AOC FTW!

[ehrnst]

106. Well, not so much...

AOC's parents bought a home in an affluent suburb in Westchester county, Yorktown Heights, from the time she was school aged, because they wanted a better public school education than she would get if she grew up in the Bronx. Her father owned a business, and when she was in college he died, and that's when the real struggle with money for her family started.

The bartending job was a second job to help out with extra money for her mother's bills while the estate was in probate, while being the Educational Director at at the National Hispanic Institute, which is a professional, not a working class, low paying job. She graduated from Boston University. The "bartender from the Bronx to congresswoman" narrative makes for great campaigning, but it has it's own pitfalls, because there are who dismiss her as "a bartender," then she gets irritated and then brings up the rest of her resume. When one campaign on that, one needs to expect that it could come back and bite them.

Obama was also not from a working class background. His mother was highly educated, and he lived with his grandparents - with his grandmother being the vice-president of a local bank, going to a very prestigious prep school on scholarship from the time he was 10. And no, he didn't take working class low income jobs like bartending, even between undergrad and law school. He never claimed to be from the working class or have taken low paying jobs - his career identity was a "Community Organizer" because that's was his day job, his vocation.

Someone who truly grew up in a Bronx working class background, held low paying jobs and made it to Congress was Alan Grayson.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Grayson#Early_life_and_education

I have a master's degree, but worked in various restaurants and temp jobs out of school, because I took out loans. I would never state that my carreer identity was "a waitress" if I was to run for office at that time. I would say that I had worked low paying jobs, and know what it's like, but would never call myself working class, because I have an advanced degree, as do both my parents.

I would also not say that I was 'from' somewhere that I had not lived since I was five years old.