51ºÚÁÏÍø

A year ago, I became the first Arizonan of my generation to assume office in city or county government. If elected, I’d be the first in our State Legislature.

While being young itself is not inherently impressive, I believe Gen Z brings something meaningful to the table, including the courage to pursue change without compromising our values, a unique ability to push boundaries of what others thought was possible, and an instinct to effectively communicate en masse in a digital era.

As someone who came of age online, I also directed anger toward the Trump administration in public. How I went about that then is not how I would do so today.

But I’m not running for the top seat in a perfection contest, and I refuse to solely voice these frustrations online as the decisions of our elected officials carry an immediate, personal, and increasingly violent impact on my community. Political violence is something we endure in many ways, and the imperative to confront it is why I am running for the Arizona State Senate.

When I was in elementary school, we lost Christina-Taylor Green in the January 8 assassination attempt targeting then-Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. In my eyes, she was a fellow student council member whose life was taken while politicians remained unwilling to act on gun reform.

For much of my childhood, my mom was undocumented. I watched her endure prejudice during periods that mirror today — when political culture treats families like mine in inhumane ways. Despite that, my mom worked hard to move my brother and me to a better part of town. Despite her best intentions, I faced prejudice of my own as a Latino student in a predominantly white school, and as the only openly gay person in any classroom. As the 2016 election concluded, hostility towards folks like me emboldened.

In the midst of my undergrad at the University of Arizona, I was laid off from a student job as the world grappled with the financial fallout of the pandemic, made all the worse by a lack of public health leadership at the state and federal levels.

I took a congressional internship in Washington, D.C., where my first day was January 6, 2021. I arrived in the nation’s capital on the day of the insurrection and watched an attack unfold on our democracy. It changed the trajectory of my life. I dropped out shortly after.

In the years that followed, in quieter but no less real ways, I continued to endure political violence. My family navigated complicated systems to support my little brother in overcoming addiction, in a state that dedicated opioid settlement funds to the private prison system rather than prevention and rehabilitation programs for Arizonans. Around the same time, my family experienced sexual violence and dealt firsthand with the devastating consequences of Republican legislators criminalizing reproductive healthcare. My family had to cross the border to get the help they needed.

Then, I lost my little brother to the fentanyl crisis. He was 19 years old, and an hour after unknowingly speaking to him for the last time, I watched a coroner roll him away.

I’ve watched political inaction, ideological cruelty, and public disinvestment cost the people and communities I love their safety, health and lives.

That is the context I bring to this moment as I watch my opponent’s record. Over the last four years, Representative Alma Hernandez has voted with Republicans more than 150 times — the most among any Democrat in the Legislature. Still, our district leadership stopped short of a censure to afford her an opportunity for corrective action. She ignored the opportunity.

This moment demands someone who’ll fiercely advocate for and defend the rights of our community. I refuse to believe that person is someone who has weaponized her power to inflict harm against Arizonans, including myself as recently as last week, and whose actions have repeatedly placed her at odds with Arizona students, teachers, retirees, respected neighborhood leaders, Democratic party activists, and the people she was entrusted to represent.

I take pride in knowing her record is under scrutiny after eight years of misalignment, but Tucson still deserves better.