OAKLAND — As the city’s new mayor watched her 16-year-old son play a cello composition at her inauguration ceremony, she had to wipe away tears.

It was a raw emotional moment for Mayor Sheng Thao, whose swearing-in at the downtown Paramount Theatre followed a brutal election season that saw the 37-year-old council member eke out a victory in a crowded race.

Moments after California Attorney General Rob Bonta led her through taking the ceremonial oath of office, Thao reflected on what the moment meant to her.

The daughter of Hmong refugees who experienced homelessness in her late teens, escaped domestic violence in her early 20s and put herself through UC Berkeley as a single mother, tearfully thanked her family — including her mother, who she said was at home with a serious illness.

“The Hmong people have a deep commitment to creating vibrant, connected communities,” Thao said. “These are values I hold deep in my heart — values that drive my dedication to public service.”

Over a nearly 20-minute speech, Thao touched on the city’s “complicated” history, an apparent departure from the upbeat boosterism championed by her predecessor, Libby Schaaf, who attended Monday’s ceremony.

Early on, the new mayor noted Oakland’s history of racism, describing how members of the Ku Klux Klan “dominated” the jobs at City Hall a century ago, and how the construction of Interstate 880 decades later tore through diverse neighborhoods in East Oakland.

“We have to speak our truths in order to grow,” she said, adding that remembering the past was “not to make one group feel guilty … but to recognize what we have overcome together; to remember what is worth fighting for every single day we wake up and walk through those doors at City Hall.”

Winning the November election meant fending off former Councilmember Loren Taylor, who billed himself as a pragmatist with a strong business sense. Thao, a former aide to Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, won heavy support from labor unions and received support from many of the region’s progressive political groups.

Now in office, Thao will lead a city reeling from surges in violent crime during the pandemic, along with the imminent eviction of more than 200 residents at the Wood Street homeless encampment.

She laid out several goals, including one to build 30,000 new housing units over the next eight years — “yes, I said it, over eight years,” Thao told the crowd, hinting at self-confidence that she can think in terms of two terms, not one.

Thao also noted her ambitions to reverse the bad air quality in West Oakland, fighting what she described as decades of environmental racism in the community. And she said she will be “working closely with the A’s,” promising to secure a good deal while also safeguarding community benefits.

Newly elected city council members Janani Ramachandran and Kevin Jenkins also took office Monday, while re-elected Councilmember Nikki Fortunato Bas again was appointed to be the council’s president at a meeting earlier in the day.

The Oakland Unified school board saw fresh faces sworn in: Nick Resnick, Valarie Bachelor and Jennifer Brouhard. However, Resnick’s seat may ultimately belong to his opponent Mike Hutchinson after Alameda County officials recently determined they counted the results in that race incorrectly.

The mayor was joined on stage by Councilmember Bas. Together with Councilmember Carroll Fife — elected in 2020 — the women have come to represent a contemporary brand of left-leaning politics in Oakland.

“There is a powerful progressive majority that has stuck together and stood up for these values in the face of a narrow minority that sought to retain the status quo,” Bas said during her statements on stage.

Thao echoed that line of thinking in her own remarks, noting public safety alternatives and emphasizing the need for “diverse, homegrown” police officers rather than blanketly calling for a robust force.

Ramachandran, a first-time council member, was sworn into Thao’s seat in District 4, an area mostly north of I-580 that spans a diverse range of Oakland neighborhoods from Allendale in the east to Montclair in the north, and Glen Highlands, Dimond, Oakmore, Lincoln Highlands, Glenview and Laurel in between.

Ramachandran was also backed strongly by labor unions in her council race. Her previous election run against state Assemblymember Mia Bonta — as well as her similarly progressive political platform — has positioned her to hold an outsider’s voice at the council table.

“I was frustrated; I was hungry to change the status quo that wasn’t serving us,” Ramachandran said of the Assembly run during her statements on stage. She added later, “I happen to think our government would be in a better place if more nobodies ran for office.”

The other new addition to the council is Kevin Jenkins, who will replace Taylor to represent District 6, which spans the Oakland Coliseum, Mills College and the area around the airport.

Jenkins was sworn in by Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley, a leading voice among calls for a recount in the mayoral race that Thao won in the fall.