Celebrating 10 Years of Independent Political Power
May 1, 2025
Keynote Address
Carlos Ramirez-Rosa
SPEECH TEXT:
Good evening everyone. Buenas noches!
It’s so good to be with you all tonight — to be surrounded by beloved community. To be with neighbors, compañeras, compañeros, movement builders, elders, and young people – all who carry the spark of what is possible.
Tonight, we mark ten years since we came together to build something bold and beautiful in our communities. Ten years of United Neighbors of the 35th Ward. Ten years of 33rd Ward Working Families. Ten years of organizing, struggle, and building power from the bottom up.
And we gather on May Day — International Workers’ Day — a day born right here in Chicago. A day that reminds us that our fight is part of a long legacy — a legacy written by immigrants and women, socialists and radicals, by workers and dreamers, by people who, like us, believed a better world was not only possible, but necessary.
One of those people was Avondale’s very own Lucy Gonzalez Parsons — a fierce Black and Mexican woman, a labor organizer and freedom fighter whose memory we honor not just in name, but in action. Lucy was widowed when her husband, Albert Parsons, was martyred by the state for his role in the Haymarket Uprising. But despite the vicious state repression that she and her husband faced, she never stopped striving for freedom. She organized seamstresses, she demanded bread and roses, she marched with the unemployed, and she declared, boldly, “Let us set aside our differences and set our faces towards the future – because there is no power on earth that can stop women and men determined to be free.”
Lucy taught us that struggle is long, and justice is never given — it is won through relentless organizing, and the determination and love of the people.
So ten years ago, when we came together in Albany Park, Avondale, Hermosa, Irving Park, and Logan Square, we were carrying Lucy’s legacy. We were planting a seed.
In the 35th Ward, we called it United Neighbors — because we believed in bringing people together to tackle our shared concerns. And in the 33rd Ward, we called it Working Families — because we understood that politics must be rooted in the struggle of those whose labor creates all wealth, and whose hands, hearts, and intellect sustain the city.
And what we didn’t know back then — what none of us could have fully imagined — was how much that seed would grow.
Back in 2015, you all took a chance on a 26-year-old deportation defense organizer. And I’ve joked before — what the hell were y’all thinking?
But the truth is, you weren’t just electing me. You were electing us, our movement. You were putting your trust in a new kind of politics — one rooted in love, in struggle, in solidarity.
And since then, together, we’ve built something powerful.
We built the Lucy Gonzalez Parsons Apartments in Logan Square and the Maria Elena Sifuentes Apartments in Albany Park — housing that allows working-class families to live with dignity and stability.
We strengthened our city’s sanctuary policies — so no one is afraid to call 911 because of their immigration status, and no one is afraid to access abortion or gender-affirming care within our city limits.
We passed the Empowering Communities for Public Safety Ordinance — so that Chicagoans have a real say in how their communities are policed, and so we can begin to turn the page on generations of harm.
We have brought participatory democracy into ward offices, challenged and beat the machine, and won development victories not for luxury developers, but for working people. We have changed what people believe is possible — not just in one ward, but across this city.
And we didn’t do this alone.
From the very beginning, we knew this was about more than elections — it was about organizing. It was about building lasting infrastructure, rooted in neighborhoods and churches, in tenant unions and local school councils, in street corners and park district field houses.
It was about movement work.
That’s why we created our independent political organizations — not just as a campaign apparatus, but as a political organizing home. A place to train organizers, build relationships, and bring neighbors into the struggle for a better tomorrow.
Not an end unto itself, but a means to an end – our collective liberation.
And 33rd Ward Working Families — what you’ve built is nothing short of extraordinary. You built a people-powered campaign that defeated the Mell machine and elected Rossana Rodríguez Sánchez — a fierce Boricua socialist, a mama, an organizer whose work has inspired people far beyond Albany Park. You didn’t just elect an alderperson — you built a platform for transformative governance, and you’ve kept it alive every single year since.
Together, we have shown that movement politics can win. That the people can govern. That working-class people — renters, immigrants, queer folks, youth, elders — can shape the future of Chicago.
And not everyone has liked that.
In 2019 and 2023, the moneyed interests came for us. They tried to poison the soil, to chop down our tree. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to smear us, divide us, and replace us.
And they lost.
They lost because our roots were deep. Because what we had built wasn’t about one person, or one election cycle — it was about all of us. It was about ten years of canvasses and community meetings. It was about mutual aid drop-offs and phone trees and policy teach-ins. It was about organizing.
And yes, they’re at it again. The rich and powerful do not give up easily.
But neither do we.
And we are not done yet.
We still have to ensure our undocumented neighbors are protected, not criminalized or terrorized. That our trans and queer youth are loved, not legislated against. That every single child in Chicago can breathe clean air, walk to a fully funded school, and come home to a safe, affordable home.
So we’re not just celebrating ten years tonight — we’re recommitting.
We are recommitting to each other, to the work, to the struggle. To the tree we planted. To the soil we tend together.
Because we know — we know — that this city can be something more.
We’ve seen the fruit already. We’ve tasted it.
In the tenants who’ve organized and won.
In the classrooms kept open by teachers who fought.
In the seniors who can stay in the neighborhood they helped build.
In the neighbor who came to one meeting, then another, and now leads the charge.
In the fierce, unyielding voices of people who defy fascism, condemn genocide, and demand a future rooted in justice for everyone.
That’s the fruit. That’s the reason. That’s the future we’re building.
And now, just like we’ve always done, we keep planting — we keep planting alongside Alderman Anthony Quezada and our next Cook County Commissioner, Jessica Vasquez. We keep organizing. We keep dreaming.
Because a city rooted in care, in solidarity, in abundance — it’s not just a slogan. It’s something we’ve been growing for ten years. And we’re just getting started. We’re just getting started!
We’re just getting started!
We’re just getting started!
Thank you. I love you all. Let’s keep going.