Tiffany Cabán captured national headlines when she came within a hair’s breadth of winning the primary for district attorney in her hometown of Queens, New York, in 2019. It was an audacious move: a young, out-of-nowhere candidate running in her home borough against the establishment on a platform calling for major changes to the system. Snatching a moral victory from the jaws of electoral defeat, Tiffany kept speaking out. Two years later, she’s just won a seat on the New York City Council, where she will have a voice in the debate about what kind of hometown New York wants to be.

In this interview, host Kevin Burke talks with Tiffany about her coming-of-age story and what she experienced back there that made her someone who gets up and chooses to march on the front lines, has the skills to organize – and then has the fire in her soul to throw her whole being into fighting for what she believes in. This is a show about diving down to the first act in the life of a person – in this case, a person who sees something and is moved to do something about it. It’s a search for the people in her life who saw her and did something, and how she learned to stand up for herself and for others.

In a larger sense, it’s also about grace—the kind of mercy and compassionate understanding we find ourselves asking for and being asked to give in our lives—and whether that kind of grace, born of experience, can become the foundation for how we relate to each other.

Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.

Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.

Archival

“Tiffany Cabán @ Rally for Bernie Sanders” from https://www.c-span.org/video/?465364-1/representative-ocasio-cortez-endorses-bernie-sanders-president

"Bernie Williams singles in 11th for 4-3 walk-off win” from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iErizZHfs_U

“1010 WINS AM and CNN on Sept. 11” from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3dgKUsu-Ls

Audience footage of 2019 Tiffany Cabán campaign election party via @Samynemir on Twitter
https://twitter.com/i/status/1144077394933932033

Illustration

Charlotte Yiu

Poem

Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855)

“I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

“You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

“Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.”