Julia Salazar

Salazar was born in Miami on December 30, 1990.[4][5][6] Her mother is an American citizen by birth, and her father a naturalized American citizen from Colombia. Her parents divorced during her childhood.[7][8] Salazar was raised in a secular[9] conservative home[10] and at 18 registered as a Republican.[11] In March 2010, she registered with the Independence Party of New York, believing it meant she was an independent voter.[11]

Salazar attended Columbia University, but told The New York Times she did not earn a degree.[12][13][14] While there, Salazar was pro-life and a member of pro-Israel Christian student groups, but after a trip to Israel with Birthright Israel, her political views began to shift and she became involved in campus Jewish life and tenant organizing.[6][7][15] After college, she became a grassroots organizer and campaigned extensively for legislation around police accountability.[6]

Salazar speaking at a February 2020 rally for affordable housing

While attending college, Salazar worked as a nanny for four years on the Upper West Side and as a housecleaner,[16][17][18] and in combination with her study of Middle Eastern history this led her to become more class-conscious.[10] She began as an activist by organizing a tenant group[17][19][20][21] with which she launched a rent strike against poor conditions in her housing block.[10] She then worked at a social justice non-profit, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) as an organizer.[21][18][22][23][24]

Salazar speaking on a bill in the New York Senate chamber, March 2021

Salazar is a self-described democratic socialist,[37] a member of the Democratic Socialists of America,[27] and a staff organizer for Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.[25] She supports universal rent control in New York City,[38] decriminalization of sex work,[39][40] Medicare for All, the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and access to abortion services.[41] She also states that she supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement which advocates boycotting Israel.[5] She also supported the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019.[42][43]

Salazar characterizes democratic socialists as those who recognize capitalism to be an inherently oppressive and exploitative system and who actively work to dismantle it in favor of a socialist economic system. Contrasting progressives from democratic socialists, she identifies the former as those offering palliative solutions within capitalism (without advocating for changing the system); however, she highlights the overlap between the two groups in regard to short-term policy goals.[37]

She endorsed Bernie Sanders for the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.[44][45] For the 2021 New York City mayoral election, she endorsed Cathy Rojas, the candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.[46]

Armin Rosen of Tablet has questioned Salazar's Jewish identity.[8][47][7] Salazar describes herself as Jewish, has said that she has some Sephardic ancestry through her father, including a Sephardic surname, and that she started to explore Judaism while attending college.[7][9] According to Rosen, her brother claimed their father "never mentioned" any Sephardic heritage before his death,[8] though Salazar's mother stated that her husband's family had a Sephardic background,[7][14] and Salazar's former classmates attested to her Jewish faith in college.[47][48] Salazar accused Rosen of engaging in "race science" and claimed he had threatened to publish her mother’s personal information if she didn't cooperate.[49]

• List of Democratic Socialists of America who have held office in the United States

• Official website