Before running for the Washington State Senate in 2014, I had spent 20 years as an activist. I had always believed that we needed to push for change on the outside, through community organizing and advocacy.
Those who have the most power - whether famous TV anchors, rich Hollywood moguls, judges, Members of Congress, or the president of the United States - must decide how to exert that power: for corruption or for good.
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.
My big idea is that democracy can only work properly if you have truly representative people at the table.
There's nothing normal about graduating with massive student debt, where you live in fear of predatory debt collectors and wage garnishers even as you are starting to live your life.
Getting a college degree used to be free or low cost because, as a society, we saw providing higher education to young people as an investment - in them and in the future of our own country.
Statistics are just a compilation of people's stories put on paper, and legislation is our attempt to address those real challenges for people.
I'm not a complainer. I'm a doer. So if I see something is wrong, then I feel like I have to get in there and try to fix it.
History has always judged silence and complicity harshly in these times of moral consequence.
The American people expect their leaders to condemn white supremacy in unambiguous terms. President Trump not only failed at condemning white supremacists and neo-Nazis, he stood up for them - for that, he must be censured.
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.
For immigrant women, fighting for some of the standard platforms of the women's movement may feel unthinkable when deportation is staring you in the face every day.
We have to have a planet to pass on to the next generation, and these issues of climate change and climate justice and the disproportionate burdens that communities of color actually bear from our damaging climate is a huge issue.
My mother, with a Master's in English Literature, taught me to appreciate language and that words matter.
Civil rights icons, famous journalists, big-time movie producers may all have credits to their name that we can recognize and be grateful for, but their record of good works cannot excuse their harassment of women.
There is no question that we, as a country, need to deal with economic inequality across the country, and we need to make sure we have good-paying jobs for everyone.
I'm the first South Asian woman to be elected to the House of Representatives.
Having a strong race lens means you understand racism is threaded through and institutionalized in all of our systems and our very perceptions, threaded through how someone looks at you, treats you, thinks about you and your potential.
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.
OneAmerica worked over the course of a decade to bring the movement of immigrants and communities of color together with the movement for marriage equality in Washington.
