From Global Childhood to Queens Politics

This opening episode traces Zohran Mamdani's remarkable journey from refugee child to political activist, beginning with his birth in Kampala, Uganda in 1991 and his family's migration through South Africa to New York when he was seven. We explore his multicultural upbringing as the son of renowned Columbia professor Mahmood Mamdani and acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair, his education at Bronx High School of Science and Bowdoin College, and his emergence as a student activist co-founding Students for Justice in Palestine. The episode chronicles his evolution from Africana Studies graduate to housing counselor in Queens, where he witnessed firsthand the systemic failures that would shape his political vision, culminating in his early organizing work including hunger strikes for taxi debt relief and community campaigns against environmental injustice.

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