PRD VIP is a monthly snippet where we introduce a person of Guangdong heritage who has made an impact on the world stage.
When Barack Obama announced in 2011 that Gary Locke would be the next US Ambassador to China, Locke lost no time referencing his Chinese roots: “It was a little over a century ago that my grandfather first came to America to work as a houseboy for a family in the state of Washington in exchange for English lessons… My father was also born in China and came over as a teenager.”
Locke’s grandfather hailed from Taishan, a small city on the west side of the PRD which was a center for the Guangdong Chinese diaspora. His father enlisted in the US Army during World War II before raising a family and starting a mom-and-pop grocery store in Seattle, where Locke was born and raised.
Locke served two terms as the governor of Washington and was Secretary of Commerce for a little over two years – both also firsts for a Chinese American – before becoming Obama’s advocate in Beijing from 2011 to 2014. Locke, who speaks “terrible Mandarin” and “mama huhu Cantonese,” was often under the Chinese media spotlight due to his heritage. Despite once being called a “rotten banana” by a local, government-run news service, he is seen as an inspirational figure to many Chinese Americans aspiring to a career in politics.
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