On November 6, fresh from the turmoil of Election Day, I was devastated. Glued to my bed and endlessly scrolling on social media, I thought the fight was over. However, given more time to heal and reflect, I learned that victory is gained long before election night. Victory is not about being able to successfully step into office but about the sacrifice and the dedication shown along the campaign trail.
Women of color across the country won their races by showing undying courage and passion, uplifting their communities. Their involvement and representation in politics is invaluable.
Being a woman of color in politics often means accepting that we are not always a welcome addition to the table. It means walking into the room with unshakeable confidence and carving our own rightful seat at the table for all the others who can’t.
However, this is a hard lesson that I’ve learned over time.
As a young, scrappy, and hungry high school freshman, I began my journey in politics by canvassing for my local city councilmember in my California hometown. Battling the scorching heat of a busy July, I powered through door after door with one sweaty hand gripping my clipboard and the other holding a water bottle that was just barely half full.
Venturing into diverse neighborhoods on my own, I faced many microaggressions, mispronunciations of my name, and misguided attacks. Now, as a college sophomore, I am proud to say that things are beginning to change.
Through my internship at Blue Wave Political Partners, a leading political consulting firm in Seattle, I have met many amazing female politicians of color. Learning from notable candidates in the 2024 race such as Maria Beltran, Representative Julia Reed, and Councilmember Tanya Woo, I have seen that being a female of color in politics comes with its own advantages and disadvantages during campaign season. Their victory is in their character and their perseverance.
I am perpetually in awe of and indebted to these women. They have shown me what true victory means.
*** Maria Beltran ***
Our first story begins in Yakima, Washington, where Latino voters have been fighting for representation for decades. I had the privilege of sitting down with Maria Beltran, Latina community leader, to talk more about this fight.
While she lost her state senate race to 17-year incumbent Curtis King, the pro-life, NRA-backed Republican, by an approximate 4 percentage point margin, her race was strongly fought and one of the most historic in the state of Washington.
Every day she tirelessly spent on the campaign trail was a win for the Latino community. For Beltran, the campaign was not just about securing that seat and then calling it a day — it was about advocating for underrepresented voices in the Yakima Valley, especially as a Latina and a member of the LGBTQ+ community.
Yakima’s leadership has historically not reflected its Latino majority. In November 2021, the Washington State Redistricting Commission drew its adopted state legislative district plan in a way that dispersed Latino voters across several legislative districts with white majorities, a practice known as “cracking.”
“If you look at the level of representation and who is in power, it has not been reflective of this community,” said Beltran. In August 2023, a federal judge blocked these discriminatory maps to make sure that Latino voters in Yakima Valley had an equal voice. Now, the Yakima Valley has the only Latino-majority district in the state, with voting power that truly reflects the community.
Maria Beltran, the proud daughter of Mexican farmworkers, was just 19 when she started as a community organizer. Frustrated with the immigration system, she saw how members of her community, especially farmers, worked so hard for so little. After witnessing the injustices that her family and friends faced in Yakima, she felt a sense of duty to help others. “[My career has] always been about helping others and trying to move the needle to the best of my ability” she said.
Since age 19, Beltran’s community has asked her to run for office. At the time, she was not ready to take this on. However, with the redistricting win 11 years later, she figured it was an historical opportunity to grab the reins. When I sat down to speak with her, we were about a month out from Election Day, and I asked how she felt about her decision to run: “We have 4 weeks… I don’t regret doing it now.”
While her resolve was strong to bring solutions to her community and represent the voices that have gone unheard for so long, the campaign trail was far from easy. Many of us voters do not understand how much candidates sacrifice when running for office.
Beltran shared how she had to budget all her other responsibilities and really make room in her life to run. She left her job, lived off her savings, and did the campaign full time. “It was a sacrifice I was willing to make for the community,” said Beltran.
One of the most important parts of a campaign is the fundraising. At Blue Wave Political Partners, we support candidates in that aspect of their campaign in many ways, notably through call time where candidates call voters to ask for donations. I asked Beltran how she felt about having to switch her way of speaking — also known as code switching — based on the background of the person she was calling, she said, “I’ve done it all my life.” She would sometimes change the pronunciation of her last name so that non-Latino people would be able to understand her.
Sometimes one’s allegiance to their identity can come into conflict with the campaign. When Beltran released her English television ad, where she pronounced her name in English, she got an email from a Latina voter who thought it was disrespectful that Beltran did not say the proper Mexican pronunciation.
