In 2017, when Ocasio-Cortez challenged the Democratic Caucus Chair, Joe Crowley, she became the first person since 2004 to do so. She had faced a big financial disadvantage during the campaign; as she spent $194,000 to the Crowley campaign’s $3.4 million. Our staff is currently working remotely. You can contact our team by calling 718-662-5970, Monday-Friday from 9 AM - 5 PM.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an American politician who is the Representative for New York’s 14th congressional district. The district covers the Eastern part of the Bronx and North-central Queens in New York City. Alexandria is quite close to the people of New York, and it is viewed as the main reason why she upset 10-time incumbent John Crowley in the 2018 midterm election primaries.

Ocasio-Cortez beat Anthony Pappas in the November general election to become the youngest woman to serve in the United States Congress. Alexandria is an excellent speaker with strong ideals that endear her to the people. This piece will look at her personal life. It will focus on her relationship, her experiences growing up, her family, and her religious background.

We can confirm that Alexandria isn’t married, but she is in a serious relationship.

Her partner Riley Roberts is very supportive of her political career

Alexandria and Roberts met during their time in college, and they have been together ever since. They did break up for a while, but they swiftly got back together. Roberts is a web developer, and he doesn’t take an active part in politics. However, he does a lot to ensure that Alexandria is successful.

In 2018, Alexandria and Roberts lived off of his salary after Ocasio-Cortez quit her job to focus on politics. She told The New York Times:

“I have three months without a salary before I’m a member of Congress. So, how do I get an apartment? Those little things are very real. We’re kind of dealing with the logistics of it day by day, but I’ve really been just kind of squirreling away and then hoping it gets me to January.”

Roberts might not be directly involved in politics, but he has come under the spotlight several times. In January 2019, Alexandria posted a tweet saying:

“GOP have been losing their mind + frothing at the mouth all week, so this was just a matter of time. There is also a Daily Mail reporter (Ruth Styles) going to my boyfriend’s relative’s homes + offering them cash for ‘stories’. Women in leadership face more scrutiny. Period.”

Riley is so quiet about his relationship with Alexandria, that he is often mistaken for a volunteer rather than her partner. However, Alexandria’s family is not mistaken about Riley’s place in Ocasio-Cortez’s life. Alexandria’s mom told The Daily Mail that she hopes that they will get married soon:

“I love him. He is the most loving, supporting person I’ve seen. He helped her tremendously during the election. They’ve been together four years now, after they reconnected from a college breakup. I know they love children, and they do very well with children from the family. So, I hope they get married soon.”

MIT named an asteroid after her after she impressed during a Science and Engineering Fair

Alexandria was born on 13th October 1989 to Blanca Ocasio-Cortez and Sergio Ocasio. Her father was born into a Puerto-Rican family while her mom was born in Puerto Rico. Alexandria spent the first five years of her life with her family in the Bronx of New York City.

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez Parents Wealth

Ocasio-Cortez lived with her extended family in the Bronx, but her father felt that the family needed to move to give Alexandria a chance to go to a better school. Her extended family chipped in, and Alexandria and her family moved to a two-bedroomed house in Yorktown heights.

The move to suburban New York exposed Alexandria to the wealth disparity in New York. She told The Intercept;

“My extended family – my tias, my grandparents, everybody – all chipped in so we could get a down payment on a tiny home 40 minutes north of the Bronx, in a school district that was a little bit better than the one I was born into. It was the reality of my life. That 40-minute drive, from where I went to school to where my family spent their time, kind of told the whole story.”

Alexandria – nicknamed ‘Sandy’ during her high school days – was a brilliant intellectual, especially in the science field. At the age of 17, she emerged second in the Microbiology category during the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Her project detailed the effects of anti-oxidants on the lifespan of roundworms. Her science teacher, Michael Blueglass, talked to The New York Times about the town board’s reaction to her project:

“One of the administrators wasn’t there at the beginning and came in after she started, and he said to the superintendent, ‘What company is she from?’ The superintendent said, ‘She’s a 17-year-old senior in our high school.’ She presented herself, verbally, visually, everything as though she was a 30-year-old professional presenter business woman…”

MIT rewarded Alexandria’s efforts by naming an asteroid after her. 23238 Ocasio-Cortez is still floating around in space.

She was involved in a long legal battle to settle her father’s estate

2008 was a difficult year for Alexandria and her family. She was an undergrad student at Boston University when she received news stating that her father was seriously ill. Alexandria took the next flight home to see her ailing dad, who died on 9th September 2008. She spent a week with her family and then flew back to Boston to continue her studies.

She told The Intercept that she didn’t have a lot of time mourn. The tragic event seemed to motivate Alexandria to do better in school. Her grades improved, and she was soon on the Dean’s list. However, the situation at home was not so rosy. The economy’s collapse hit her family hard, and her mom was involved in a probate battle to settle her father’s estate.

Sergio Ocasio hadn’t left behind a will, and the lawyers appointed by the court to administer the estate sought to enrich themselves rather than help the family. Alexandria’s mother had to work two jobs to keep the family afloat, and after graduating, Alexandria started bartending and waitressing to help with the situation.

