[1]Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress[2]Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress

I pulled this note out of my jeans yesterday morning and sat with it for a
long time. A
woman had passed it to me while I was leaving a restaurant a while ago.

[1]A note that a woman had passed it to me while I was leaving a
restaurant a while ago.

Here's the translation:

Hello, Perhaps you receive hundreds of notes of gratitude or maybe of
opposition as well. But I want to give you my thanks for speaking up for
those of us who do not have a voice in this moment. Thank you for having
the courage to not leave us behind, and to have us heard. We love you.
In these dark times, we can see the sun. And in our sadness and
uncertainty, God blesses us. We are not all criminals. We are human
beings with dreams and goals to achieve in a nation that belongs to no
one, if not everyone. Thank you, and a thousand thank yous. - Ivania

Oftentimes, people will ask me what keeps me going, or where to find the
confidence to speak up. The answer is you all. It’s all of us, as a
community.

So I would like to take a moment today to thank each and every one of you.
For the notes slipped to me from flight attendants, and restaurant
workers, and young parents passing by. For the whispers of encouragement,
for the hands holding me in prayer, and the stories you share with me in
person.

This is a very hard time. And one thing I have learned is that voices of
hate and pain can sometimes be much louder than those of support and
solidarity — but that doesn’t mean they outnumber us. Far from it,
actually.

So it is exactly small moments like these — the whispers, the notes, the
small winks — that I draw upon in the hard times of doubt, fear, sadness,
and my own imperfections as a human being — imperfections we all have and
share.

On Friday before I got on the plane back to New York, a father holding his
infant son approached me to discuss his heartbreak over Gaza, saying, “My
baby is no different than theirs.” When I landed, a teenage girl stopped
me to say that seeing me made her believe she could stand up, too.

Last week, an older man stopped me to ask for a photograph. He said “I do
not support you. But my daughter looks up to you and I would like to share
this moment with her.” I gladly obliged, shook his hand, and thanked him.

Right now, as social media platforms and mass media companies are taken
over by billionaires with selfish agendas and our algorithms are tweaked
to reward division and cynicism more than ever before, us connecting to
reality unwarped by our phones and screens matters more than ever before.
We will figure out the balance. But in the meantime, turning to one
another in person, gathering in care and support, and connecting together
in gratitude and community small and large is the way.

As Ivania wrote: times are dark, but we can see (and be) the sun.

Thank you all.

- Alexandria

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