I recorded the intro to this episode on the first morning after we learned that, with about 50% of the vote and the highest turnout in recent history, Zohran Mamdani – a migrant, Muslim, and democratic socialist – is going to be New York City’s next mayor. And he was elected on a platform that centered working class people’s everyday struggles, and presented them with a vision of this city in which everyone has a right to be here, and that we need to fight for the conditions – of childcare, housing, transport – that make that possible.
But we know, getting Zohran elected is only the beginning. Andwhile New York City has had progressive mayors in the past, in other ways we are facing a uniquely new context: one defined by an exceptionally openly socialist mayor, facing an exceptionally hostile and authoritarian federal government. And given the historic marginalization in the United States of the left, it turns out Latin American cities actually have a lot to teach New York City and the future Mamdani administration.
At least this was the motivation behind an event recently organized at NYU titled “What New York's Next Mayor Can Learn From Latin America's Pink Tide”, which happened some days before the election. I know I am biased, btu this is genuinely one of the most genuinely informativeand thought-provoking events I’ve been to in a long time, demonstrating so clearly just how rich the experience of the contemporary left has been in Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela and Ecuador, and how much wisdom is to be derivedfrom its successes and failures.
The event featured Edwin Ackerman, professorat Syracuse University, followed by Gianpaolo Biocchi, Professor and founding director of the Urban Democracy Lab at NYU. Next was Gabriel Hetland, sociology professor at SUNY and who we hope to feature in Sur Urbano for a full episode soon, and finally, Thea RioFrancos, professor of PoliticalScience at Providence College.
