Carlos Ramirez-Rosa
Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (born February 18, 1989) is an American politician. He has served as the Alderperson for Chicago's 35th Ward since May 18, 2015. He was first elected to the Council in 2015, become one of the chamber's youngest members ever elected at age 26.[1] He was re-elected in 2019 and 2023.[2]
Carlos Ramirez-Rosa
Ramirez-Rosa is a member of the Chicago City Council's Progressive Reform Caucus,[3] and was elected to serve as a delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention as a Bernie Sanders supporter.[4] He served as an Illinois State Vice-chair for Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign.[5]
He is a self-described democratic socialist and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. He joined the Democratic Socialists of America in March 2017.[6]
Early life, education, and career[edit]
Ramirez-Rosa was born on February 18, 1989, in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Chicago Public Schools and graduated from Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, where he was his senior class president.[7] He then attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he was an elected member of the Illinois Student Senate. As an elected student senator, he supported funding for women and LGBT student programs,[8] campus green energy policies,[9] and fair treatment of university employees.[10] He graduated from the University of Illinois in 2011.[11]
After graduating, he served as a congressional caseworker in the office of Congressman Luis Gutiérrez.[12] After working for Congressman Gutiérrez, he worked as a family support network organizer with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights until he ran for alderman in 2015.[11]
On April 8, 2014, Ramirez-Rosa was arrested while attempting to block a deportation bus leaving Broadview Detention Center in Broadview, Illinois. The arrest was part of the "Not One More" campaign to pressure President Barack Obama to stop deportations. Ramirez-Rosa said at the time of his arrest: "I'm a U.S. citizen. I don’t fear deportation, but I know that when you're taking hard-working and decent people, putting them in detention centers and then putting them on buses and separating them from their families, that is an act of injustice."[13]
Prior to his election to the Chicago City Council, Ramirez-Rosa also served as an elected community representative to the Avondale-Logandale Local School Council.[14]
He is the nephew of Cook County Judge Ramon Ocasio III,[15] and Chicanas of 18th Street author and activist Magda Ramirez-Castaneda.[16] Ramirez-Rosa's mother is of Mexican descent and his father is of Puerto Rican descent.[17]