Andom Ghebreghiorgis
float:right; border:1px solid #FFB81F; background-color: white; width: 250px; font-size: .9em; margin-bottom:0px;
} .infobox p { margin-bottom: 0; } .widget-row { display: inline-block; width: 100%; margin-top: 1px; margin-bottom: 1px; } .widget-row.heading { font-size: 1.2em; } .widget-row.value-only { text-align: center; background-color: grey; color: white; font-weight: bold; } .widget-row.value-only.white { background-color: #f9f9f9; } .widget-row.value-only.black { background-color: #f9f9f9; color: black; } .widget-row.Democratic { background-color: #003388; color: white; font-weight: bold; } .widget-row.Republican { background-color: red; color: white; font-weight: bold; } .widget-row.Independent, .widget-row.Nonpartisan, .widget-row.Constitution { background-color: grey; color: white; font-weight: bold; } .widget-row.Libertarian { background-color: #f9d334; color: black; font-weight: bold; } .widget-row.Green { background-color: green; color: white; font-weight: bold; } .widget-key { width: 43%; display: inline-block; padding-left: 10px; vertical-align: top; font-weight: bold; } .widget-value { width: 57%; float: right; display: inline-block; padding-left: 10px; word-wrap: break-word; } .widget-img { width: 150px; display: block; margin: auto; } .clearfix { clear: both; }
Andom Ghebreghiorgis (Democratic Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent New York's 16th Congressional District. He lost in the Democratic primary on June 23, 2020. Ghebreghiorgis unofficially withdrew from the race but appeared on the primary election ballot on June 23, 2020.
Ghebreghiorgis completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2019. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Andom Ghebreghiorgis was born in New York, New York. He earned a bachelor's degree in political science and economics from Yale University in 2007 and a master's of secondary special education from the City College of New York in 2012. Ghebreghiorgis’ career experience includes working as a teacher, activist, and children's book author.[1]
Elections
2020
See also: New York's 16th Congressional District election, 2020
New York's 16th Congressional District election, 2020 (June 23 Democratic primary)
General election
General election for U.S. House New York District 16
Jamaal Bowman defeated Patrick McManus in the general election for U.S. House New York District 16 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Jamaal Bowman (D)  | 84.0 | 218,514 |
 | Patrick McManus (Conservative Party) | 15.8 | 41,094 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.2 | 482 | ||
| Total votes: 260,090 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Kenneth Schaeffer (Working Families Party)
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for U.S. House New York District 16
Jamaal Bowman defeated incumbent Eliot Engel, Chris Fink, Sammy Ravelo, and Andom Ghebreghiorgis (Unofficially withdrew) in the Democratic primary for U.S. House New York District 16 on June 23, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Jamaal Bowman | 55.4 | 49,367 |
 | Eliot Engel | 40.6 | 36,149 | |
 | Chris Fink | 1.8 | 1,625 | |
 | Sammy Ravelo | 1.3 | 1,139 | |
 | Andom Ghebreghiorgis (Unofficially withdrew) | 0.9 | 761 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.1 | 97 | ||
| Total votes: 89,138 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Kenneth Belvin (D)
Conservative Party primary election
The Conservative Party primary election was canceled. Patrick McManus advanced from the Conservative Party primary for U.S. House New York District 16.
Working Families Party primary election
The Working Families Party primary election was canceled. Jamaal Bowman advanced from the Working Families Party primary for U.S. House New York District 16.
Campaign themes
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Andom Ghebreghiorgis completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2019. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Ghebreghiorgis' responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
| Collapse all
I am running for Congress because the progressive people of District-16 are struggling with housing, healthcare, retirement security, and a lack of jobs, but our representative has been more concerned with diverting our public money to endless wars and unnecessary prisons.
I'm Andom Ghebreghiorgis, and I grew up in Mount Vernon, NY to parents who emigrated from Eritrea. I have a younger brother and sister and an enormous extended family scattered throughout the world.
I attended Lincoln School in Mount Vernon and then Fieldston, in Riverdale, for middle and high school. I graduated from Yale with degrees in Political Science and Economics in 2007. After working at the Robin Hood Foundation, I became a NYC Teaching Fellow in 2009 (I received my Master's in Secondary Special Education at CCNY). I taught MS special education at a renewal school in the Bronx (MS 113) and then was a SPED coordinator/ELA teacher at The Equity Project in Washington Heights. I have written a children's book (Undercover BMX), led workshops on infusing AAVE into English curricula, taught free SAT courses to low-income students, and organized against out-of-school suspensions.
