This year Wichita will have its first ever Asian mayor.

“It’s the life experiences that brought me here today and I really believe it’s my Wichita story that has led me here and I’m just really grateful to serve our community and although it might be some historic at first, I hope it’s not the last for our community,” Mayor Lily Wu said.

Wu is also only the second woman to serve as mayor of Wichita.

“I believe that you can see it with this council. In particular we have diversity of age, diversity of experiences, and I really believe that we need to lean in into that diversity that makes this difference. But at the same time, we also know that we have one commonality and we’re all Wichitans,” Wu said.

Students we talk to seem more inclined to pay attention as they feel more represented in city government.

“When they are represented, they feel like they have more of a voice or that their voice will be listened to or understood, because someone from a background similar to mine, they’ll understand the culture and how certain things should be,” student government member Han Le (12) said.

“It definitely made me more inclined to what was going on in city hall, and it feels nice to have someone who. Even though I don’t support all of her ideals, it feels nice to have someone who looks like me on City Hall,” STUGO member Thien-Y Do (11) said.

Wu is hoping to reach her goals by making our community more involved.

“I definitely think that we have room to grow in terms of being more diverse in seeking the voices of our community,” Wu said. “One of the things that I will be working on is better at communicating and engaging our community. You will see this council and myself out in the community, engaging work voices from a diverse group of people because we need more people to tell us how they think. and we need to listen to understand and then have solutions moving forward that help the common good.”