As someone from the poorest region of Yakima with a mother who does not read in either language, Beltran found herself often stuck in the space between conforming to white American societal standards or staying true to her ethnic background and traditions.
Even through the struggle, there are small victories during the campaign trial that make the sacrifice worth it. Beltran’s face lit up as she recounted an interaction she experienced while door knocking.
She approached a house where a grandmother, who only spoke Spanish, greeted her. Soon, three young grandchildren joined them at the door. One of the children, a little girl overflowing with excitement, wouldn’t let Beltran leave, even bringing out her toy microphone to proudly sing:, “Vote for Maria!”
Moments like these, Beltran explained, make all the hardships worth it. Engaging with young kids is one of the most rewarding parts of her journey. “I see little girls look at me, and you can just tell they’re thinking big,” she said. “I hope my sister sees herself in an important role one day, too.”
Earlier this year, Mexico elected its first female president, which filled Beltran with hope that her work was creating a similar path for future generations. “Once we open this door, it will be open for everyone,” she said, expressing her vision for a world where women of color lead proudly.
As a nod to her background and to increase the accessibility of civic participation for underrepresented voter groups, Beltran ran a fully bilingual campaign. For years after the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, voters in Washington had to take a literacy test to vote.
Bilingual voting materials weren’t available in Yakima until 2002. Residents report that voting information is still difficult to obtain, particularly in the rural Lower Yakima Valley. Beltran set forth to change that, mobilizing her team to canvass even the most rural parts of the district. Many in Beltran’s canvassing team are bilingual and believe strongly in the cause to bring leadership and representation to the Latino majority in Yakima.
Jasmin Nunez-Guzman, a political science student at the University of Washington, spent her summer knocking on doors for Beltran’s campaign in Yakima.
As the daughter of Mexican immigrants, Nunez-Guzman felt that “the opportunity was so perfectly aligned with [her] own values.” One of the issues that she said really brought her into politics was the pathway to citizenship, and she is passionate about improving lives and dismantling harmful systems that are put in place against immigrants of color.
She shared that Latinos in Yakima don’t vote because they “are already going unnoticed, so what’s the point in voting?”
I have worked with Maria Beltran throughout her 2024 campaign, and every moment with her has inspired me to be proud of my own background and represent my community back home. She is truly a force of nature and an incredible human being. Beltran continues to be a community leader in the Yakima Valley, and therein lies her victory.
*** Representative Julia Reed ***
Our next story features Representative Julia Reed, the first person of color to ever represent Washington’s 36th Legislative District. She won her election in 2022 and has secured another two years running unopposed this year. Rep. Reed is a proud Black and bi-racial daughter of two public school educators from Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood. Her journey as a pioneer has been defined not only by legislative achievements but also by battles against racial stereotyping, internal political conflicts, and personal sacrifices.
When she first assumed office, it was the first year after a lot of policy changes in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. People were claiming that the “Defund the police” movement went too far. “There was a lot of frustration with the City Council and local government,” remembered Reed, with many claiming that the council cared too much about equity and inclusion and not enough about the safety of citizens. Inevitably, race became a topic of contention as the issue of police enforcement became further polarized along party lines.
At a 36th Legislative District Virtual Town Hall in May 2023, Rep. Reed said: “I feel like a lot of the conversation around police pursuits has gotten wrapped up in this massive misinformation campaign, and not only is continuing that campaign a top priority for Republicans, but I see so many of my Democratic colleagues buying into it, and that’s been really quite personally painful for me.”
When issues such as police brutality and unchecked pursuits come up in legislative discussions, she feels a personal connection to the communities heavily impacted by law enforcement. Growing up as a biracial woman in a mostly white neighborhood, Reed is very proud to be Black but also knows the importance of acknowledging her proximity to whiteness.
People on the campaign trail would confide in her for questionable reasons, saying things like, “You’re Black but you’re not like those other Black people” or categorizing her as a “safe Black person.”
While she was frustrated with the Republican agenda and the rhetoric around her racial identity, she shared that that kind of dissonance is just something you have to learn how to handle as a person of color.
One of the catalysts for Rep. Reed’s passion toward regulating police high-speed pursuit laws was the death of Jaahnavi Kandula.
On Jan. 23, 2023, Kandula was killed during a high-speed police chase when she was simply just crossing the street. She was a graduate student from India at Northeastern University’s Seattle campus set to graduate with a master’s degree in information systems later that year. While her death was an accident, police officer body camera footage quickly went viral, revealing how law enforcement at the scene had made insensitive jokes about her death.
