Thursday, June 28, 2018

Chinese American hopes to make history in Wyoming politics

Mike Yin could make history in Wyoming.

DEMOCRAT MIKE YIN could become Wyoming’s first ever Chinese American lawmaker if he is elected as the state representative for Wyoming House District 16 in Teton County, reports the The Casper Star Tribune,

Yin’s campaign website states that he is a software engineer. He is the son of two immigrants and is originally from Atlanta. He says he moved to Wyoming for “the natural beauty.”


Yin told the Tribune that if he is elected he could help represent racial minorities and “say that there are other people besides Caucasian Americans in Wyoming.” However, that is not the central focus of his campaign. Instead, Yin wants to focus on making sure Wyoming continues to be a good place to raise a family. 

According to his campaign website, he wants to achieve this goal by “building a stable economy” that will move away from a “boom and bust” economy.

The article in The Casper Star-Tribune stated that there are no records that can officially confirm that Yin would be the first ever Chinese American lawmaker in Wyoming.

“I could not find any historical records that track the ethnicity of Cowboy State lawmakers and the issue is complicated by the fact that racial identity is often arbitrary and deeply personal,” the author of the article, Arno Rosenfield, wrote in a parenthetical statement. 

“That said, the only past legislator I could find who identified as Asian American was the India-born Nimi McConigley, a Casper Republican who served in the House for a single term during the mid-1990s.”

As it stands, if Yin were to be elected, he would likely be Wyoming’s first Chinese American lawmaker. Yin is running against Republican former county commissioner Barbara Allen. Primary elections will take place on August 21, and general elections will take place on November 6.

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