Jean Quan (CA)
Mayor (Oakland, CA)
2009: Leadership Academy for Elected Officials
Biography
Jean Quan is the first woman and the first Asian American to be elected Mayor of Oakland. A woman of many firsts, she was the first Asian American woman elected to the Oakland School Board and to the Oakland City Council. She is the first Asian American woman mayor of a major US City.
And always first for Jean are the people she serves. A 32-year Oakland resident, she has dedicated her life to making government work for people.
Jean's family roots in Oakland date back to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, when her great-grandfather, grandfather and his two brothers took the ferry across the Bay and became part of a new Oakland Chinatown.
Jean’s father died when she was five, and she was raised by a non-English-speaking mother. She received a scholarship to attend the University of California, Berkeley, where she helped found Asian American Studies and worked to recruit poor and minority students.
Jean has been married to Dr. Floyd Huen for more than 40 years. They have a son and a daughter who attended Oakland public schools and went on to graduate from Princeton and Columbia University.
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