New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, exalted the city’s legacy of immigrants on Friday in a historically laden, ideological counterpoint to a US semiquincentennial address that was expected later in the day from Donald Trump – who has sought to deport immigrants en masse throughout his second presidency.
Speaking from behind a desk at New York’s city hall that belonged to the US’s first president, George Washington, and which itself is a century older than the Resolute desk in the White House, Mamdani was surrounded by naturalized citizens like himself as he listed the waves of immigrants who shaped the city.
“Hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants arrived with stomachs aching from a famine manufactured by imperial cruelty,” Mamdani said. “Chinese sailors settled in what is today Chinatown. Millions more traveled under the Statue of Liberty and through Ellis Island. Jewish people escaping pogroms, Italians fleeing poverty. Syrians seeking economic opportunity.
“My fellow Americans” Mamdani knows the context of this phrase. Not my fellow New Yorkers.
I see comments from people all over the world who say Mamdani is their mayor, too ❤️🔥 Certainly hope more Americans outside of NYC can feel the same.
He’s turning into an amazing Mayor… Here’s hoping he can carry it off. The part the conservatives are most afraid of is that his plans will work…because they will (are already to an extent) work and serve as a template for other cities and states if they do.
They talk about “mini mamdanis” like it’s a bad thing lol
I want a maxi-mamdani… Like 3 or 4 of them in one candidate. ;-)
I will vote as far left int he primaries as I can…
But in the general, I will vote as far left as I can. Don’t care who it is.
I’m done he knows when he says that, he means it
However, refreshing to vote for a politician, who doesn’t have to lie