Updated: December 13, 2020 4:16:35 pm
Nithya raman
Last month, Nithya Raman made the unthinkable possible. She became the first city councilwoman to unseat an incumbent in Los Angeles. But before his historic victory, Raman, 39, trained in urban planning and governance and has been a community leader in both India and the United States.
Born in Thrissur, Raman left for the United States with her family at the age of six. Later, she would live in Chennai (her husband’s family hails from Madurai and Tenkasi) and start the Transparent Chennai initiative. It enables slum dwellers, through the use of maps and data, to access basic services such as clean toilets and drinking water, and to find a voice in local governance.
In 2013, the Harvard University and MIT graduate moved to Los Angeles and worked with the City of Los Angeles Administrative Officer. It found that much of the city’s spending on the homeless, about $ 100 million, was used to arrest people who were on services, outreach, or safe housing. In 2017, he co-founded the SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, to provide food, clothing, health care, housing, and job support to the homeless.
He had heard stories of people having to move out of neighborhoods due to high rents and saw how protests over George Floyd’s death in May marked the dividing lines in police funding and brutality. It helped her turn the conversation about homelessness from being a problem to providing the tools to help these people. As the former CEO of Time’s Up Entertainment, born out of the #MeToo movement, she also focused on the fairness and safety of women in Hollywood.
His race to the primaries and elections meant knocking on 80,000 doors in the 4th Ward, practically downtown Los Angeles, with more than 2,000 volunteers by his side. Unlike other corporate-funded campaigns, Raman chose to target people. She talks about how she became a community advocate, her campaign in Los Angeles’ diverse neighborhood, and how the “outsider” tag helped her win. Excerpts:
How did land rights and homelessness issues become your areas of focus?
I was in Delhi before the Commonwealth Games (2010) and had read about the Yamuna Pushta (embankment) evictions where more than 100,000 people lost their homes. I started working with slum organizations, fighting evictions and requesting basic services. Seeing how government decisions negatively affected the lives and livelihoods of so many people made me realize the importance of urban governance. That pushed me to study urban planning.
What prompted the urban planner to contest the elections and what has this trip meant?
I was so frustrated with my elected representatives and how little they were doing to address the city’s biggest issues, especially in a city like Los Angeles where our local government has so much power and control. Finally, I decided to run myself. For me, going into politics was an extension of my activism. I am in this role because I want to be able to implement the changes that I have been fighting for as a community leader. I had to learn to communicate policy ideas that could be understood by voters, using tools like social media, videos, and short public speeches. I even had to reach out to people who didn’t always agree with me and convince them to give me a chance.
Nithya Raman at an election rally. (Courtesy: Nithya Raman)
Did being an ‘outsider’ in politics work in your favor?
Somehow I was lucky enough to ignore the way things are supposed to be done. If I had known more about what people say it takes to win a race, I might not have faced a headline, nor would I have faced someone so incredibly well funded.
What were the unpredictable moments of your campaign?
There were so many! Having built an incredibly effective door-to-door campaign operation in the primaries, we wanted to completely transform our approach, during the pandemic, to the general election. For example, to make up for not being able to have one-on-one conversations, we had volunteers write postcards (about 60,000) and people hand out bags of literature to their neighbors with handwritten sticky notes.
My favorite was when my then 4-year-old twins, at events during elementary school, would interrupt me during my speech to ask for snacks, or would run in circles around me as I spoke. I had to learn to stay focused.
In the highly polarized US elections, where were the intersections among voters?
In a city like Los Angeles, almost everyone is a Democrat, so the differences between politicians do not coincide with traditional party lines. For me, the differences between voters narrowed down to two main axes: between renters, who faced increased housing insecurity and were very concerned about rising rents and housing supply, and homeowners, who had concerns different But they all cared deeply about homelessness, traffic, and air quality, and they wanted more effective government.
Your fight with opponent David Ryu has been called the “future of Los Angeles politics.”
This was the first election in which the municipal elections were moved to be held at the same time as the federal elections. In our district, due to our extensive voter outreach, voter turnout really soared, much more than in other city council districts, from 24,000 in the last general election for this seat to more than 130,000 voters. It shows that the larger electorate in Los Angeles is very progressive. Elected officials and future candidates will need to consider this new progressive electorate.
He defeated a sitting council member for the first time in Los Angeles. What helped people make that decision?
On the issues that matter most to people, the city has moved in the wrong direction. As a result, defending the change was easier than before. I also ran at a time when I saw a deep interest in local politics due to the protests against Floyd’s murder. Additionally, LA has a very unique neighborhood structure. It has sometimes been described as a collection of smaller towns and villages rather than as one big city. One of the biggest challenges was creating a real sense of community and local connection.
Many more people expected the local government to drive change and were receptive to a candidate who spoke more directly on these issues. I think our campaign was able to change or improve the way many residents interacted with the city.
What awaits you when you take office?
We are facing another wave of COVID-19. My immediate focus will be to ensure that residents and small businesses have the resources they need to cope with this increase.
.
