Editor’s note: The following is a brief series introducing readers to the new Democratic District leaders recently elected to the unpaid party position.
Out of Brooklyn’s incoming district leaders, Samuel Nemir Olivares (D-Bushwick, Williamsburg), has perhaps the greatest Cinderella story of them all.
Born in Puerto Rico to a construction worker father from the Dominican Republic and raised by a single mother who was one of 18 children, Olivares knew the struggles of poverty from a young age. “Early on in childhood, I was surviving from food assistance programs,” he recalled. “It exposed me to a political mindset of how important the government is for people’s lives.”
After graduating college with journalism and public relations degrees “around six years ago,” Olivares moved to New York for a master’s degree in international affairs in human rights from The New School.
Following the rise of Donald Trump (R) to the White House in 2016, he decided that he could do more in politics than in journalism. “It was clear that we needed some change in the way that society was working,” Olivares realized. “Trump represented a threat to our communities with his racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic campaign.”
Attributing the Democrats’ electoral failures to their “lack of investment” in “organizing and getting people excited,” Olivares joined the Center for Popular Democracy, where he became a grassroots organizer, later joining Bushwick’s community board and school board.
“I realize that there’s so much work to be done to organize people and our community to demand positive change,” he said. “The change we want to see at the national level has to happen and start at the local level.
Olivares’ work on the school board, particularly regarding the lack of funding it receives, ultimately inspired him to run for district leader. “I did an investigation of the funding that the schools in our community do not receive and how that was tied to the lack of housing,” he recalled.
“I think that this investment in housing and education was so egregious as well as a lack of representation or support for our communities. That pushed me to take on this role in the campaign to lend my voice to the issues and help.”
As a district leader, Olivares hopes to reduce the Kings County Democrats’ role in selecting judges for the ballot, further democratizing the process. “I think that is a criminal and racial justice issue,” he said.
“The fact that judges who are the ones who make decisions about black and brown communities and incarceration rates in New York, that such a critical position is just elected by party officials has to be reformed. I’m very committed to transparency.
He also hopes to remove the current gender restrictions on district leaders to better allow transgender and nonbinary representation on the county committee.
As Olivares prepares to take over as district leader, he has made it clear that achieving all of his goals will not be easy.
“I really want to see the Democratic Party modernize and make sure that we are listening to our people’s voices and concerns. I would really like the state and the national and local level to have a platform that centers on racial justice and issues of police violence and inclusion and diversity and economic justice. And I am hopeful that we can work on that,” he said.
“While that might require legal changes and may require constitutional changes, we need to make sure that we’re thinking and pushing for reform so that we can improve the way that justice is served.”