Rep. Reed told me about how much this incident affected her and gave her a sense of responsibility to advocate against Senate Bill 5352, which allows the police to do high-speed pursuits with only a reasonable suspicion and takes away other conditions regarding probable cause. The police should not have been driving so fast when they killed Kandula, and Rep. Reed was passionate about blocking the bill.
However, the legislative process is often too fast, and many issues are quickly swept along in the rush. “One day you’re voting to roll back police pursuits legislation and the next day you have to come back and play happy family and vote on some other bill,” she said. That professionalism and maturity to continue showing up for your community is something Reed has in spades, and therein lies her victory. Though the bill has since been passed and signed by the governor, the fight to represent our communities of color is not over.
But of course, it takes a village. Rep. Reed spoke highly of the cohort she got elected with, saying that they were close to her in age and really became a source of support throughout her time in the legislature. Having that community and uplifting each other is how we as women of color find our victory amid tough times.
Running for office requires an immense amount of personal sacrifice, said Rep. Reed. “Every second counts,” she shared, explaining how each moment could be spent either working on the campaign or doing something personal, like watching TV — but choosing the latter often leads to guilt. Establishing boundaries was especially challenging in a first campaign, and the weight of constant campaigning is all-consuming.
“If one of my friends wants to see me, they have to come to my fundraiser,” she joked.
Ultimately, running a campaign is exhausting, it impacts loved ones, and, for many women, it can be a reason not to pursue politics. “The most important thing is to focus on staying grounded and true to your own values through the daily ups and downs,” said Rep. Reed. “At the end of the day, it’s your campaign, your name out there, and you have to live with your choices.”
Since winning the seat in the 36th, Reed has accomplished so much for her community. I asked her what one of her proudest achievements was, and she recalled the legislation she passed for crane safety.
In 2019, Sarah Pantip Wong, a 19-year-old freshman at Seattle Pacific University died when a crane fell and crushed the car she was in. A 71-year-old pedestrian and two ironworkers were also killed. Wong’s parents sued the crane company for gross negligence, and it was soon revealed that the company did, in fact, dismantle the crane incorrectly. Due to the high winds that day, the loose pins fell out and the crane collapsed.
Reed sponsored House Bill 2022 calling for new standards for construction crane safety. When the governor signed the bill, Reed was present alongside Wong’s family.
“To be able to carry [Sarah Wong’s] memory on and honor her work was meaningful,” Reed said. “It’s not about changing the world, it’s about changing one person’s world.” HB 2022 will go into effect in January 2025, a victory not just for Reed but for Wong’s family and others affected by construction company negligence.
Representative Julia Reed has been a tireless advocate for the people of Washington’s 36th Legislative District. Our conversation left me feeling inspired, hopeful, and ready to make an impact. She won her re-election campaign in November this year, but she has always been a winner for her community.
*** Councilmember Tanya Woo ***
This next story is about former Councilmember Tanya Woo, a fifth generation Seattleite with a vision for the future of the Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander American (AANHPI) community. In January 2024, the Seattle City Council voted for Tanya Woo to fill the vacant position on the council.
Woo chaired the Sustainability, City Light, Arts, and Culture committee. She also served as the Vice Chair of the Libraries, Education, and Neighborhoods Committee. Why did the council appoint her? Her history of community activism and social justice advocacy speak for itself.
Woo’s family immigrated to Seattle in 1887. Using earnings from her grandfather’s family restaurant, her father Paul Woo acquired ownership of Louisa Hotel in 1963. Due to a string of fires, he was only able to operate business from the first floor, where he began Mon Hei Bakery, Seattle’s first-ever Chinese bakery, now closed. Even though the property was devastated by another fire, Woo persisted, and now the former hotel serves as affordable housing and office space for small businesses.
Woo continues her father’s legacy after his death and represents the hardworking Chinese community in the Chinatown International District (CID). She adds that she has always been committed to public service and looked up to role models such as Ruby Chow, the first ever Asian American King County Councilmember.
Ruby Chow’s daughter Cheryl Chow — or as Woo calls her, Auntie Cheryl — followed her mother’s footsteps and served on the Seattle City Council 1990-97. A smile grew across Woo’s face when she recounted special memories of her Auntie Cheryl, like when she would mentor Woo’s drill team in high school.
