With the city of St Paul holding city council elections this Tuesday 5 November, Twin Cities DSA would like to strongly recommend volunteer support for Nelsie Yang, candidate for city council in Ward 6.
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Decision Process
Twin Cities DSA did not host formal endorsement meetings this year available to rank & file members to voice their questions, recommendations and ultimately vote on where to dedicate chapter resources and encourage volunteers to concentrate their donated labor. However, a group of chapter members approached the elected leadership asking for an urgent decision and public statement on supporting this campaign in the final days. The chapter members included St Paul residents, comrades working with the Nelsie campaign, and people with close ties to some of the communities that Nelsie Yang hopes to represent.
With a great deal of deliberation packed into a short period of time, the Steering Committee of Twin Cities DSA would like to formally request that any member of our chapter or member of the community sympathetic to our efforts, to: (1) direct any available volunteer hours available to assist the Nelsie Yang campaign in Ward 6 of St Paul and (2) post their support on social media.
Sign-up Here: https://secure.ngpvan.com/p/JjsHsM6BHUqPHxKvqHbOAA2
Nelsie Yang for Ward 6
Nelsie is a working-class Hmong-American woman who was a Bernie delegate in 2016, and for the past year, we have had members of DSA and several socialists of color helping run her campaign in the East Side of St. Paul.
Nelsie’s parents were refugees fleeing war torn Laos, who settled first in Duluth then north Minneapolis and finally the Frogtown neighborhood of St Paul. Even after her family was able to gain some economic stability, the housing crisis of 2008 stripped away the modest gains her parents had achieved. These hardships, combined with reconnecting with the family and communities her parents had been forced to leave behind in Laos, drove Nelsie to dedicate herself to building her community and towards building justice within her community. Starting with city elections, then becoming the youngest Hmong Bernie delegate in 2016, and the fight for $15 back in St Paul, Nelsie has become a tireless fighter towards justice.
Ward 6 is in the northern portion of East Side, St Paul where numerous communities of color call home. It covers a large part of the Hmong communities that have made a home for themselves across the northern half of St Paul. Today there are many systemic issues facing the working class communities in and around Ward 6. Some of the most pressing issues that Nelsie has focused on in her campaign have been:
– Economic Justice
– Affordable Housing
– Criminal Justice Reform
– Infrastructure Equity & Safety
– Climate Justice
More on Nelsie’s vision: https://www.nelsieyang.com/vision
Working class communities never struggle in a vacuum. Those struggles are always in the shadow of organized, intentional capitalist interests. The labor of the communities in Ward 6 prepares our food, constructs our buildings, cares for our sick and so much more to keep our entire local economy humming. However, the wealth those communities create is never theirs to keep. Instead, the working people of Ward 6 must give far too much of their wealth to distant owners, absentee landlords and gentrifying developers. The campaign that has united around Nelsie Yang seeks to begin using the levers of city government towards a more just system.
Despite all the well-financed interests hoping to maintain a status quo with only minor changes, Nelsie’s campaign has been able to hold its own by being powered from and by the working class communities of Ward 6…but it is a very close race!
So comrades, we ask for any of you with spare time to please dedicate it to the Nelsie Yang for Ward 6 campaign. In the final days of a close local campaign, a couple hours from some fresh volunteers can make all the difference. Please take time in the next couple days to help a true fighter for the working class elected to St Paul city council.
Please help us elect Nelsie Yang in Ward 6:
https://secure.ngpvan.com/p/JjsHsM6BHUqPHxKvqHbOAA2
– Twin Cities DSA Steering Committee