In the restless pulse of New York City, where immigrant labour sustains luxury and struggle exists in the shadows of skyscrapers, something remarkable unfolded this summer. A young man named Zohran Kwame Mamdani – son of an Indian mother and a Ugandan father – won the Democratic primary for mayor.
His victory wasn't just electoral. It was emotional. Symbolic. A statement from the margins.
Mamdani didn't just earn votes. He earned trust. And much of that trust came from people often overlooked in America's political theater – immigrant families, working-class South Asians, street vendors, cab drivers, home health aides, grocery clerks.
During his victory speech, he did not celebrate with polished elites or industry donors. Instead, he thanked "Bangladeshi aunties."
That detail alone says volumes.
Witnessing the rise
As an outsider – an observer rather than a voter – I have watched Mamdani's political journey not as a participant, but as someone who recognises its meaning.
He currently serves as Assembly Member for District 36 in Queens – a vibrant patchwork of cultures and histories. His 2020 win made him one of New York's first South Asian and Muslim socialists in state government. But he didn't climb the party ranks.
He built his platform as a housing counselor, standing beside tenants facing eviction, listening to their anxieties, and learning their realities.
His politics were never abstract. They were rooted in survival. His work reflected an understanding that policy is personal. It's in the price of rent, the availability of MetroCards, the silence of an unresolved immigration case. These aren't political points—they're lived experiences.
A movement, not a machine
In following his campaign, I saw not just strategy, but sincerity.
Bangladeshi-American volunteers walked miles in scorching heat, knocking on doors and delivering leaflets in Bangla. Others sent campaign videos through WhatsApp groups that stretched from Jackson Heights to Sylhet. This wasn't electoral enthusiasm – it was community investment.
Mamdani's message traveled not just through polished speeches, but through kitchen conversations. His campaign spoke in languages people understood – literally and figuratively. He met people not at podiums, but in places of worship, local parks, and apartments where tenants had fought together for fair housing.
When older women—those "aunties" he thanked—cried at his victory, they weren't crying for a politician. They were crying for a long-dismissed possibility: that power might finally recognize their presence.
The politics of care
Mamdani's platform is ambitious: fare-free public transportation, universal childcare, rent stabilisation, cooperative grocery stores, climate justice. But none of this reads like radicalism on the ground.
For many immigrant families, they're simply necessities. His proposals echo the logic of those who know what it means to stretch every dollar, to balance care work with wage labor, to navigate systems that rarely translate their realities.
He doesn't separate subway delays from storm floods or food prices from housing insecurity. He connects the dots in a way that resonates with diasporas who have long known that the local and global are intertwined.
The storm he faces
This rise, of course, invites resistance. From the more centrist wings of his own party, Mamdani is painted as idealistic – too bold, too "left." He challenges traditional budget priorities, asking why policing receives more resources than education or housing.
The backlash is fiercer still from the political right. Some opponents label him as dangerous, foreign, or un-American. The irony is that his agenda – focused on dignity, justice, and community well-being – is perhaps one of the most authentically American in intent, if not always in tone.
A broader meaning
Zohran Mamdani's journey is not just about one election or one city. As someone observing from the margins of citizenship, I see in his rise a broader story, one about who gets to belong, who gets to lead, and who gets seen.
For communities like the Bangladeshi diaspora – so often reduced to statistics, stereotypes, or background roles – his win feels like a re-entry into the American narrative. Not through tokenism, but through tenacity.
It shows that aunties knocking on doors and youth translating ballots for their parents are not just helpers of democracy. They are democracy.
This isn't the climax. It's the prologue to a new kind of leadership – one that listens first, speaks humbly, and walks alongside those it serves.
And if this moment says anything, it's this: The people who made Zohran's victory possible weren't powerbrokers. They were neighbors. Workers. Mothers. Aunties.
And their power, long underestimated, is finally being recognised.
The writer is the US bureau chief of Dhaka Stream and former Fulbright Hubert H Humphrey Fellow, University of Maryland
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