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Bee Nguyen

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Bee Nguyen
Member of the Georgia House of Representatives
from the 89th district
Incumbent
Assumed office
December 15, 2017
Preceded byStacey Abrams
Personal details
Born (1981-07-18) July 18, 1981 (age 43)
Ames, Iowa, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
ResidenceAtlanta, Georgia
Alma materGeorgia State University
Websitewww.beeforgeorgia.com

Bee Nguyen (born July 18, 1981) is an American non-profit executive and politician serving as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives from the 89th district. A member of the Democratic Party, she was elected during a special election in December 2017 to fill the seat vacated following Stacey Abrams' resignation in August 2017 to focus on her run for governor. Nguyen is the first Vietnamese-American elected to the Georgia House of Representatives.[1]

Early life and education

Born in Ames, Iowa, Nguyen grew up in Augusta, Georgia,[2] and attended Georgia State University.[3] She moved to Atlanta in 1999.[2]

Career

She was previously the executive director of a non-profit organization[4] she founded, Athena Warehouse, a program to educate and empower girls in under-resourced communities. She is currently National Policy Advisor for New American Leaders.[5] In November 2018, BizJournals included her on a list of 40 under 40s.[6] Nguyen described her charitable work as helping to "focus her desire to reduce economic disparity".[2]

Georgia Legislature

Following Abrams' resignation from the state legislature, four candidates announced efforts to succeed her, in what was described as possibly "the most racially diverse slate of legislative hopefuls in Georgia history", including "a white man, an African-American woman, an Indian-American man and a Vietnamese-American woman".[2] In addition to being the first Vietnamese-American to win election to the Georgia House,[1] Nguyen was the first Asian-American Democratic woman to hold a state office in Georgia.[2]

In 2018, when Amazon.com was vetting cities for its proposed Amazon HQ2, expected to generate 50,000 jobs in the host city, Nguyen opposed several anti-immigration-related bills which she asserted were discriminatory in nature and hampered Atlanta's chances of being selected based on Amazon's stated preference for building in a community with a diverse population [citation needed]. In June 2020, Nguyen was reported to have won the Democratic nomination for reelection to her seat by a wide margin.[7]

Following the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings, Nguyen said that violence against Asian Americans has increased in the last year and accused Donald Trump for using "China virus" to refer to COVID-19. She claimed the terminology was a causative factor.[8] She also recommended that the shootings be charged as a hate crime, and claimed that the shootings reminded her of the killing of Ahmaud Arbery.[9]

2022 Georgia Secretary of State election

Main article: 2022 Georgia Secretary of State election § Democratic primary

On May 4, 2021, Nguyen declared her candidacy for Georgia Secretary of State in the 2022 election.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b "Georgia House runoff won by Bee Nguyen over Sachin Varghese". ajc.com. Retrieved January 11, 2019.
  2. ^ a b c d e Maya T. Prabhu, "Diverse array of candidates seeks Abrams' old House seat", The Atlanta Constitution (October 16, 2017), p. B4.
  3. ^ "The Voter's Self Defense System - Vote Smart". Justfacts.votesmart.org. Retrieved March 20, 2021.
  4. ^ "Georgia General Assembly". www.legis.ga.gov.
  5. ^ "Atlanta Heydays profile: Meet Atlanta Bee Nguyen". Buckhead, GA Patch. January 6, 2013.
  6. ^ "40 Under Forty: Georgia House of Representatives' Bee Nguyen". www.bizjournals.com. November 9, 2018. Retrieved March 20, 2021.
  7. ^ "Georgia Statewide Results", The Atlanta Constitution (June 12, 2020), p. A8.
  8. ^ Jung, Christina (March 18, 2021). "Asian Americans fearful after Georgia massage parlour shootings". CBC News. Retrieved March 18, 2021.
  9. ^ "GA State Rep. Bee Nguyen: Last week's shootings in Georgia 'reminds me of what happened when Ahmaud Arbery was killed'". MSNBC. Retrieved March 23, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  10. ^ Fausset, Richard (May 4, 2021). "Bee Nguyen, Georgia Democrat, Enters Race for Secretary of State". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 4, 2021.
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