I can't name a single issue with roots in race that doesn't have economic implications, and I cannot think of a single economic issue that doesn't have racial implications. The idea that we have to separate them out and choose one is a con.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
The biggest hurdle that our communities have is cynicism - saying it's a done deal, who cares; there's no point to voting. If we can get somebody to care, it's a huge victory for the movement and the causes we're trying to advance.
Mentors of mine were under a big pressure to minimize their femininity to make it. I'm not going to do that. That takes away my power. I'm not going to compromise who I am.
There's this false notion that you have to separate and choose between issues of class and issues of race. What people do when they say that you need to separate class from race is that they are really just saying that people of color should come second.
There is no such thing as talking about class without there being implications of the racial history of the United States. You just can't do it.
I felt like the only way to effectively run for office is if you had access to a lot of wealth, high social influence, a lot of dynastic power, and I knew that I didn't have any of those things.
We know enough to reject the stereotype that people in the Midwest do not care about their brothers and sisters.
For me, democratic socialism is about - really, the value for me is that I believe that in a modern, moral, and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to live.
Women like me aren't supposed to run for office.
I wasn't born to a wealthy or powerful family - mother from Puerto Rico, dad from the South Bronx.
The only time we create any kind of substantive change is when we reach out to a disaffected electorate and inspire and motivate them to vote.
The Republicans galvanize their base by inciting a lot of fear; they operate on a lot of mythmaking. So we have to have something compelling. We shouldn't be afraid to be bold.
It's really scary or it's easy to generate fear around an idea or around an -ism when you don't provide any substance to it.
Congress is too old. They don't have a stake in the game.
I'm used to people kind of knowing me in the community.
Change takes courage.
I was born in a place where your ZIP code determines your destiny.
We are fighting for an unapologetic movement for economic, social, and racial justice in the United States.
We have a political culture of intimidation, of favoring, of patronage, and of fear, and that is no way for a community to be governed.
Democrats should be getting high-fives from sanitation truck drivers - that is what should be happening in America.
I believe that every American should have stable, dignified housing; health care; education - that the most very basic needs to sustain modern life should be guaranteed in a moral society.
Not all Democrats are the same.
What I see is that the Democratic Party takes working class communities for granted, they take people of color for granted, and they just assume that we're going to turn out no matter how bland or half-stepping these proposals are.
People try to identify who is the most likely person to turn out, and what we did is that we changed who turns out. And that changes the whole electorate.
I wake up every day, and I'm a Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx. Every single day.
