“I am proud of Keat Hwa today, one day Keat Hwa will be proud of me”.
Nine years ago, SMJK Keat Hwa student Jocelyn Yow penned this in her school magazine on her graduation.
She has now been appointed the mayor of Eastvale, a city near Los Angeles in California.
Twenty-five-year-old Yow of Alor Star in Kedah, who was born to a Malaysian father and a Vietnamese refugee mother, has made history by becoming the youngest woman of colour to serve as a mayor of a Californian city.
Her appointment, which made headlines in the Chinese press yesterday, has indeed made the Kedah school proud.
According to the reports, Yow’s family emigrated to the United States after she completed her secondary education in 2011 and settled down in Eastvale, a young city with a population of about 73,000.
This is not the first time the Kedahan created history in the United States.
In 2018 at age 23, she became Eastvale’s first woman councillor of Chinese descent and counted among the youngest Asian councillors in Southern California.
On her appointment, Yow, who became a mother six months ago, said she was one of the very few young mothers to serve as a mayor in California.
“I am hopeful that more young women and mothers will follow suit.”
Prior to her appointment, Yow had served as an aide to Nancy Polesi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives.
