Pramila Jayapal Quotes
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Gays and lesbians gained rights in this country though activism and organizing, creating political space and demanding change so that lawmakers and justices could do what they knew was right. That organizing allowed Americans to get to know gays and lesbians as our daughters and sons, our neighbors, and our friends.
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After 9/11, I had just become an American citizen, and I remember sitting in front of my TV set watching the news of the attacks, in tears. I remember thinking to myself, 'Nothing is ever going to be the same in this country for people who look like me.'
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This is the country that we are turning over to young people, and there is going to be no country left at this rate because Trump is destroying the soul of who we are.
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I'm an organizer at heart. Organizers know that giving information, being in front of people, talking to people, to build our movement for the kind of country that we see is the most important thing.
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I have my chops in organizing, and I know how to create political space through movement building.
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We the people are sick and tired of the criminalization of immigrants, sick to our hearts to see Trump's family separation policies rip families apart across our country.
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Can you be a progressive if you're anti-immigrant but pro-choice? No!
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It took me 17 years to become a U.S. citizen.
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Every hour that goes by with family separation policies in effect is another hour that mothers weep thinking of their children, another hour that kids are fearfully wondering where their parents have been taken, another hour that trauma deepens.
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If there is one thing that resonates for women, it is that regardless of where we come from or what we look like, we want to be fully recognized for the breadth of our contributions.
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Individuals whose asylum claims have been accepted have gone on to become professors, soldiers in our military, artists, and more.
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Rather than name-calling and arguing about whether it is appropriate or not to employ radical tactics, we progressives need to start listening to each other.
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The fact that the immigration issue was the first thing Trump took aim at was a good thing for me, because it's what I spent my life working on. It became a place to see what we've become as a country, and how overreach can actually serve to bring those of us on the Left and Democrats together.
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When I was a little girl, my dad always said to me that I was going to be this great businesswoman, that I was going to be the CEO of IBM. So that's what I came into the world thinking, that I was going to go into the business world and make my mark there.
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We can never be afraid to stand up for what is right, no matter what others may say. And sometimes, if that means taking a lonely road, if what we are standing for is true, then perhaps moonlight or sunshine will light our way and make it less lonely.
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I love my district, the 37th Legislative District in Washington State, where I have lived for more than 20 years.
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Districts are really different across the country, but the more that people on the progressive Left show power at the ballot box - and reclassify some of the ideas that we've called 'progressive,' but that are really mainstream ideas, like college for all - the better.
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We have to remember that disagreeing with people is fine; it is dehumanizing people that is not, and when that happens, we have to be ready to speak up.
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History has always judged silence and complicity harshly in these times of moral consequence.
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I was on the committee that helped raise the minimum wage here in Seattle. I introduced a statewide bill to raise the minimum wage in Washington state my first year in the state senate, and I really believe that raising the federal minimum wage, while not the answer to everything, addresses a lot of the issues at the very bottom.
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Regardless of who is elected president in 2016, we all still live together. Each of us has a different role to play, but we all have to hold the collective space for movement-building together. It's the only way we move forward.
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We have to take our anger and rage and channel it into building, growing, loving, holding each other up.
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I'm conscious of my race and ethnicity in the legislature - it's hard not to be.
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What Republicans so cynically refer to as 'chain migration' is actually family-based immigration - a humane and compassionate policy of reunifying families. It allows spouses to be together, siblings to support each other, and children to be with their parents. It allows the immigrants who are already here to be successful.