What Andrew Yang, his presidential run, and photographing him meant to me

Presidential candidate Andrew Yang suspended his campaign to be US president yesterday. I have mixed feelings about this.

It was a good run for Andrew Yang. He had some good ideas but also weaknesses, and caused disagreement among the Asian diaspora/Asian Americans, something I think is great to see because it shows we’re clearly not a monolith of opinions. Maybe a cabinet position somewhere is in his future.

I hope imagery of him running and being on the debate stage will inspire other people of color with better ideas to run, and that Yang will be open to listening to his critics, developing better ideas that factor some of that in, and pursuing another run.

I disagreed with some of his policies and his use of Asian jokes (see linked article for why), but I still supported his good ideas and still support the idea of POC running for political positions. A lot of his answers on race were disappointing to me, not necessarily more disappointing than the other candidates, but still disappointing. It was hard for me to see such a prominent Asian American get up on public stages and have some of the takes he had on race. From what I saw/heard, he never acknowledged a full…