office! If you live in Oakland, please consider voting for Jennifer in November!