Cindy Ryu made national history this year when she took her seat as mayor of Shoreline, Wash., becoming the first Korean American female mayor in the United States.

In January, the 50-year-old was sworn in after her fellow council members voted her in for the part-time position to lead the city of 53,000, which has a council-manager form of government. To her knowledge, Ryu, who up until recently ran an Allstate insurance agency with her husband, Cody, is also the first Asian American female mayor in Washington state and the first person of color to be mayor of Shoreline.

With her parents and brothers, Ryu moved from Korea to the Philippines before immigrating to the U.S. in 1969. She came from tropical weather in the Pacific islands to a cold rural city where the sun goes down by 4:30 p.m. After her family settled in Gates, Wash., she became very aware of how different she was from her white peers and even wished she could change her nose to be more like theirs.

Decades later, she is breaking down barriers and leading one of America’s cities. A mother of three, Ryu calls her journey of transformation from the shy Korean girl into the dynamic political figure “God’s providence.”

 

How did you make the jump from being the shy girl from Seoul to mayor of a U.S. city?

I grew up (as a child) in a very conservative part of town in Washington. By the time I got to the University of Washington, it was much more liberal. I always believed in equal rights. That’s how my parents [taught] me, and I really appreciated it. And we landed in the states during the decade of the civil rights movement. So, even though I may not have been active politically, I think I was absorbing it because I read tremendously. … [But] I think my political side didn’t actually show up until I was 45 years old.

You ran for the Shoreline City Council twice before becoming mayor. In 2005 you were successful. But before that, you had no political involvement. What fired you up?

[An] issue came up when I was 45 — it was about road construction. And I think that’s the typical way [it happens with] most people, unless they come from a political family. Most people find one issue that they were really excited about or concerned about and then they get engaged and end up becoming politicians. … Citizens were being shut out of the process by a select few in the City Council.

When you lost the City Council seat the first time, what made you go back and try again?

I could have been discouraged and I could have went away sad, but I didn’t. In 2004 I got involved with the local Democrats and I organized a district campaign. Two thousand four was a huge year because of the presidential race. So, by the time I ran in 2005, I had already run two campaigns. I had mostly small donors, including a woman who sent me a check for $5 every month. My husband told me, and I believed it as well, “You must win even by one vote. If you lose, Cindy, you are done.” It was the last shot.