Meet the Political Candidate Who Just Got Endorsed by the Leaders of the Women's March

Elle ^ | March 31, 2017 | Megan Friedman

[2ndDivisionVet]

A few days before the Women's March in January, congressional candidate Wendy Carrillo was getting friends together to head to the protest in her hometown of Los Angeles. Then she got a phone call that would change her life. The organizers wanted her to speak in Washington in front of a massive crowd, in one of the biggest protests in U.S. history. The opportunity gave her an unprecedented platform: She would be the only political candidate to speak at the Women's March in Washington. Now she's the first person running for national office to receive the outspoken support of the march's top organizers.

Carrillo is a 36-year-old activist and formerly undocumented immigrant. Along with 22 other contenders, she's running in a special election that will take place next Tuesday to replace Xavier Becerra, who has been named California's attorney general after Kamala Harris's election to the Senate. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two contenders will confront each other in a runoff race on June 6. If elected, Carrillo would represent the 34th district of California, which includes Los Angeles neighborhoods like Echo Park, Koreatown, and Boyle Heights, where Carrillo went to high school and recently bought a home. More dramatically, she would be the first formerly undocumented woman in Congress.

Carrillo had known some of the organizers before her big moment in Washington. But it's Carrillo's personal story that made them rally behind her. When she was just five years old, Carrillo fled civil war and violence in El Salvador, moving to East Los Angeles with her mother. She calls herself an "unrecognized refugee," because the U.S. government did not accept her family's request for asylum. Carrillo only learned she was undocumented when she was 13. When she reached her early 20s, after lots of work, she became a U.S. citizen. After that, she spoke out about social justice and environmental issues, both as a journalist and radio host and behind the scenes in the political world. Even still, she never went public about her own struggles until she decided to run for office.

"I had never been open about my story," she says. "Very few people, close friends, actually knew about me fleeing violence and everything that meant at the time. And my work that is focused on social justice and equity work, it has never been about me."

Previously, her work was as a journalist and host, helming a radio show called Knowledge Is Power, which talked about issues facing communities of color in Los Angeles. She also worked for the startup Reported.ly as a West Coast anchor, and reported on immigration and social justice issues.

All that changed when she decided to report on the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in South Dakota. She intended to go for just a week or so, but she ended up staying for two months, and Carrillo saw herself transform from a reporter to a full-fledged member of the movement. "I was upset at the lack of political will from our government," she said. "Just wondering, where is the president? Where is Congress? Why is this happening?"

(TWEET-AT-LINK)

As she left Standing Rock, she learned Becerra, her local congressman, would be vacating his seat. Then, a friend created a "Carrillo for Congress" sign on Facebook, and she shared it, commiserating that the candidates would likely all be career politicians. She thought nothing of it, and kept driving through South Dakota until she went to check out Mount Rushmore.

As she stood at the monument, staring at sculptures of former presidents, Carrillo got a phone call from a friend. Hundreds of people had left messages on Facebook, urging Carrillo to run for office and pledging their support. "It was very clear to me at that moment what I needed to do," she said.

Now, she and her mostly women staffers spend every day knocking on doors, reaching out to local young people, and getting the word out throughout the district. Her campaign ad even got the attention of white supremacist David Duke, and Carrillo says the hate they received was startling.

(TWEET-AT-LINK)

The vast majority of candidates running in this special election are Democrats, so it's not necessarily a referendum on Trump, but it's still a litmus test of the progressive ideals of the Women's March and the political clout the group might have going forward.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)

The March as a whole can't endorse candidates because of its nonprofit status, but Carrillo says the support from four national co-chairs and the artistic director as individuals means a lot. "I think it's a testament to the power that we're feeling right now in the streets," Carrillo says. "The Women's March has the potential to have incredible impact in this election and across the country." Carrillo is the first national political candidate to be endorsed by all the co-chairs and the artistic director of the Women's March. (Some of the leaders endorsed Keith Ellison as the head of the Democratic National Committee, but that election was not open to the public.)

Filmmaker Paola Mendoza, artistic director of the Women's March, decided to endorse Carrillo after working with her for eight years. When she and activist Jose Antonio Vargas went to McAllen, Texas, to film a documentary about unaccompanied minors caught at the border, Carrillo was there to help when Vargas, who is undocumented, was detained by border patrol. "Wendy used her platform as a radio host to get his story out on a national level," Mendoza says. "I think that is the heart of who Wendy is."

Mendoza says that when it came time to plan the speakers' lineup for the March, the list of people interested was overwhelming. But they chose Carrillo because she was fighting to improve lives in the community she grew up in. "What we attempted to do with the Women's March was to choose people who were really working from a very authentic space," says Tamika Mallory, national co-chair of the march. "She was exactly the type of person we needed to have on the program―not just talking the talk, but walking the walk."

Mallory says that one of the goals of the movement going forward is to educate voters ahead of big elections like the 2018 midterm races. They also are partnering with organizations like EMILY's List and Higher Heights for America to make sure women who want to run for office get the training they need. But if a candidate wants the backing of the March, they have to put in the work, like Carrillo did. "The onus is on the candidates to be part of the grassroots work of the Women's March," Mallory says. "The people within the march, individually and organically, [will respond] to the person they see on the ground with us."

Carrillo is definitely doing the work on the ground. Her campaign participated in the Women's Strike in March; she and her staffers wore red and protested in downtown Los Angeles. "This is the resistance," she said. "We get to be the first response to an administration that has cared very little about women's rights."

(TWEET-AT-LINK)

And Carrillo has some strong words of advice for women like her who felt inspired to run for office post-Trump. "I'm not waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and tell me it's my turn," she says. "As women we have too much self-doubt about our skill set and what we're capable of. And ultimately it is not okay to just simply run, we need to win."

[BenLurkin]

Endorsed by Hamas?

[brucedickinson]

she’s not a tranny? Why the hell would anyone vote for her. These days you have to be a tranny, practicing satanist or billionaire tranny satanist to even get any attention.

[jazminerose]

Did she pick up her own trash at the protest?

An endorsement from Linda Sansour? The one who’s livid because states keep banning Sharia?

Every single day I am so grateful that we fled SoCal in 2015. Best thing we ever did.

[jazminerose]

Did she pick up her own trash at the protest?

An endorsement from Linda Sansour? The one who’s livid because states keep banning Sharia?

Every single day I am so grateful that we fled SoCal in 2015. Best thing we ever did.

[BBell]

When she reached her early 20s, after lots of work, she became a U.S. citizen.

Oh the irony.

[donna]

This means Wendy Carrillo is running to support Sharia Law for America, right?

[BBell]

My God she even has the raised fist. She probably has Che Guevara t-shirts in her closet.

[Rastus]

Close, but no

[Doogle]

....sounds like Bill Ayers wrote her bio too

[Wuli]

Her story demonstrates what - intentionally - happens at a lot of long-winding protests, like the encampment of protestors over the Dakota Pipeline; a lot of indoctrination goes on. She thinks she learned a lot at that Protest, but failed to learn it was not backed by the local tribe, just outside “native American” activists.