No Longer Colorblind: AOC, a Political Powerhouse for POC
“It’s not just that I’m a woman of color running for office. It’s the way that I ran. It’s the way that my identity formed my methods.”
AOC: a modern-day symbol for change and justice. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, famously revered as AOC, became the youngest woman to ever serve in Congress when she was elected to the House of Representatives at the ripe age of 29. She is a representative of New York and was first elected into the House in 2018, but her path was not easy. AOC was born in The Bronx and lived in a working-class household with a small business owner as a father and a mother who cleaned homes after she moved from a tough life in Puerto Rico. As drop-out rates and crime increased in The Bronx, AOC’s parents saved up enough money to move the family 30 miles north to Yorktown, NY in hopes of a stronger educational system; however, the rest of her tight-knit family still lived in The Bronx. As a result, she spent a large portion of her childhood traveling between the two zip codes and witnessing the inequality of opportunity due to socioeconomic class.
The struggle did not stop there; during her sophomore year at Boston University, AOC’s father passed away due to cancer, and her family became plagued by enormous medical bills that caused large financial strain. The family’s house risked being foreclosed, so AOC’s mother had to take on a second job as a school bus driver. This experience with the lasting effects of large medical debt caused AOC to seek out and intern for Senator Ted Kennedy from 2008 until his death in 2009 and inspired a passion for free healthcare. This was when she came face-to-face with issues such as immigration and deportation. When regarding her role in this office, she states, “I was the only Spanish speaker, and as a result, as basically a kid — a 19, 20-year-old kid — whenever a frantic call would come into the office because someone is looking for their husband because they have been snatched off the street by ICE, I was the one that had to pick up that phone. I was the one that had to help that person navigate that system.” AOC has always been proud of her Latina heritage and makes it a point to represent the Latinx community in her political career. This relatively short period of time in her life ended up speaking volumes when it came to her understanding of the challenges faced by undocumented immigrants in the United States.
After her college education was completed, AOC returned to The Bronx where she served as the educational director for the National Hispanic Institute, working with the youth to inspire passion for community leadership and social enterprise. She also led countless projects to increase the literacy levels of younger children and middle schoolers in this underserved area. On top of these service opportunities, she found herself having to work two jobs in restaurants in order to keep her family from financially going under. She attempted to balance her low income from these 18-hour shifts so she could pay off her student loans, insurance payments, and home expenses. Her passion for advocacy and understanding of the civic struggle turned into political fuel after the 2016 presidential election which caused Donald Trump to take office.
She officially decided to run for Congress after going to the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota to join the indigenous people protesting against the construction of a harmful gas pipeline in December of 2016. She was a longshot who received no significant endorsements or campaign contributions, as she refused (and still refuses) to take in donations from large corporations. No one was supposed to win their first time, but she tested the odds and broke them. AOC won the primary in June of 2018 and went on to win her seat in the House, representing New York’s 14th district which encompassed parts of The Bronx and Queens.
After being sworn-in in January of 2019, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposed her first piece of legislation: the Green New Deal. This would be similar to FDR’s New Deal in that it would’ve brought millions of union jobs to repair the infrastructure of the country, reduced pollution, and fought the economic, social, racial, and climate issues that affect the United States. Though this resolution did not get passed, portions of this bill were pulled into Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law which was passed in 2021. In addition, just within her first term, she introduced 20+ new legislation including bills targeted at capping credit card interest rates, the poverty line, immigrant inclusion and safety, and strengthening the rights of renters. She was quickly recognized as a strong public speaker who questioned authority during committee hearings. Some of her largest accomplishments in this area include forcing a big-pharma company to lower the price of a drug that reduced HIV transmission; making a defense contractor return $16 million in federal funding; and getting Michael Cohen to admit that Trump had engaged in tax fraud and other illegal acts on the stand that helped to open an investigation into the Trump Organization.
AOC’s resilience played to her advantage as she proved to her constituents that she truly cared and was able to win her second-term in the House. She was sworn-in in January of 2021 and was steadfast in getting back to help the disadvantaged of this nation. She pushed to include key portions of the American Rescue Plan, which was passed in March of 2021 to help the country bounce-back from COVID. This included expanding the Child Tax Credit which families started receiving that following summer. In April of 2021, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez brought her Green New Deal resolution back onto the table–this time, the list grew to over 115 co-sponsors. Though the resolution still hasn’t passed, it has influenced over a dozen pieces of federal legislation and helped to establish 10 regional Green New Deal programs. She has also worked with the State Department to aid Afghan refugees and led 70 other members of Congress in calling on Biden to increase the refugee resettlement cap to 200,000 people. Her work still isn’t over and she has made it her goal to change our systems for the better; she is helping to create an equitable tomorrow.
AOC is often seen as the inspiration for many young women in this day and age. Throughout her time in politics, she has been faced with misogyny, even by her fellow representatives. In 2020, she called out Representative Ted Yoho for verbally abusing her with a misogynistic attack after she had shared her views on poverty and unemployment, which had differed from his own. He even went as far as to call her a “f***ing b***h.” Her speech on the Congress floor went viral as she called out systemic sexism by stating, “It is a culture of lack of impunity; of accepting violence and violent language against women; and an entire structure of power that supports that.” With that, AOC not only became a go-to representative for racial minorities, but also for women across the country who have felt subject to ridicule by the men in their lives; women who have been verbally or physically abused; women who have always been left out of important conversations; women who are still degraded even after attaining power positions; women who are catcalled on the streets; women in the USA.
“There are some politicians who are very good on policy, and there are some politicians who are good communicators, and there are some politicians that have a way about them that relates very well to ordinary people. Alexandria has all three of those characteristics.”
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About | Representative Ocasio-Cortez
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - It's not just that I'm a woman…
AOC response to Ted Yoho: Read the text of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's speech
'I Could Not Allow That To Stand': Ocasio-Cortez Rebukes Republican For Vulgar Insult
Meet the young progressive Latina trying to oust one of the most powerful Democrats in the House
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