Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
: 葉亞威; ''Yè Yàwēi'') is former city councilmember and mayor of
Palo Alto
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was estab ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
. He was elected to office in 2007 and was elected to mayor by the city council of Palo Alto on January 3, 2012. Yeh is the second youngest mayor in Palo Alto history and the first Taiwanese American to hold the office. He was born in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, and attended
JLS Middle School
The Palo Alto Unified School District is a public school district located near Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. It consists of twelve primary schools, three middle schools, two high schools, and an adult school.
History
The distric ...
and
Gunn High School
Henry M. Gunn Senior High School is one of two public high schools in Palo Alto, California, the other being Palo Alto High School.
Established in , Gunn High School was named after Henry Martin Gunn, who served as the Palo Alto superintendent fr ...
in Palo Alto.
Yeh received his undergraduate degree in Political Science from the
American University School of Public Affairs
The American University School of Public Affairs (SPA) is an institution of higher education and research located in Washington, D.C. that grants academic degrees in political science, public administration, public policy, and justice, law and ...
and his graduate degree in Master of Public Policy from
Harvard Kennedy School of Government
The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the public policy school, school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in p ...
.
Yeh volunteered for the
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John F. ...
in
Burkino Faso
Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the ...
developing local
NGO
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...
's.
Before being elected Yeh was working for the City of Oakland as an auditor.
Yiaway Yeh moved to
Nashville
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...
,
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
following his wife joining the faculty of the Department of Political Science at
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...
.
Yiaway Yeh was appointed by Mayor
Karl Dean
Karl Foster Dean (born September 20, 1955) is an American politician who served as the 6th Mayor of Nashville, Tennessee from 2007 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as Nashville's Director of Law under Mayor Bill Pu ...
of
Nashville
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...
to head up the new Mayor's Office of Innovation announced on April 26, 2013. He later took a job with Google and returned to the San Francisco Bay area.
Yeh's parents are both first generation immigrants from
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
that came to the U.S. for graduate school.
Of
Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
descent, Yeh's grandfather was born in
Mei County, Guangdong
Meixian (, Hakka: Moiyen), formerly Meihsien, is a district (China), district of Meizhou, Meizhou City, in northeastern Guangdong, Guangdong Province, China. The county is an important Hakka settlement and is the ancestral home of many Hakka de ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
in 1909 and moved to
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...