Indian filmmaker, Mira Nair's son and rapper, Zohran Mamdani is all set to enter New York State Assembly becoming one of the first South Asians to secure a seat. He ran unopposed to represent New York's 36th Assembly District in Astoria (a neighbourhood in Queens).
Mamdani ran for State Assembly "because it’s time to guarantee housing to all New Yorkers as a right, regardless of ability to pay", he said.
"It’s time to desegregate our schools, fully eliminate cash bail, ban solitary confinement, fund and fix the MTA [Metropolitan Transportation Authority], end workplace discrimination, and fight for social, racial, economic, and environmental justice for the many, not the few." said Zohran in his manifesto.
Son of noted the famous Indian-origin film-maker Nair and Ugandan scholar, Mahmood Mamdani, Zohran has been a housing counsellor for Chhaya CDC, a non-profit geared towards helping the working class hold on to their American Dream by fighting eviction and foreclosures.
'Roti and Roses'
Taking the classic political slogan 'Bread and Roses', and making it his own, Mamdani campaigned under the slogan '#RotiandRoses.'
"And the reason it's roti and roses is because we're both fighting for something universal and something specific, and the specificity is about being an Indian-American, a desi Muslim American running to represent our communities which have been shut out of the conversation for far too long.", Mamdani has stated in media interviews.
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