My family moved here in waves. After my father’s death, when I was five years old, my family settled in East Brooklyn, where I grew up and attended public schools. My mom did all kinds of work, including being a seamstress, and ultimately became a substance abuse counselor. She was a Lions Club member, so civic engagement was super important to her. She imparted upon me my socialist values, my love of country, and a belief in the dignity of all people.

We once attended a Puerto Rican independence event, and several Young Lords were in attendance. My mom gifted me a portrait of Pedro Albizu Campos, one of the fathers of Puerto Rican independence, that I still hang in my home. Later, when I became more politicized in college, I drew inspiration from the organizing that the Young Lords did to fight back against the oppression of the Puerto Rican community. Twenty years later, we are still facing much of the same oppression. It grounds me in the spirit of resistance — their movement didn’t last very long, but its ethos has lived on.

We have to work extra hard to demonstrate our ability as legislators and show that our ideas are actually not as far out as they seem. In fact, many people share these values. Principles aren’t something to be afraid of.

Tiffany and I have shown that we are serious, that we are deeply committed to achieving progress. It’s been hard having to constantly disprove the mythologies that are created — especially in the media. This proved most obvious during negotiations for our first budget vote. When we voted no [in response to Mayor Eric Adams’s massive budget cuts], I think people were surprised given the culture on the council of voting yes regardless of what was in the budget.

Unfortunately, it’s an up or down vote, which forces a binary on things that are much more complicated. It was shocking to some people that we would take that stance as freshmen councilmembers, because such votes could cast a very dark shadow on your ability to negotiate legislation or within committees.

But it demonstrated in the long term that we were serious. While there was some retaliation, we proved that we can navigate this office with integrity, push back, and stay true to our values and constituencies. Since then, I have become chair of the Committee on Immigration, and brought in funds to improve things like public parks, education, and housing in my district. The idea that I can’t do that work successfully because I voted no on a budget isn’t true.

The benefit of being a movement-elected official is that we’re guided by what is happening on the ground in a democratic way that extends beyond the ballot box. As socialists, we have to be informed by the barriers working people are facing and how they are navigating them.

It’s challenging, but we have a collective who stands with us in good times and hard times. It’s vital to have that backing to accomplish the ambitious programs we need to win a better world. The wide range of conversations with different constituent groups makes us better at our jobs.

Once that humility and democratic connection to your constituents is gone, you’re more susceptible to become part of this apparatus. The status quo seeps in, and then you’re doing the things that suddenly you think are best but are divorced from the people.

Immigration issues under Trump are at a level 1,000, all day, every day. Since before Trump, I’ve been hosting monthly roundtables for providers and immigrant rights groups to exchange information. There has been an onslaught of extrajudicial orders, cuts in funding, nonsensical laws, violent rhetoric — very similar to what we have seen at the national level. Just the other day, I heard from district attorneys that a huge majority of wage theft cases are tied to threats of calling [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] on employees. It has heightened the complexity of the issue and the anxiety and fear for safety.

Immigration is deeply intertwined with economic justice. Immigrant labor, both within the workforce and the organized labor movement, is crucial. In addition to being exploited by their employers, the undocumented are paying enormous sums of taxes into a system that in many ways they won’t even collect on.

You are still supposed to have rights in this country against this kind of exploitation and discrimination. But we’re seeing an enormous and persistent problem of wage theft in the immigrant community, because they can be more easily exploited, especially in this moment of heightened hateful rhetoric. It’s led to increases in fraud, exploitation, and wage theft.

From wastewater treatment plants to cement plants, the neighborhoods in our district have every type of polluting infrastructure that you just don’t see in wealthier ones across Brooklyn. There is a pattern of working-class communities, particularly on the poorer side, having to endure the effects of this disparity. We share industrial manufacturing zones defined by highly toxic pollutants that wealthier residents can afford to not live near.

We are dealing with both the historical burden of the toxicity that has been emitted in our environment and the constant disparity in the city’s placing of polluting facilities in communities with less resources. It’s everywhere, from poor air quality to the gas industry polluting our grounds and the exhaust from the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. And then we’ve had a recent proliferation of harmful Amazon “last-mile” distribution facilities pop up. We are trying to fight all of the compounding impacts and working to transition to a healthier, more sustainable economy.

We need to move away from our current system that prioritizes private profits and build a model that prioritizes people and their health — one that’s geared toward publicly owned, renewable energy systems like community-owned solar.

An organization called UPROSE has proposed a plan to bring reindustrialization to Sunset Park. It talks about how we can transition that industrial manufacturing zone into things that, in addition to a cleaner and healthier environment, provides good jobs and is determined democratically, rather than the existing model of allowing for-profit corporations that are responsible for a lot of waste.

People are very used to that way of doing things and have not been shown other visions. It’s incumbent upon us to show that we can do things differently: we can be healthier and support economic development that benefits the collective, not wealth-hoarding corporations.

There’s an old saying: “Dime con quién andas, y te diré quién eres,” “Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are.” Had I been a status-quo candidate who says yes to special interests, they wouldn’t be pouring so much money into trying to get rid of me.

Our campaign poses a significant threat to their controlling interests in this city. This challenge is being mounted by the two particular groups you mentioned — the Israel lobby and the real estate industry — which are both threatened by my deep commitment to the working class, my belief in dignity and justice for all people, including Palestinians, and housing as a human right.

Since taking office, I’ve stood against Eric Adams’s egregious rent hikes and demanded a rent freeze — something my opponent refuses to do in a district where the majority of residents are tenants, and more than half of those are rent-burdened. The real estate industry wants a rubber stamp in City Hall for luxury development, and they know they won’t find that in me. Instead, we talk about alternative models like social housing, with the public investing its own capital into building the projects that we need as a city.

That’s why they have spent so much money on a local race. That’s the current system we’re in. They will continue to be aggressive in their opposition because they want elected officials to do their bidding. Sadly, we’ve had too many officials willing to comply.

This is a direct attack on socialists and progressives, the working class, and on free speech. This is a direct attack on the collective, because that’s what poses the threat. If it was just me, they wouldn’t be so concerned. But it is our coalition that really concerns them.

I’m thrilled. AOC is leading the charge against billionaire rule in Washington and giving hope to working people across the country that together, we can fight the oligarchy and win. Our campaign in Brooklyn seeks to do the same: give working people across our city a meaningful way to fight against the chaos and cruelty coming out of the White House and City Hall.

The far-right MAGA movement that has taken root to varying degrees in each level of government thrives on hatred and breaking people apart. It thrives on having working-class people fighting with each other. Solidarity is a powerful tool and antidote to that.

That really drives me crazy, this immediate embrace of a rightward shift in the rhetoric and values. It’s anathema to me because those policies are already in place, they’re what we’ve been contending with this whole time. People are dying of medical debt because of stagnant wages and a health care system that profits off of your illness. Do we want to shift further toward that model? It’s almost like Stockholm Syndrome: the things that are abusing us are the things suddenly we’re going to champion.