by WorldTribune Staff, July 1, 2018
How solid are the working-class credentials of the socialist candidate who knocked off a longtime Democratic heavyweight in last week’s primary?
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28, was born in and currently lives in the Bronx, but her family moved to a wealhty suburb of New York City in Westchester County when she was 5-years-old, the Daily Mail reported on June 30.
Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign biography says: “She grew up in a working-class household where her mother cleaned homes and everyone pitched in on the family business.” The biography does not mention her move from the Bronx to Yorktown Heights in Westchester.
During an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Ocasio-Cortez said: “Well, you know, the president is from Queens, and with all due respect – half of my district is from Queens – I don’t think he knows how to deal with a girl from the Bronx.”
Related: Democrats joining Millennials’ embrace of socialism, Karl Marx, June 28, 2018
Ocasio-Cortez, a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, defeated longtime Rep. Joe Crowley in the June 26 Democratic primary in New York’s 14th district. She is believed to be a shoo-in for the House in the November general election.
County land records show her late father Sergio Cortez-Roman bought a three-bedroom house in Yorktown Heights in 1991. The home, a single-story with a finished basement, most recently sold for $355,000 in 2016.
According to USA.com, the population of Yorktown Heights is 81 percent white, and median household income is $96,413 – nearly double the average for both New York state and the nation, according to data from 2010-2014.
Her father, Sergio Ocasio-Roman, who died from lung cancer in 2008, was an architect and the CEO of Kirschenbaum & Ocasio-Roman Architects, PC, which focused on remodeling and renovations, the Daily Mail report said.
Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign biography describes her father as “a small business owner.”
“We wonder how long it will take Ocasio-Cortez to ride the ‘Democratic Socialist’ wave until she’s firing off tweets from her third home and making $1 million, two years in a row, like Bernie Sanders,” Zero Hedge noted in a June 29 report.
The Democratic candidate’s platform includes abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an “assault weapons” ban, universal guaranteed employment and a $15 minimum wage, and Medicare for all.
If she wins as expected in November, Ocasio-Cortez would be the first Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member in Congress since Rep. Ron Dellums, who served in office from 1971-1998.
“Democratic socialist ideas will win and we do the hard work of knocking on doors to make it happen,” DSA national director Maria Svart wrote in an email to Yahoo News.
Vigie Ramos Rios, manager of Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign, told Yahoo News that the DSA “were strong supporters. There were areas they canvassed that came out for us in spades.”
The socialist group Means of Production made a video for Ocasio-Cortez that was released last month and, in the words of Business Insider, went “completely viral.” According to Naomi Burton, one of the company’s co-founders, they were drawn to Ocasio-Cortez by the organization’s endorsement and because of “her unapologetic socialist platform and articulation of working peoples’ needs that caught our attention,” Yahoo News reported.
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Girl from the Bronx? Ocasio-Cortez grew up in Westchester County and is riding a socialist wave added by World Tribune on
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