If you haven’t heard of Julia Salazar … you’ve been missing out. State senate candidates don’t usually get much national attention, but Salazar isn’t just any state senate candidate. She’s a New York State Senate candidate who’s a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and has been endorsed by the likes of Cynthia Nixon and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Oh, and she’s been busted for totally lying about her background:
This isn't a story about a person who shifted her views over time (like all of us), as some have tried to dismiss it as. It's about how a candidate for office repeatedly misled reporters & voters about her and her family's immigrant & religious background. https://t.co/v4cYa65YdR
— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) August 24, 2018
Incredible reporting here from @ArminRosen in @tabletmag on @SalazarSenate18. The candidate is running on her identity as a Colombian immigrant and Jew of color. But it seems she is neither of those things. https://t.co/ypxaGX3prb
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) August 23, 2018
Getting a Rachel Dolezal vibe here…
— Chloé S. Valdary ? (@cvaldary) August 24, 2018
No kidding.
The criticism of Julia Salazar's immigrant identity is so inane. Her family's migration patterns are incredibly common. Born here but raised partially in one place. It's not that hard. https://t.co/rUrzskfry8
— Aaron Leaf (@aaronleaf) August 30, 2018
Julia Salazar (or any Jewish person of color) doesn’t owe you her backstory of how she’s a Jew. She had a community that claimed her before any campaign, that’s all the proof she needs. Yet here she is sharing her story, to be accountable in the face of a dishonest & racist smear https://t.co/60362rQ1Cx
— Rebecca Pierce? (@aptly_engineerd) August 26, 2018
Yeah, nice try. Salazar herself tried to dig her way out of it:
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I’ve received many questions from supporters today about an article. I’ll be responding thoroughly to some of the questions raised in that irresponsible article in interviews, but I feel it’s urgent to release a statement clarifying facts for my supporters https://t.co/JQFnFLYwu6
— State Senator Julia Salazar (@SalazarSenate) August 25, 2018
Unfortunately, she didn’t count on other people doing some digging of their own.
One of the groups that has endorsed @SalazarSenate18 is @OurRevolution. Here's her candidate profile on their website as it currently reads: "I am a Colombian immigrant from a working-class background…"https://t.co/c0dwdPmaCa pic.twitter.com/YxFDwUqqfK
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) August 28, 2018
I pointed out on Twitter yesterday that @OurRevolution's profile of @SalazarSenate18 on its website read: "I am a Colombian immigrant from a working-class background…"
It has now been changed to: "I am a Colombian-American from an immigrant family…"https://t.co/c0dwdPmaCa pic.twitter.com/KPAAoA07WC— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) August 29, 2018
Interesting note: The first two sentences for @OurRevolution profile were just tacked onto the reply @SalazarSenate18 gave in a Stonewall Democrats candidate questionnaire, which was written in the first person.https://t.co/gq05LBZZJY pic.twitter.com/aHXH1jJs36
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) August 29, 2018
Gives rise to the question of who wrote ""I am a Colombian immigrant…" in the first place, Salazar or a campaign aide.
/End— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) August 29, 2018
1/ Just heard back from @OurRevolution media contact: "The profile went up around the time we endorsed her campaign at the end of June…."
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) August 29, 2018
2/ "For Julia and all our candidates, we post the bios they provide either on their website or through the application process. As she has updated her bio we have updated ours as well."
/end— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) August 29, 2018
Oof.
But wait … it gets worse (for Julia, that is):
NY state senate candidate Julia Salazar pretended to be Jewish to advocate for boycotting Israel. Her family now says she also pretended to be working class and an immigrant. https://t.co/HgeEatgAlG
— Adam Holland (@ad_holland) August 31, 2018
More from City & State:
Salazar and her brother Alex, who is only two years older, have completely different interpretations of their shared upbringing. “My family immigrated to the U.S. from Colombia when I was a baby, and my mom ended up raising my brother and me as a single mom, without a college degree and from a working-class background,” Julia Salazar said in a July interview with Jacobin Magazine.
Alex Salazar characterizes their early years very differently. He remembers them being financially comfortable, living in a big house along a river in Jupiter, Florida. Each of the siblings had their own rooms. The six-figure income that their father, Luis Hernan Salazar, earned as a pilot meant that the family could afford to set aside college savings funds of about $6,000 for each child. “We were very much middle class. We had a house in Jupiter along the river, it was in a beautiful neighborhood,” Alex Salazar said in a telephone interview. “I feel very strongly about my family and I want to tell the truth.”
Alex Salazar directly contradicts Julia’s statement on the Chapo Trap House podcast that “My family immigrated to the U.S. from Colombia when I was a little kid.” Moreover, Alex disputes Julia’s recent backpedaling equivocations on Twitter and interviews that their parents “raised us between two different places,” and “Colombia is where my family was and where I was in the first years of my life.”
“The bottom line is that Salazar is not – despite what she has said – “the daughter of immigrants” and her family did not immigrate to the U.S. when she was a baby nor when she was a little kid.” https://t.co/cbRgEzNlsO
— Errol Louis (@errollouis) August 31, 2018
This is just bizarre: Julia Salazar's own mother and brother went on the record to tell reporters that she was neither an immigrant nor working class, as she has claimed https://t.co/G3NTTBvGYm
— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) August 31, 2018
Whoops.
https://twitter.com/DennyOtt1/status/1034498958385532928
Snort.
I was joking about Salazar and Rachel Dolezal but it turns out this case is pretty much exactly like it https://t.co/tYc3E41ghI
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) August 31, 2018
Dolesalazar https://t.co/V6nhGibWne
— neontaster (@neontaster) August 31, 2018
Salazar’s in some pretty illustrious company, that’s for sure.
Side note: Amused by the folks who are now pretending their problem was just with the Tablet article on Salazar, not the facts it uncovered, in order to save face. My colleague talked to the same family members who told him many of the same things. You just didn't want to listen. pic.twitter.com/ozvThyYMOb
— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) August 31, 2018
Shooting the messenger doesn't make inconvenient facts go away, not does calling them racist for doing their job as a journalist and investigating a political candidate's biographical claims. https://t.co/tnKwaNHjvM
— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) August 31, 2018
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