Why I’m Running to Represent Brooklyn’s 38th District in the New York City Council

Dear Brooklyn,

I am an immigrant New Yorker, proud parent, and advocate who has dedicated his life to social justice. Born in Mexico and raised on both sides of the border, I’ve spent the last 15 years working for Sunset Park and fighting for a fairer Brooklyn.

I began my work in Sunset Park at age 20, volunteering to teach English at Mixteca Organization — an immigrant services non-profit in Sunset Park and nexus for Brooklyn’s Mexican community. Mixteca quickly became a second home and changed my life forever when the organization’s founder, Dr. Gabriel Rincon, took a chance on an enthusiastic, recent college grad, and hired me as the organization’s first full-time Executive Director.

This early experience cemented my life-long commitment to social justice and set me on a path of service and activism that’s included working with the New Kings Democrats to take on Brooklyn’s political establishment, organizing to protect Sunset Park’s residents from displacement, supporting New York City’s small businesses in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, and directing the Immigration Advocates Network — a national network of nonprofit legal advocates dedicated to expanding access to justice for immigrants.

Today, after more than a decade of building community in Brooklyn and Sunset Park, I’m announcing my campaign for the New York City Council to represent the 38th Council District in 2021 (encompassing the neighborhoods of Sunset Park, Red Hook, Greenwood Heights, and portions of Borough Park, Dyker Heights, and Windsor Terrace).

Poverty, police brutality, and the COVID-19 crisis have all disproportionately impacted New York’s communities of color, immigrants, and the poor. With unemployment, food insecurity, and rent putting an enormous strain on all New Yorkers, we need elected representatives with the courage to implement radical solutions to meet our city’s unprecedented challenges. I am ready to be that representative.

I’m running to represent the 38th Council District because I love this community and know the power of its people. From the Red Hook Houses to Brooklyn’s Chinatown and La Quinta Avenida, the 38th Council District is a melting pot of cultures that reflects the best of New York City and the working-class and immigrant communities that make our city what it is.

For decades, our elected officials have let private interests dictate decisions around land use, education, healthcare, and criminal justice, at the expense of communities of color and working families. I am ready to use my lifetime of experience as an immigrant advocate, community organizer, and civic leader to help create a fairer city for all New Yorkers.

I believe that radical structural change is not only necessary, but possible, and that together we can:

• Guarantee housing
• End food insecurity
• Build worker power
• Abolish our police state
• Expand immigrant rights
• Achieve educational equity
• Fight for environmental justice

Our campaign will be one of community, bold ideas, and radical hope. It will be inclusive, engaging, and centered on the needs and aspirations of all of our district’s communities — and in particular the most vulnerable. But above all, our campaign will be about justice and dismantling the structures that keep too many New Yorkers from their full potential.

We live in the greatest city in the world. It’s time to build the fairest city in the world.

I hope you’ll join me on this campaign to build a New York for all of us.

In Unity,
Rodrigo Camarena
2021 Democratic Candidate for New York City Council District 38