All the while, bankers were keen on taking Alexandria’s family home. She told The Intercept;

“We just couldn’t afford to keep our home, and we had bankers going up to the curb of our home and taking photos of our house.”

in 2012, Alexandria’s mother and grandmother resorted to selling the home and moving to Florida. For four years, the family had managed to avoid foreclosure, and they got a good price for their house. Alexandria’s family was one of the few in New York who managed to stay afloat during the financial crisis.

She has Jewish ancestry but she doesn’t practice Judaism

Alexandria was born into a Catholic family, but she recently revealed that she has Jewish roots. She stated in December 2018 that her family descended from the Sephardic Jews who resided in Spain in the 1400s. In the late 1400s, the Catholic monarchs ruling Spain ordered everyone to convert to the Catholic faith.

The Jews who didn’t convert fled to countries like France, Israel, Turkey, and Mexico. A small contingent of those Jews landed and settled in Puerto Rico. According to Haaretz, Alexandria said:

“[My family has] been doing a lot of family trees in the last couple of years. And one of the things a lot of people don’t know about Puerto Rico, and something that we discovered ourselves, is that a long time ago, my generations ago, my family consisted of Sephardic Jews,”

With time Judaism mixed with other religions in Puerto Rico. She went on to state that people can find unity in their diverse cultures and beliefs. She continued:

“I think it all goes to show that our destinies are tied beyond our understanding, beyond even what we know. And as we learn more and more about the histories of others, our friends and neighbors, we start to uncover what we already know to be true: Your destiny is mine, and my destiny is yours.”

On October 13, 1989, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was born in The Bronx, New York City to Blanca Ocasio-Cortez and Sergio Ocasio. She is best known as being the youngest woman elected to the United States Congress and for her progressive ideas. Proudly proclaiming herself a Democratic Socialist, Alexandria has taken a liberal stance on subjects such as Criminal Justice reform, tuition-free college, demolishing or restructuring ICE, and universal healthcare.

Alexandria grew up in a middle-class family. Her father, Sergio Ocasio was of Puerto Rican descent and worked as an architect. Alexandria’s mother, Blanca Ocasio-Cortez was born in Puerto Rico, later relocating to the United States. As a young child, Alexandria’s family lived in an apartment located in the neighborhood of Parkchester. In the mid-1990s, the Ocasio-Cortez family relocated to a modest house in Yorktown Heights, a suburb in Westchester County. Although no longer living in The Bronx, Alexandria still had family there and spent a great deal of time visiting her childhood neighborhood.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attended Yorktown High School from 2003 to 2007 where she excelled in her studies and became involved in the National Hispanic Institute’s Lorenzo de Zavala Youth Legislative Session. After high school, her involvement with her community continued as the LDZ Secretary of State. Alexandria attended Boston University through a John F. Lopez Fellowship. While attending school, she worked as an intern for Senator Ted Kennedy. Alexandria graduated from Boston University’s College of Arts and Sciences in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in economics and international relations.

After graduating from college, Alexandria returned to New York and took several low-wage restaurant jobs in an effort to help her family through a financially difficult time. After her father’s death in 2008, the Ocasio-Cortez family endured severe financial strife with her mother working as a bus driver and the bank threatening to foreclose on the family home. Alexandria was determined to see her family through this difficult period.

In spite of the family’s misfortunes, Alexandria set out to bring attention to working-class families in the Bronx. With financial backing from Sunshine Bronx Business Incubator, she established a publishing firm, Brook Avenue Press, which specializes in children’s literature that paints the Bronx in a positive light. In addition, Alexandria worked as an educational strategist at GAGEis, as well as an educator at the nonprofit National Hispanic Institute where she served as the Educational Director of the 2017 Northeast Collegiate World Series.

Representative Ocasio-cortez Bio

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s interest in politics continued and in the 2016 Democratic Primaries, she worked as an organizer for Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign. After the conclusion of the General Election, Alexandria set off on a cross-country road trip to see firsthand some of the strife and human rights violations that had been in the news, including the Standing Rock water fight and the Flint water crisis. It was after seeing these abuses that she decided the only way to bring equality and justice to the American people was to hold a position of power. Alexandria knew that to discover what the people needed she would have to go to them directly, which is exactly what she did. Her campaign mainly consisted of familiarizing her constituents with who she is and listening to what those in her district needed from a representative.

On May 16, 2017, it was announced via live stream that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would run for Congress as a Justice Democrat. She vowed to run a grassroots campaign that would refuse corporate money. Alexandria was the first challenger to the Democratic incumbent, Joe Crowley since 2004. She was endorsed by progressive and civil rights organizations such as MoveOn, Justice Democrats, Brand New Congress, Black Lives Matter, and Democracy for America. Although she was outspent 10 to 1 by Crowley’s campaign, on June 26, 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won the Democratic primary for her seat with 57.13% of the vote, defeating the 10-term incumbent by almost 15 percentage points for New York’s 14th congressional district. Alexandria went on to win the November 6, 2016, General Election against her Republican opponent, Anthony Pappas with 78% of the vote.

Due to her strength and progressive positions, several rightwing media personalities and politicians, including President Donald J Trump, have consistently attacked Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This has done nothing to detour the vivacious young woman determined to go to Washington DC and make a difference in the lives of real people.