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The Heavyweight Incumbent<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n During the midterm election two years ago, then minority leader Pelosi beat her GOP challenger Lisa Renner by 74 points, winning reelection to serve a 17th consecutive term in congress. Democrats regained the majority in the House of Representatives but before Pelosi could be chosen as House Speaker, a bold, progressive class of House freshman lead by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (or \u201cAOC\u201d) from New York\u2019s 14th congressional district, began challenging Pelosi\u2019s leadership within the Democratic Party on issues like climate change and immigration. While Pelosi helmed the procedural warships in the lower chamber of the 116th Congress putting a swift, permanent stain of \u201cimpeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors\u201d on the Trump presidency, Bacelar has gone broke getting herself on the ballot. The Latina Challenger<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bacelar, who is originally from S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil, is challenging the House Speaker to represent California\u2019s 12th district in the 117th Congress. The district includes the northern tip of San Francisco, including the entire Mission District. \u201cThere were 10 of us,\u201d recalls Bacelar, of the home she shared with nine other Bay Area millennials. \u201cI\u2019m actually leaving this amazing situation I\u2019m in right now living with three friends to move in with my boyfriend just to save on rent.\u201d Bacelar said her campaign, \u201cAgatha for Congress,\u201d asks volunteers to knock on doors in the district for at least an hour each week, starting in the Mission, but it has also been branching out in Presidio Heights, where Pelosi and California Senator Diane Feinstein, both own homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Agatha for Congress asks volunteers\u2014who number around 100 people according to the candidate\u2014to knock on doors for at least an hour per week. \u201cWay more people come out on the weekends,\u201d said Bacelar of her volunteer base. \u201cThe most we\u2019ve ever had is 30 people in one day.\u201d Multicultural, Multi-coastal Origins<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bacelar, like Pelosi, is not originally from the Bay Area. Where Pelosi was raised in Baltimore, Bacelar was raised between Miami and San Francisco. \u201cI spoke Spanish in my neighborhood and Portugese at home and I only spoke English in school,\u201d said Bacelar of her quadrilingual upbringing by a single mother in South Florida. Bacelar became a resident of the Mission “at the dawn of internet search.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n An Immigrant Candidacy<\/strong> \u201cI drove in a photobooth truck to over 30 congressional districts to take photos of local constituents who supported the Dream Act,\u201d said Bacelar. \u201cThen we created public art installations in support of the Dream Act. We also supported United We Dream when they would go storm the Capitol and organized press conferences in D.C.\u201d Bacelar gives Pelosi mixed-reviews on her immigration policy efforts as a lawmaker. \u201cPeople who are undocumented are not being served well by our current political system,\u201d she said, though she applauded Pelosi for her eight-hour speech on the floor of House of Representatives in Feb. 2018 as then-Minority Leader in defense of immigrant youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI know Pelosi could crush me,\u201d admits Agatha Bacelar, a Brazilian immigrant campaigning to unseat her representative in congress, the most-powerful woman in American political history: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. \u201cI respect Pelosi,\u201d said Bacelar. \u201cI voted for Pelosi. My family has voted for her \u2026 but she has been in that seat for 32 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":42525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3929],"tags":[],"coauthors":[18445],"class_list":["post-42524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n
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\u201cWe\u2019re going to campaign in District 5, also the Haight,\u201d said Bacelar. \u201cWe have a plan to go to every single neighborhood in the city.\u201d
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\u201cThe local public schools offered French, Spanish or German. Since I already spoke two Romance languages, Spanish and Portugese, we thought German would be best. I started with German in first grade, loved it, and kept going for the next 12 years,\u201d she said.
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\u201cMy father found my mother online and emailed her one word, \u2018Guta?\u2019, which is my mom\u2019s name.\u201d Guta Bacelar replied and the rest is history. Visiting her father, Herb Stephens, made the Castro a second north American home to Bacelar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe first place my dad took me in the Mission is La Taqueria,\u201d she said. \u201cAs an adult, I\u2019ve chosen to live in the Mission. It\u2019s where I feel most connected. It reminds me of the Latin culture in Miami and of course, it has a lot of young people,\u201d She laughs. \u201cAnd maybe because it\u2019s affordable.\u201d
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Immigration policy is a central issue for Agatha. The candidate said her earliest forays into immigration advocacy were organizing students to support the Dream Act at Coral Reef Senior High School in Miami. Working as a multimedia organizer at the Emerson Collective, Bacelar said she continued campaigning for immigrant youth by getting university deans and celebrities to come out with support the Dream Act.
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\u201cI was super stoked about that,\u201d recalls Bacelar, but the millennial candidate says it is not enough. \u201cObviously it still matters having a Latino candidate standing up to the fear.\u201d
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