The former council member told me how her aunt inspired her to work for the community. From a young age, she was deeply involved in local politics, and as a young teenager, she and her friends would help knock doors for her aunt’s mayoral campaign.
Woo’s community activism ramped up in 2020, specifically during the rise of anti-Asian hate amid the pandemic. At this time, there were around 2,000 seniors living in the CID and with the viral videos of violent hate crimes against seniors, fear was at an all time high in the community. Seniors would stop coming outside after 4 p.m, she reported. They would come down together in groups, escorted by Woo or others on the CID Community Watch.
Some saw Woo and her team dressed in bright green vests surrounded by seniors and assumed they were lost tourists. Woo recalled the sheer ignorance and lack of education that further exacerbated the anti-Asian hate movement at the time.
“Part of it is that people see us as the perpetual foreigner,” said Woo. “It’s the subtle things that build up over time that we experience on a daily basis.” Especially due to the model minority myth, the struggles of the AANHPI community are often overlooked, but Woo claimed that this myth is not true.
Now three years later, the issue persists. The Asian American Foundation performed a study of public opinion in 2024, reporting that Asian Americans continue to experience hate and expect to experience discrimination. Nearly 3 in 10 Asian Americans were verbally harassed or abused in the last 12 months because of their race, ethnicity, or religion.
Determined to be a voice for the marginalized, Woo made sure to represent her community, specifically in the CID, throughout her campaign for re-election. While she did not win the 2024 election, every time she stood strong in the face of ignorance and hate, she claimed her victory.
Woo recalled some of her door-knocking experiences, where before even letting her get a word out when they opened the door, they would look at Woo and say “Don’t be shy!” as if they sensed some sort of timid energy from her. Woo told me that she felt some saw her as a “meek Asian person,” which anyone who knows her would refute. Woo says that resilience can only go so far. With the AANHPI community being the fastest growing demographic in Seattle, they are in “dire need of representation”, Woo said.
The struggles of the local AANHPI community in Seattle have been muffled with all the noise coming from mainstream media, and many fail to see the issues that people of color face daily in underfunded neighborhoods. Woo highlights how the CID and Beacon Hill have been forgotten.
Seattle police reported in August this year that there have been 14 violent robberies in South Seattle since June and that 13 of the robberies had victims who were elderly Asian residents. CM Woo adds that in the past, the city has not allocated enough resources for downtown activation in the CID, and overall, the attention given to that neighborhood is frustratedly disproportionate to how many people are silently struggling there.
Woo’s campaign has been instrumental in bringing more awareness to the CID. She has led several volunteer programs centered around neighborhood patrolling, mutual aid efforts, conflict de-escalation, and connecting individuals with vital resources. Her dedication and acute insight of the struggles of the Chinese community in the CID put her in a unique position to provide common sense solutions.
The issue is the lack of accessibility and trust. Woo mentions that many Asian immigrants “come to this country not trusting the government,” and that presents the question of how do we build that trust? The issue, she explained, is that many Asian people who immigrated here came from countries where they faced government prosecution.
Woo’s own mother immigrated in her 20s, escaping a communist regime in China and a dangerous situation in Indonesia where they tried to kill her family. That’s why she has been committed to reaching voters directly on the ground and talking to them to reinforce that trust in law enforcement and local government.
Additionally, Woo hopes to pool more resources toward translation services for the CID, so that city programming is more accessible to non-English speaking residents. Throughout her career, Woo has put her feet to the ground, talking directly to the constituents. That’s the kind of work it takes to revitalize struggling communities. Every day she brings power to the voiceless, she is winning.
“You just have to be a warrior,” said Woo on what advice she had for young girls hoping to make a difference in their world.“What holds a lot of us back is self-doubt, and pushing through it, even in the face of adversity, is what builds character.”
It has truly been a privilege to see former Councilmember Woo in action and to learn about her story. Sometimes you just need that one person to show you that your dreams are possible. As Woo thanks her Auntie Cheryl, someday a young Chinese American woman will thank their Auntie Tanya for being the winner that she always has been.
***
Despite showing up every day and making strides for their community, hardworking women of color rarely get the recognition they deserve on the political stage. As a 19-year-old South Asian American woman, I am proud to present the stories of female trailblazers that have inspired me to pursue a career in politics. They say never meet your heroes, but I am forever grateful that I met mine.
To the women that don’t hear it enough… thank you for opening doors and paving the way forward.
