Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the intersectional remix of Latinx roots and socialist politics

"Women like me are not supposed to run for office," began the now legendary publicity for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, published four weeks ago. What followed was a powerful viral video, titled "The Courage to Change," which dealt with racial identity and gender and fit perfectly within its position on social class. "I was not born of a rich or powerful family – the mother of Puerto Rico, dad of the South Bronx, I was born in a place where your postal code determines your destiny."

Ocasio-Cortez, whose parents moved from the Parkchester working class in the Bronx to Yorktown Heights in middle class Westchester County, NY, for better schools, won second place at the International Fair of Science and Engineering. Intel, a graduate in economics and international relations from Boston University, and after years of channeling her millennial political fever, she caused the biggest political upheaval of the year. Queens, Democratic Socialist candidate but on the ticket of the Democratic Party, and who wanted to close the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement while the cable news showed images of crying children separated from their parents on the US border with Mexico

I think no one saw it coming, "said Marlene Peralta, chief strategist for the Progressive Cities media advisory group. Peralta, who was born in the Dominican Republic and has lived in the Brooklyn district of Williamsburg since the age of 14, knows how difficult New York politics can be for Latinas.

"I think so many young people are completely disillusioned The dominant politics and bipartisan system, and democratic socialism is something that seems to speak to their concerns and their interests," said Marisol LeBrón, a student in Latin Studies who grew up in Parkchester and identifies as a queer nuyorican. "The fact that she was a young woman of color helped her to get in touch with young people from the country who went to school. identify as progressive or leftist and who are trying to think about partisan politics in this increasingly repressive moment. "

at the University of New York, it was important that Ocasio-Cortez specify no only "who" she was, but also "what" that she strongly represented. "Her message was not just" elect me, I'm a Latina with a good personal story ", but she seemed rather engaged to bring Alienated voters in the process and she had a progressive and anti-business message about economic justice. "

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With a platform that calls for Medicare for all, a public college without tuition, a federal guarantee of employment, a criminal justice reform, a green reconstruction electrical infrastructure and the abolition of ICE, Ocasio-Cortez of a generation that is fed up with growing inequalities and the emergence of Trump's authoritarianism. Its history of life and his political actions have a flexible and intersectional quality that takes shape before our eyes, helping to create a new force in American politics. "The most exciting part of his victory is his platform," said Carlina Rivera , a member of the New York City Council of the Lower East Side of Manhattan who shares the youth and pride of Ocasio-Cortez as an urban and working-class Latina. "She is clearly aligned with democratic values ​​- responsible and responsible human focus on racism and classism and discriminatory policies. I think that dispels the myth of Bernie Bro – look who voted for her! Communities of color and whites. Voters do not want someone from a comfortable one.

With its own hybrid of intense neighborhood campaign and digital engagement – on social media and in several Millennium-based online publications – Ocasio-Cortez merges identity politics with class politics. "I can not name a single problem with racial roots that do not have economic implications, and I can not think of a single economic problem that has no implications race, "she told Nation magazine last week. "The idea that we have to separate them and choose one is a con."

Hailed to her opponent Crowley's complaints that she emphasized her Puerto Rican roots, "doing this about the race," she accused her of maintaining only symbolic presence in the district and said that his children went to school in northern Virginia. She has made the connection between racial and ethnic origins and does not have access to the generational wealth that makes running to the job easier. Although Puerto Ricans have been US citizens since 1917 and thus avoid the process of naturalization and its perils, Ocasio-Cortez has strongly adhered to Mexicans, Central Americans and South Americans in its district.

New York's 14th Congressional District itself is a sprawling territory of racial and ethnic intersection – about 50 percent latino and 20 percent white. The East Bronx, where I grew up, has Latinos, Blacks, South Asians and some residual Europeans, while the Queens' Jackson Heights-Elmhurst section houses a fascinating mix of Latinos from Central America and South, South Asians, Chinese, and Koreans. Every day, at 90 ^th Street Stop of train 7 at Elmhurst, where Ocasio-Cortez shot a social video of his campaign, we hear a loud explosion of cumbias, rancheras, beauty salon announcements and football games. None of these amazing mixes seemed to bother Ocasio-Cortez.

At this powerful stew, Ocasio-Cortez added an assessment of Sanders as what the American Dream, offering solutions that respond to the "s" -word strategies of a group with which it openly identifies, the Socialists of America. This same "socialism" that the center and the right often identify with pretentious European thinkers and millennia of student and saddled debts turns out to be a viable approach to the problems of people of color who are separated from the opportunity of a quality education, affordable housing and the accumulation of generational wealth.

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The words of Ocasio-Cortez have a familiar ring for me. Like her, I was raised in the Bronx, living for a while in the same Parkchester subdivision that she already did with her Puerto Rican parents. Like many Nuyoricans of our two generations, she is bilingual, passionate about her roots and desperately wanted to shed light on our beloved gente and cultura even though a lot of people were born there. America did not know or

Rivera, who also identifies as a democratic socialist, believes that this perspective represents a kind of politics that is "truly progressive, and understands that the system has not worked for people of color. Being a socialist is much closer to being a progressive than most people think. "

While Ocasio poses a major challenge to traditional Democrats, it could also threaten the local Latin American-Puerto Rican political establishment that has never gone too far away from the Democratic Center." Bronx District, Rubén Díaz, lamented the loss of Crowley, calling him a person the community needed in Washington, and until then there was no reaction from Boricua Reps, Nydia Mr. Velásquez (NY), José E. Serrano (NY) and Luis V. Gutiérrez (Ill.), Who campaigned for Crowley

Ocasio will face Republican Anthony Pappas in November for the 14th district, but given the poor performance of Republicans around the world. "Outside Staten Island, she is likely to win, becoming the youngest woman elected to Congress so she may face her biggest challenge – avoiding the compromise of his high ideals by continuing to refuse business donations. Can she make alliances with the new wave progressives and traditional democrats to push for a single health insurance, a major reform of criminal justice and the end of the year? horrible harassment of immigrants that characterized the Trump years?

Ocasio-Cortez can at least feel satisfied to have finally found a way to bring race and class together in American politics. "The victory of Ocasio-Cortez gives me a lot of hope, not only because she's young and Latina like me with a promising political future, but because she's made sure Latinos go out and vote, "said Peralta. "Now, we can say," See, that's why you vote, and that's how you make a political system that takes us for granted for far too long finally take us seriously. "Do not be surprised if you see Governor Cuomo, Cynthia Nixon and other candidates focusing on Latinos from now on.We will have the Ocasio effect to thank him."

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