{"id":5150,"date":"2026-01-09T02:25:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T10:25:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/?p=5150"},"modified":"2026-01-09T02:25:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T10:25:38","slug":"my-hope-for-mayor-mamdani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/?p=5150","title":{"rendered":"My Hope for Mayor Mamdani"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In Korea, where hierarchy determines many relationships, any person who is junior to you in experience in school, work, or field, is your hoobae<\/em>. If you are senior to the person, you are the seonbae<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is my hoobae from The Bronx High School of Science. I am his seonbae.<\/p>\n

I did not know the 112th Mayor of New York in our alma mater. He\u2019s class of 2010, and I\u2019m 1986. I\u2019ve never met him in person. I\u2019m old enough to be his mom. But on the inauguration stage, I see his real mom, Academy Award\u2013nominated filmmaker Mira Nair, seated right behind my hoobae and his wife, the artist Rama Duwaji. On the other side of the aisle, there\u2019s Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Letitia James, Kathy Hochul, and Bill de Blasio.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m seated below the stage on the west side of City Hall. You could say I\u2019m hosting this party since I\u2019m listed as one of the 40 members of the Inaugural Committee. I did not do much work. Below stage are also actors Richard Kind, Kal Penn, Susan Sarandon, and John Turturro, as well as Amani al-Khatahtbeh, the founder of MuslimGirl.com.<\/p>\n

It is 20 degrees outside. Everyone is freezing. My husband and I wore gray flannel suits and cloth coats. Rookie mistake. We split a pair of Hothands and slip them into our leather gloves. We\u2019ve been waiting since 11 in the morning, and the program started a little after 1 p.m. Even though our fingers and toes are turning blue, we don\u2019t want to be anywhere else.<\/p>\n

Why did I agree to be on the Inaugural Committee? Why did I show up in person even though there are no tents, heat, snacks, merch, and the logistics email said that no blankets or umbrellas? It can\u2019t be because Mayor Mamdani is my hoobae. Our four-year high school has almost 3,000 students. Bronx Science has been around for over 75 years. Statistically speaking, I have too many hoobae. No one should like anyone just because the person went to your old school.<\/p>\n

Instead, I\u2019m here for the reasons that tens of thousands have filled seven blocks south of City Hall. New York needs a smart, brave, and innovative leader who wants to make significant structural changes in public education, health care, housing, and transportation. It would be great if the new person wasn\u2019t afraid of party politics and was willing to ask why things couldn\u2019t be different.<\/p>\n

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\"Image<\/picture><\/span><\/div>\n

Photographed by Poupay Jutharat<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Korea, where hierarchy determines many relationships, any person who is junior to you in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markcomedia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}