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In his victory speech last night, Zohran Kwame Mamdani asserted that New York City was built by immigrants — and is now going to be led by one.
Voters in America’s largest and most influential city made history, electing 34-year-old Mamdani as the first New York mayor who is Muslim and of South Asian descent.
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“Hope is alive,” Mamdani said, thanking the aunties who helped elect him and his wife, Rama, along with others who formed a unique coalition that helped him rise. He quoted Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first post-independence prime minister. He commended his parents, “mama and baba,” saying: “You have made me into the man I am today. I am so proud to be your son.” (Mamdani’s mother is acclaimed Indian American director Mira Nair, behind “Monsoon Wedding,” “Mississippi Masala,” “The Namesake,” and “Salaam Bombay!”)
A ton has already been reported on Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, so here are some selections:
- Meet the aunties for Zohran, by Jennifer Chowdhury (Harper’s Bazaar): “First-generation immigrant women of color — mothers, grandmothers, aunties — powered Mamdani’s historic campaign from mosque basements to bodega storefronts.”
- Inside the improbable, audacious and (so far) unstoppable rise of Zohran Mamdani, by Astead W. Herndon (The New York Times Magazine): “Mamdani saw an opportunity to form a coalition built from his own life and convictions: Muslims, South Asians, renters, young people and progressives.”
- Mamdani blazes trail as New York’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor-elect, by Anushka Patil (The New York Times): “Mr. Mamdani’s ascent in New York City was propelled by a relentless focus on affordability and indefatigable campaigning that expanded the electorate in striking ways, mobilizing a coalition of ethnic and religious groups that have rarely been on the receiving end of such intense focus from a citywide candidate.”
- What Zohran Mamdani knows about power, by Eric Lach (The New Yorker): “At a moment when the country is consumed with nativist fervor and New York appears a nest of cynical cronyism … Mamdani is running a campaign that embraces the city as a beacon for immigrants like him.”
- Mamdani spoke of his aunt’s fear after 9/11. Backlash revealed how Islamophobia persists, by Shefali Luthra (The 19th): “A speech by … Mamdani — and the conservative reaction to it — highlight how Muslim women are specifically targeted during times of heightened Islamophobia or anti-Arab sentiment.”
- As Mamdani rises, South Asians emerge as a political force in New York, by Sarah Chatta, Maya King and Jeff Adelson (The New York Times): “There are roughly 450,000 South Asians in New York City, about 5% of the population. … But the community has been growing rapidly, including a Bangladeshi population that has nearly tripled in the last decade.”
As Mamdani’s influence grows in U.S. politics, I guess it’s also finally time for many Americans to get Mamdani’s name pronunciation correct, if they haven’t already.
As I always compare: If you can say Arnold Schwarzenegger, you can definitely say…
MUM-DHA-NEE
This article was first published in redwhiteandbrown.com