The Chicago Aldermanic Elections are taking place on February 28, and the campaigning is reaching its climax. One of the Wright College Community’s wards, the 45th, has a particularly competitive six-candidate race.
The Wright Times had the pleasure of sitting down with one of the candidates, Ana Santoyo, to discuss her platform.
A City Colleges of Chicago graduate and longtime community activist, Santoyo became involved with the antiwar movement immediately following her high school graduation in 2010. Continuing with her fight for socialism, Santoyo now finds herself in a combative battle for the 45th’s alderperson position.
What got you involved with politics and community activism?
“I am running as a socialist, and that is a part of it. I wear that badge with pride. I’m a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a mother of two currently nine months postpartum, and I’m a worker and a community activist. For over a decade I’ve been organizing for anything against war, against police brutality, for workers’ rights, I’m a proud AFSCME union member as well, and I’ve been like you know, in the struggle for my union, for LGBTQ rights, for women’s rights and more, so it’s not really one thing but people that really know me from the streets, I guess, because that’s where my campaign was formed and where it’s going to stay.
“This is a fighting campaign … and we’re bringing a fighting program to the 45th Ward. I’m running on a ten-point program that I think speaks to the most pressing needs of the city from public safety to affordable housing, I mentioned worker’s rights and more. I’m also a member of the justice for Anthony Alvarez campaign. I’ve been organizing with his family in and around the ward since his murder by 16th district officer Evan Solano in 2021. So, my campaign has grown out of that movement that has been fighting for justice on that front as well.
“Like I’ve said, I’ve been in the streets since the fight for 15 movement when people were fighting for $15 in the union in 2013. At the time I was also an underpaid college graduate working part-time at a law office, Starbucks, I was also a tutor, so I think the demands for dignity and respect are some of the most important aspects of the campaign that I identify with,
and since that time that I got involved in activism I’ve stayed up to date with struggles for organizing efforts around police and workers rights mostly … The fight for socialism is a kind of all-encompassing thing.”
Why did you decide to run for alderperson?
“It's kinda like the ‘business as normal’ that’s running while we still have poverty wages, while there’s still unaffordable housing, while there’s still police murder, like just in the past two weeks, there’s been police murder in Chicago. After we had those historic marches where people marched all over this country after George Floyd was murdered in 2020, there was a shift. I don’t think that’s the reason I’m running; I like fighting as a socialist, we ran to win, we’re running a campaign to win, but we’re also running a campaign to build a movement as well. I always say like, the campaign isn’t just about me, it’s about the working class and what we can achieve together. Even being in office, we’re going to meet and organize people to carry out a political program … We want to be able to talk about our rights as working class people with our neighbors, that’s why our campaign slogan is ‘a better ward is possible,’ but I’m running because the far-right won’t go away, it has to be defeated. We won’t be able to reject the politics of Gardiner, the current alderperson, unless we present our own alternatives. The Proudboys, Blue Lives Matter supporters, and the short-sighted corrupt business owners in the ward who feel empowered now, have to be confronted directly if we want them to go away. When Gardiner is defeated, electing someone with wavering politics will just give the worst forces in our ward four years to regroup and get another candidate in office. When I win, we will not be bridging the gap to the far-right, we will be defending our LGBTQ siblings, our immigrant siblings, and all other oppressed workers in the ward.
“Like I said, I have a background that many people can relate to. As a Latina with immigrant parents, I really do think I share similar experiences of many of the new families moving to the ward. I wouldn't say it was just, you know, one thing, but, I will say that’s the kind of a difference between like the other candidates, like I'm not afraid of speaking out against power. Like I said, I've been in the streets, calling for justice for the murder of Anthony Alvarez in this unfairly called ‘pro-cop’ neighborhood. I’ve called out Gardiner when he was just walking down my street, I have spoken directly to the police board, I’ve spoken to the district attorney about how they have failed to bring justice in Anthony's case. … The people don't have to be afraid that when I'm in city hall, I will be swayed or scared by the powers that be because, hopefully, people have a chance to join me and act when facing power as well. So, I really do think that there's just so much to win in our ward, and that it’s really not one thing but I think having socialist solutions to the problems that workers face is really the biggest thing that's driving me because, so many times people don't feel like, and it's understandable, like they don't have a voice.”
What are the three core tenets of your campaign?
“This is a socialist campaign. You know, I really adhere to the fact that this system is not working for the majority of poor and working class and oppressed people… This ward is seen as very conservative but the truth is that the policies that we're talking about are, you know, jobs, education, healthcare, housing: all things that benefit a majority of people in the city, including those who live in the 45th Ward.
“I would say that the next thing would be you know You know the site the fight for safe Equitable and housing and really to demand nothing less than that.
“The final one would be the end to police terror in our communities, and to, you know, fight for justice for Anthony Alvarez and all that have experienced police terror in our city overall.”
What do you have to offer that your opponents do not?
“We're running on a 10-point program. I really see the other candidates as, you know, promising an empty platitude. Our first point in our 10-point program is no more police terror in our communities, followed with safe equitable housing, and also speaking to the nationwide issue of the right to abortion and health care for all … We are living in a time where we not only have to, you know, say we're for things but we have to defend them. We have to defend our right to abortion, healthcare, jobs, housing, wages, and unions: these are all human rights … I will not continue to just accept that things are the norm, right. I’m raising two young people, I have a two-year-old and a nine-month-old, and like I said I’m the only minimum wage working running. I fight for them but I also fight for my class to embolden them. My campaign really did not start when petitioning started and my campaign will also not end on February 28th.”
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