Outside of education, I have been active in Eritrean human rights and Palestinian justice spaces.
I love playing basketball, flag football, & chess. I am a die-hard Knicks and Giants fan, and same goes for Rangers and Yankees (but I'm not as passionate as I was in the 90s). I also attend a lot of intl. soccer matches!
- Securing economic justice for all people through a federal job guarantee, single-payer Medicare-for-All, affordable housing for all, and greater union power
- Divesting from the military industrial complex and pursuing new multilateralism necessary for Global Green New Deal
- Fighting for racial justice by advocating for reparations, ending mass incarceration, abolishing ICE and CBP, and fully-funding 3K-16 public education
As a first-generation American of Eritrean descent, as a black person, and as a special education teacher, many of these policy areas have affected me personally:
- School-to-Prison Pipeline, Special Education, LGBTQ+ Inclusive Education, School Integration
- Global Green New Deal, Foreign Policy of Peace and Decolonization, Immigrant and Refugee Rights, UNSC Reform
- Federal Job Guarantee, Homes Guarantee, Medicare for All
- Reparations for Black and indigenous Americans
- Workplace Democracy
My parents and the Eritrean activists of their generation (born between the 40s and 60s) have always been a personal model. They struggled against seemingly impossible odds to liberate Eritrea and sacrificed so much to do it. Some spent decades on the front, putting off families; others gave up personal/professional ambitions in order to be able to better devote themselves to the cause. My parents, in particular, continued their resistance as immigrants in a foreign land. They were tethered to multiple worlds, fully at home in none, but they had solidarity with all fighting injustice and love for everyone. I know, when they were teenagers, they wouldn't have ever thought that they'd spend nearly their whole lives fighting for a free Eritrea or that they'd only visit their homeland once in the last 50 years. Their optimism, hope, and resilience under these circumstances has always inspired me.
The Black Jacobins
Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights
Ability to center and listen to the voices of the historically marginalized and those closest to the struggle
Empathy
Openness and transparency
Ability to reflect critically
I am of the people I seek to represent. I am from the district, and I taught in the district. I have a first-person understanding of what our communities need, and my experiences enable me to articulate that genuinely.
My own personal history informed my unyielding commitment to fighting for the rights of and justice for all people. WEB Du Bois spoke about being black in America as having a "double-consciousness," and I can say growing up as the black American child of Eritrean immigrants that I felt a triple-consciousness. There can be extreme trauma and difficulty in growing up and living in America as a first-generation black person: from cultural dislocation to coming to terms with a white supremacist history of exploitation. The fact that many immigrant parents don't have language or awareness to help us navigate the problems of race and racism here can exacerbate our struggle.
But there is also a blessing that comes from being racialized into marginalization: the opportunity and necessity for radical empathy. Even if they were not all directly my histories, I felt the pain of slavery, segregation, racism, genocide, and colonialism in me as a black person. I knew how hypocritical it would be for me to, even latently, support any system of oppression, when I understood the feeling of being oppressed myself. I certainly don't believe blackness or a group's history of marginalization is a prerequisite for radical empathy, but, for me, this understanding helped me unpack my own privilege at a young age, helped me stand in solidarity with other oppressed groups, and helped serve as a foundation for my own activism and work in education. It bestowed upon me a liberatory politics that critiqued and questioned a status quo built on and sustained by imperialism, racism, heteropatriarchy, and economic exploitation, and affirmed that the artifice of stability should never preclude people's right to freedom, equality, and justice.
Representing the constituency is the primary responsibility for the person elected to this office.
Constituents need to be heard, and it is our responsibility to listen to their concerns, be present for them in the community, and develop a team to help address the needs of the district as a whole as we advocate for social justice.
It's also our responsibility to engage the district, keep constituents informed, and maintain a dialogue with the community. Organizing around issues is how we will work with our constituency to develop legislation that impacts the district and its residents.
