Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

You know, to your point, a lot of it just had to do with the experiences of my life, which is the experiences that a lot of people have.

I think that... So I grew up in a household that was actually not very... It was political, but it was not very political at the same time.

Like, my parents identified as independents.

They were very skeptical of the political system.

They always voted for Democrats here in New York for the most part, but they would, you know, it was...

It was just a different type of upbringing.

I didn't grow up... I'm not the child of professors or anything like that.

My mom cleaned houses growing up.

My dad was born in the South Bronx.

She was born in Puerto Rico.

She was born in Arecibo in Puerto Rico.

And my dad's parents were Puerto Rican.

And actually they met when he was home visiting family and she was literally like the girl next door.

yeah so he was flying home oh my god to visit some family in puerto rico that's so cute yeah i was like literally he was like visiting like an like an older aunt or something like that and my mom was literally like the girl next door i think she was like helping them put up a shelf or something like that and i know it's she must be so beautiful i know it's just like god is that sweet yeah just the best

And so anyways, like, you know, but they both grew up in just real poverty.

And my dad was born when the Bronx was burning.

And the reason the Bronx was burning was because landlords...

had determined that their property values were going down and they would hire people to set their own buildings on fire to collect on the insurance because that was more valuable than the people inside or the value of the home.

That is chilling.

And that's, you know, people talk about the Bronx as though it, you know, it's kind of like people have heard this phrase, the Bronx is burning and it's just kind of ascribed to like social disorder.