How Did Astoria Become So Socialist?

"Achilles (Alan) Akrivos was born in a working-class neighborhood of Athens, to a family of left-wing activists. His relatives had fought the Nazis during the Second World War. One of his uncles had been part of the resistance to the right-wing military dictatorship that controlled Greece between 1967 and 1974. In 1982, when Akrivos was in his early twenties, he decided to move to the United States, settling in Astoria, a mostly Greek enclave in northwestern Queens."

"Around 2015, that started to change. Akrivos was a volunteer for Bernie Sanders's Presidential campaign, and he would often talk to voters under the elevated train station at Thirty-first Street, sitting at a long table with placards and socialist literature. "For the first time, we were not getting shouted at," he told me recently. His neighbors actually seemed curious. They were unhappy about the state of the world, the cost of things, and sometimes even with capitalism itself."

"In 2023, Astoria became notable for having a democratic socialist at every level of elected government. The neighborhood elected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Congress in 2018, and Zohran Mamdani to the State Assembly in 2020. In 2021, it elected Tiffany Cabán, an attorney endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, to the City Council, and in 2022, it elected Kristen Gonzalez, another D.S.A. endorsee, to the State Senate."

Akrivos emigrated from Athens to Astoria, Queens, a predominantly Greek neighborhood, in 1982. Local left-wing family history included resistance to Nazis and opposition to a right-wing Greek dictatorship. Around 2015 political attitudes in Astoria shifted as Bernie Sanders volunteers engaged voters and residents grew concerned about costs and capitalism. By 2018 and 2020 the neighborhood elected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani. Subsequent local wins put Democratic Socialists of America endorsees Tiffany Cabán and Kristen Gonzalez into city and state offices, resulting in democratic socialists holding positions across municipal and state levels.

Read at The New Yorker