Anna Laveria May

Anna Laveria May was born to a United States Air Force veteran and Chinese mother at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Taipei, Taiwan. She grew up in Hayward, California, a suburb of San Francisco. At 15, she started modeling after a photographer friend submitted her photos to a model agent in Asia. Her first international photo shoot was a 2-day assignment on the beach for a swimsuit catalog. She continued modeling in Taipei, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore where mixed-race models were in demand. She appeared in ads for such brands as Pierre Cardin, Max Factor, Anne Klein, Tiger Beer and Pond's. She finished high school early and at 19, she became engaged to a man twenty years her senior, marrying him several months later. Together, they owned and operated a small chain of restaurants in northern California (Rickshaw Express). They remained good friends after a peaceful divorce. In 2008, she won a Hayward City Council election by a landslide, not seeking re-election due to finding the experience incredibly boring. In subsequent years, she married twice more, owned a real estate brokerage, started the SantaCon Hayward pub crawl to raise funds for the animal shelter, rescued several big dogs, created a high school alumni association, started performing stand-up comedy, and donates all her stand-up comedy earnings to charity.