Anti-war and civil rights movements. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Her family later moved to Yorktown Heights for school. She attended Boston University , where she double-majored in international relations and economics , graduating with honors.
She moved back to the Bronx, becoming an activist and working as a waitress and bartender. On June 26, , Ocasio-Cortez drew national recognition when she won the Democratic Party's primary election for New York's 14th congressional district. She defeated Democratic Caucus chair Joe Crowley , a term incumbent, in what was widely seen as the biggest upset victory in the midterm election primaries. She was reelected in , , and Taking office at age 29, Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman [ 7 ] [ 8 ] and the first female member of the Democratic Socialists of America DSA to be elected to Congress.
She is a prominent leader of the left-wing faction of the Democratic Party, and a member of progressive congressional bloc " the Squad ". Ocasio-Cortez attended Yorktown High School , graduating in Ocasio-Cortez had a John F.
Lopez Fellowship. Her father died of lung cancer in during her second year of college, [ 26 ] [ 27 ] and Ocasio-Cortez became involved in a lengthy probate dispute to settle his estate. She has said that the experience helped her learn "first-hand how attorneys appointed by the court to administer an estate can enrich themselves at the expense of the families struggling to make sense of the bureaucracy". Senator Ted Kennedy in his section on foreign affairs and immigration issues.
After college, Ocasio-Cortez moved back to the Bronx and took a job as a bartender and waitress to help her motherβa house cleaner and school bus driverβfight foreclosure of their home. During the primary , Ocasio-Cortez worked as an organizer for Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign. But her visit to North Dakota , where she saw others "putting their whole lives and everything that they had on the line for the protection of their community", inspired her to begin to work for her own community.
