[ [link removed] ]Ayanna Pressley for Congress



The people closest to the pain should be closest to the power, driving and
informing the policy-making. Like many movement builders and table
shakers, it is my own lived experiences that have driven this core value
of mine, and I wanted to share a few of those with you.

[ Ayanna ]Ayanna with her mom, Sandy

Ayanna with her mom, Sandy

I was raised by a single mother, Sandy — may she rest in power — who was a
social worker, community organizer, and legal secretary. Child care was
always a challenge for us due to the high cost and her untraditional work
hours. So I was home alone a lot as a child and throughout my teenage
years. I remember the trauma I felt when I came home one day to an
eviction notice on the door.

My mother made incredible sacrifices to prevent hardship coming my way. It
felt like it was us against the world.

Like me, my mother had fibroids — and growing up I witnessed her navigate
a health care system that constantly denied the pain she was feeling. She
worked through that pain out of fear of losing her job.

Early on I witnessed the ways in which our policies and the world wore on
her spirit as a Black woman.

[ Ayanna ]Ayanna with her Dad, Martin

Ayanna with her Dad, Martin

Growing up, my father Martin, missed out on some of my happiest and
hardest life moments while navigating the injustice of the criminal legal
system and battling a substance abuse disorder that was criminalized. And
like so many, it didn’t take me long to realize that our entire family and
community was serving time with him. But, despite the circumstances, he
has shaped his own destiny in incredible ways, and has since been there
for every major milestone of my life.

Later on in life, like 85% of Black students, I had to take out loans to
go to college. And like many of them, I defaulted — despite working
multiple jobs and 12-hour days while being a student.

This is my
origin story. And this is why my pain informs my policy. The experiences I
used to think my family was marked for were not unique to us — they are
conditions shared by so many people who call this country home, driven by
decades of policy violence. It took me working within government and
seeing the policy-making process firsthand to realize that wasn’t the
case, and that led me to fight for equity and justice today.

I fight for universal childcare because of the years I spent in solitude
as a child.

I fight for women’s healthcare because I witnessed my mother’s pain
firsthand.

I fight for paid leave because my mother shouldn’t have had to work
through her pain.

I fight for a more humane criminal legal system because of the
circumstances keeping my father down — and many of the policies that
supported him in becoming the brilliant professor he is are policies I
fight for today.

I know how much these policies mean to people because I have lived the
very disparities they seek to address.

That’s why no matter how many twists and turns we endure on the path for
justice, I’ll never stop using my voice to champion bold, transformative
change. And I’ll never stop advocating for those who are ignored, left
out, and left behind. And I’m hoping you won’t either. [ [link removed] ]If you’re able,
please chip in
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Yours in service,

Ayanna





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