That we fought to dismantle the structures that keep people in poverty and struggled for justice for working people and historically marginalized groups
I remember the 1992 Presidential Election just because of Ross Perot. I guess they would make fun of his ears on TV, and, as a 2nd grader at the time, it was the only funny thing that came out of my parents' nightly news-watching. In school, when friends would joke with each other, they'd sometimes compare one's ears to Ross Perot as a "diss." It's a really odd first political memory.
Less random, and more politically significant, I remember the celebrations for Eritrea's independence in 1993. Also that same year, I remember the World Trade Center Bombing.
I was a camp counselor for 2 months.
Unfair question...how to choose?! The book that had the greatest impact on me - during my formative, teenage years - is The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Growing up in America, we internalize so much anti-blackness. For me, Malcolm X was the antidote to the identity complexes I had subconsciously struggled with for the better part of my 15 years at that point. This was not because I agreed with everything Malcolm X said or did in the book, but it was very empowering to feel like you were in the shoes of someone who, in the face of virulent, murderous white supremacy, was unabashedly black. It countered the dominant narrative that we had been fed through media-propagated stereotypes and Eurocentric curricula that excluded our histories. Additionally, Malcolm X represented the redemptive possibility of humanity. He went from prison to one of the most respected Black Americans ever. He preached a dogmatic fundamentalism and then admitted he was wrong. He made mistakes and tried to learn from them, which is, at minimum, what we should all be trying to do. He was always trying to do better: for himself, for all of us. Unfortunately, he was never given a full shot.
Anansi the spider
Toast by Koffee
Quality sleep
The power to initiate revenue bills
The power to initiate impeachment proceedings
The committee system
Political experience as a prerequisite for office is a double-edged sword. While serving in government may help a candidate understand how to navigate various systems, prior government experience may also blind representatives from honestly serving their constituents and connecting with them in an authentic way.
My experiences as a teacher have prepared me well to lead my district in the years ahead. Teachers see the frontline impact that government policy can have on a classroom, a community, and student's life. Teachers are capable of anything. Not only do we manage 35 teenagers in an underfunded classroom every second of every day, but we get our young people to believe in themselves when the world has told them they shouldn't. As a special education teacher, I have had to demystify education for many of my students, who may come into my 8th grade class on a 2ndgrade reading level. They've been failed every step of the way. Their challenge is real, and our job as teachers is to create a plan in concert with them and a whole host of diverse stakeholders in the community - social workers, parents, families, sports coaches, religious leaders, community-based organizations - to ensure their success. This is exactly what I will be doing in Congress for communities that have been underserved and disinvested from for too long, communities that don't see a way out, and for a country that has as little faith in government as my students did in school.
Fascism
White Supremacy
Climate Change
Income Inequality
American Exceptionalism
Reproductive Justice
Foreign Affairs
Education and Labor
No, two years is too short. It feels like congressional representatives spend more time fundraising and campaigning than anything else. We should add a year or two to their terms.
I support term limits. Representatives should not be serving more than twelve years in one office, let alone 30.
Thaddeus Stevens
Barbara Lee
We were canvassing at Mount Vernon City Fest on a nice September Saturday. Hundreds of people from my city were enjoying the popup vendors, lively music, and positive atmosphere. As people walked down Gramatan Ave., I would engage with them about our campaign. Almost everyone was extremely warm and receptive, but one man became agitated when we spoke to him, raising his voice and cursing about the corrupt politicians that didn't care about people in Mount Vernon. He told me how he had been formerly incarcerated and that, after his release, it had become impossible for him to get a job. He said frustratingly that he sometimes felt as if he had no other option but to go back to illicit activities to survive.
I listened to this man and felt his pain. It was a pain that was the product of systemic neglect: pipelines and complexes that gave him little chance to escape and less reason to believe in the fairness of the system. After speaking with him about mass incarceration and job guarantees, he ended up saying he'd look into our campaign and spread the word, even though he never votes. Whomever he votes for is not what's important; what was so impactful was seeing him become willing to re-engage in a political process that has excluded him. Under 10% of people in District 16 turn out for elections because they don't believe engaging in politics will affect their material reality, and, as a result, the ruling class is able to entrench the status quo. The man whom I was speaking to, in that moment, re-entered a working-class movement that existed before and will exist after our campaign. We are happy to join him in the struggle for justice, locally and internationally.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2020 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on December 26, 2019
