Monday, October 17, 2022

Democratic Congressional Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's National Hispanic Institute [NHI] Connection

 Most U.S. anti-war movement supporters don't think that the U.S. Congress's support for shipping more munitions to the Ukrainian government since February 2022 has either decreased the danger of World War III breaking out or brought much peace to the people living in Ukraine.


Yet one of New York City's Democratic representatives in Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has apparently not attempted to do very much in Washington, D.C. to oppose the U.S. Congress's support for shipping more munitions to the Ukrainian government.


Although Rep. Ocasio-Cortez now represents some Bronx and Queens residents in the U.S. Congress, the Democratic Party congressional representative has, historically, been connected politically to an organization, not based in New York City, which operates under the name "National Hispanic Institute" [NHI]. As David Freedlander observed in his 2021 book, The AOC Generation: How Millenials are seizing power and rewriting the rules of American politics:


"If there was another guiding force in Ocasio-Cortez's life it was...the National Hispanic Institute [NHI]...Ocasio-Cortez participated in NHI programming before her junior year in high school when she, along with 150 or so of her peers, went to the group's Lorezo de Zavala Youth Legislative Session [LDZ]...


"At this summer institute, Ocasio-Cortez ran for every office available...Ocasio-Cortez was just one of two students from the East, and the only one from New York. She lost every election she ran for...It is easy to draw a straight line from 2018 to the teenager who went to the NHI summer program, where she learned the skills of a candidate...Ocasio-Cortez told [NHI Founder Ernesto] Nieto...`...I found that NHI helped me so much...because NHI helped me develop who I am...'


"The NHI wasn't just something that Ocasio-Cortez did a couple of summers while she was in high school. It's how she got connected to Boston University, which was actively recruiting among NHI students when Ocasio-Cortez was in high school. During college and after, she returned to work at the institute in various capacities, and when she refers to herself as `an educator' in her campaign materials, she is referring to her time leading students at NHI.


"Ocasio-Cortez wrote the afterword to [NHI Founder Ernesto] Nieto's memoir, Third Reality Revealed: Vision, Persistence, and Inventing a New Latino Identity while she was still in college...After graduation, AOC returned to NHI as a social entrepreneurship fellow and then, a couple of years after that, as a...trainer. She worked several summers in a program called the Collegiate World Series and...in 2018...lead one of the institute's seminars.


"People who were with her at NHI remember her as...ambitious...As Ocasio-Cortez bounced around in her college years, she had what was essentially a standing offer to return to NHI and work full-time..."




Saturday, October 15, 2022

Democratic Congressional Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's Historic Family And Westchester Co. Background

 Most U.S. anti-war movement supporters don't think that the U.S. Congress's support for shipping more munitions to the Ukrainian government since February 2022 has either decreased the danger of World War III breaking out or brought much peace to the people living in Ukraine.


Yet one of New York City's Democratic representatives in Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has apparently not attempted to do very much in Washington, D.C. to oppose the U.S. Congress's support for shipping more munitions to the Ukrainian government.


Although Rep. Ocasio-Cortez now represents some Bronx and some Queens tenants in the U.S. Congress, her family apparently historically owned two apartments in the Bronx and a house in Westchester County; and the Bronx-Queens congressional representative historically attended a high school in Westchester County. As David Freedlander noted in his 2021 book, The AOC Generation: How Millenials are seizing power and rewriting the rules of American politics:


"...Sergio Ocasio...got into Brooklyn Tech...He met AOC's mother, Bianca Cortez, in Puerto Rico, where the two married before settling in the Bronx. They bought an apartment in the...middle-income Parkchester complex for $36,000 and later bought another similarly priced unit nearby, where Ocasio kept an office...His business, Kirschenbaum and Ocasio Roman Architects PC...were beneficiaries of...state contracts...Clients included the Parkchester complex, where the Ocasio-Cortez family owned an apartment...


"Ocasio-Cortez...grew up not in the Bronx, but in Westchester County...Ocasio-Cortez was...explicit that the home in Yorktown Heights, a town of under 2,000 people in Westchester County, was purchased with the help of aunts, uncles, and other relatives...


"...In Westchester she was often the lone Latino in her class...Yorktown was not diverse...Another friend said there were only a handful of Asian kids in their class of three hundred, and no African American students..."




Friday, October 14, 2022

Democratic Congressional Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's Historic Boston U. Connection

Most U.S. anti-war movement supporters don't think that the U.S. Congress's support for shipping more munitions to the Ukrainian government since February 2022 has either decreased the danger of World War III breaking out or brought much peace to the people living in Ukraine.


Yet one of New York City's Democratic representatives in Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has apparently not attempted to do very much in Washington, D.C. to oppose the U.S. Congress's support for shipping more munitions to the Ukrainian government.


Although Rep. Ocasio-Cortez now represents some Bronx and some Queens residents in the U.S. Congress, a private unversity in Boston, Massachusetts--Boston University--is the university that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez historically attended. As David Freedlander recalled in his 2021 book, The AOC Generation: How Millenials are seizing power and rewriting the rules of American politics:


"It was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2011, and...she was a college senior, and the lone student on the Boston University campus invited to speak at the university's annual remembrance ceremony...Ocasio-Cortez studied economics and international relations at Boston Universiity...


"Friends say that she was animated in college by a lot of the same concerns that animated her early political career...Ocasio-Cortez would join [then Democratic U.S. Senator Ted] Kennedy's office as an intern...Ocasio-Cortez...worked for Kennedy's immigrant constituent office...


"...If you were a Boston University student at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century--even if you weren't a regular at the Thruman Center or part of the regular Coffee and Conversation group or in the slam poetry group or in Alianza Latina, the school's Latin American student organization--you more than likely knew who Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was...


"She was part of what was known as `The BU 500', those...students who...seem to have a close relationship with the administration...She gave a Ted Talk alongside other Boston-area college students in which her bio read: `A social entrepreneur...She has consulted non-profits, worked in government, and launched a media enterprise...'...She was quoted in a National Public Radio [NPR] story about how college students were reacting to the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces...AOC...said,`...This villain has been slayed...'"