11 inspiring people from 11 years of Escape: AOC

When we first started Escape the City back in 2010, we had no idea how many incredibly inspiring people we'd meet along the way. We set out to help ambitious and talented people to do work that matters to them and the world, and through the years we've encountered thousands of people who demonstrate that it's possible to do something different with your career and make a difference in the process. While it was hard to choose just 11 stories, here we've outlined a few of the people who we come back to regularly when we're looking for a bit of inspiration ourselves.

We hope you enjoy reading their stories and that they can be an inspiration to you, too!

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) - The game-changer

About Alexandria:

Alexandria was born in the Bronx in New York to working-class parents. Her father was a small business owner from the South Bronx. Her mother was born in Puerto Rico—growing up around a large family near Arecibo. Her mother cleaned homes, and everyone pitched in on the family business.

From an early age, Alexandria grew up with a deep understanding of income inequality. The state of Bronx public schools in the late 80s and early 90s sent her parents on a search for a solution. She ended up attending public school in Yorktown—40 minutes north of her birthplace. As a result, much of her early life was spent in transit between her tight-knit extended family in the Bronx and her daily student life. It was clear to her, even then, that the zip code a child was born in determined much of their destiny.

Alexandria graduated from Yorktown High School in 2007 and entered Boston University, initially studying biochemistry. She got her first taste of politics by volunteering to make phone calls for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. Her life changed dramatically, though, when her father was diagnosed with lung cancer while she was at college. Alexandria’s father's death her sophomore year forced her to put all of her energy into school. "The last thing my father had told me in the hospital was ‘Make me proud,’" she said in an interview with The New Yorker. "I took it very literally. My G.P.A. skyrocketed.”

After her father's death, she began studying economics and international relations and graduated with a bachelor of arts degree from Boston University. By that time she had also stepped back into politics, working part-time through college in the Boston office of U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy.

After college, Alexandria worked as a waitress and bartender. She became involved in politics at the national level in the 2016 Democratic primaries when she canvassed for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

After Sanders lost, like-minded Democratic Socialists began recruiting candidates to run for the House and Senate as part of an effort called Brand New Congress. In the fall of 2016, as Donald Trump was heading toward a win over Hillary Clinton, Alexandria’s brother sent an application to the group on her behalf, and her campaign for Congress was born. 

In the June 2018 Democratic primary, she soundly defeated U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley, who had amassed a great deal of influence not just in his district but among his party's congressional leadership over two decades. Ocasio-Cortez went on to defeat a Republican, college professor Anthony Pappas, in the fall election to take the seat representing New York state's solidly Democratic 14th Congressional District, which is centred in New York City and covers parts of the Bronx and Queens boroughs. Nearly half the residents of the district are Hispanic, and fewer than 20 percent are white.

At age 29, she became the youngest woman to win a House seat.

What we love about Alexandria’s story: 

Watching Alexandria’s story on the Netflix documentary Bringing Down the House was a moment of pure inspiration.

Her determination to “meet a machine with a movement” was one of the most inspiring things we’ve ever seen. AOC's determination to stick with her principles, shun the donations from corporate America and stand up to the establishment through her eloquent debates in congress is a constant source of inspiration to us.