Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria (1989-…), became a member of the United States House of Representatives in 2019. She is a Democrat from the Bronx borough of New York City. Twenty-nine years old when she won election in 2018, Ocasio-Cortez became the youngest woman elected to Congress to that time.
Ocasio-Cortez was born on Oct. 13, 1989, in the Bronx. Her father was from the Bronx, and her mother, from Puerto Rico. The family later moved to Westchester County, New York. Ocasio-Cortez graduated from high school in 2007. She attended Boston University, where she studied international relations and economics. While still a student, she focused on immigration issues while working as an intern for Senator Edward Kennedy. Ocasio-Cortez received a bachelor’s degree from Boston University in 2011. She returned to the Bronx, where she worked for a nonprofit organization promoting education and literacy. She also started a company that published children’s books emphasizing positive aspects of the Bronx, much of which had historically been troubled by crime and poverty. Through most of her post-collegiate years, Ocasio-Cortez also worked as a waitress and bartender.
Ocasio-Cortez later became an organizer for the 2016 presidential campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. In 2017, she announced that she would challenge incumbent Democratic U.S. Representative Joe Crowley for the party’s 2018 nomination for New York’s 14th congressional district. The district includes parts of Bronx and Queens counties in New York City. During the campaign, Ocasio-Cortez described herself as a democratic socialist. In democratic socialism, a democratically elected government enacts policies that encourage private companies to act in the public interest. Millions of users of the social media site Twitter (now called X) followed Ocasio-Cortez because of her lively, confident personality and her criticisms of both President Donald J. Trump and the Democratic Party.
Ocasio-Cortez defeated Crowley in the Democratic primary held in June 2018. As a candidate for Congress, she advocated universal health care, tuition-free public college, and doubling income taxes on Americans earning more than $10 million. She won election to the House in November 2018. Ocasio-Cortez has also promoted a “Green New Deal,” which calls for a system in which all the nation’s electricity would be produced from such renewable energy sources as the sun and wind.
Ocasio-Cortez won reelection to her House seat in 2020 and 2022. As a representative, she has served on the House committees on financial services and government reform.
