Media

The hot button politician blowing up everyone’s Twitter feeds is the one and only AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). While she may be the youngest, most progressive Congresswoman on record, there is another Latino breaking records that you should have on your radar. Adriano Espaillat is a Dominican-born American politician representing New York’s 13th congressional district. And, he’s the first formerly undocumented immigrant to ever serve in Congress as well as the first Dominican to ever serve in Congress. He’s not just trying to fit in and make any power grabs either. He’s putting everything on the line to fearlessly serve the immigrant community. Espaillat isn’t abandoning his community and has made them his entire platform. Espaillat has led the Democrat party to introduce an Immigration Package to the floor. Espaillat came to the U.S. as a child with his family. The Espaillats had to live as undocumented until their green card applications were approved a full year later. Espaillat was only 11 years old when this happened. Espaillat led the initial effort to Impeach Trump. When Verizon and DirectTV dropped Televisión Dominicana, Espaillat called on the companies to change course.

Bronx elected officials welcomed 10 diplomatic officials from the Dominican Republic at the Nov. 2 grand opening of the nation’s first monument for Dominican veterans of World War II. The monument, funded in part by $400,000 in state and local funding secured by Councilman Fernando Cabrera, is located on the campus of Bronx Community College (BCC) in University Heights. “More than 300 Dominican men and women risked and sacrificed their lives for the United States during World War II,” Cabrera, who is part Dominican, said. “These soldiers have been largely left out of U.S. history and I believed their rightful and public recognition was long past due.”

A new report examining the racial diversity among top staff of the U.S. House of Representatives finds that personnel levels fall “woefully short” of representing the racial diversity of the nation.

I am deeply concerned following last week’s decision by the New York City Council to approve the plan to rezone Inwood, a plan that will have a long-term devastating impact on the future of the community by potentially uprooting residents, families, and family-owned businesses that call Inwood home.