{"id":11907,"date":"2025-10-22T13:14:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T13:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/11907\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T13:14:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T13:14:10","slug":"nyc-working-class-muslims-see-progress-in-mamdani-but-policies-win-votes-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/11907\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC working-class Muslims see progress in Mamdani, but policies win votes | Politics News"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City – In the Bronx’s Morrisania neighbourhood, you often hear a familiar refrain: \u201cMamdani, Mamdani, Mamdani\u201d.<\/p>\n

Home to a fast-growing West African community – including many new-immigrant Muslims – Morrisania is among many areas where identity issues of race converge with the needs of the working class ahead of New York\u2019s November 4 mayoral election.<\/p>\n

Many in this community are counting on 34-year-old candidate Zohran Mamdani to win.<\/p>\n

After all, a victory for Mamdani over former Governor Andrew Cuomo<\/a> would mark a series of historic firsts for New York City – its first Muslim mayor, the first born in Africa, and the first person of South Asian descent to lead the largest city in the United States.<\/p>\n

It is a fact that has sparked hope – and grim reminders of entrenched Islamophobia and xenophobia – across the diverse Muslim communities interwoven into the fabric of the city.<\/p>\n

But for Aicha Donza, a shop owner in Morrisania, the Bronx, where annual incomes are half the city’s average, it is the avowed Democratic Socialist’s message of affordability – ambitious pledges for free buses, rent freezes on certain buildings, and universal childcare, paid for, in part, by increasing taxes on the wealthy – that has won her support.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe says he\u2019s going to make things easier,\u201d Donza told Al Jazeera, showing off the wares in her store: plantain powder from Ghana; Liberian palm oil imported from the country where she was born; traditional Islamic garb imported from Turkiye, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rent is so high, every day people come into the store, they say the prices are too high,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd free buses, if he can manage that, that would make a huge difference\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"EssaEssa Tunkala is seen outside of the Islamic Cultural Center of the Bronx [Joseph Stepansky\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n

Outside of the nearby Islamic Cultural Center of the Bronx, following afternoon prayers, Essa Tunkala, 60, ruminated over what the election could mean for the neighbourhood, a melting pot of both working-class trades – parking attendants, cab drivers, and store workers – and West African diaspora.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost like you\u2019re in West Africa,\u201d Tunkala grinned, listing residents from Senegal, Liberia, Ghana, Togo, and Mali, to name a few.<\/p>\n

He pointed to several serious questions<\/a> that continue to hang over Mamdani\u2019s run: How will he actualise his vision? Will he be able to rise above the relatively limited ability of the mayoral position to build the kind of coalition with state officials and lawmakers needed to realise his marquee pledges?<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we need fresh ideas to create opportunities,\u201d said Tunkala, who is originally from the Gambia and sells sporting goods from a table on the street. \u201cThis is a new generation with new ideas for development, that\u2019s why I support him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahmed Jejote, a 55-year-old cab driver from Sierra Leone, echoed the sentiment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve experienced Eric Adams,\u201d he said, referring to the corruption-plagued current city mayor, who dropped<\/a> out of the race in September. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen Cuomo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMamdani is just starting out, and he wants to go forward,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it\u2019s not really about religion for me\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"MariamMariam Saleh is seen at Kumasi Restaurant in the Bronx [Joseph Stepansky\/Al Jazeera English]<\/p>\n

Blocks away, 46-year-old Mariam Saleh stood over steaming trays of food at Kumasi Restaurant: banku, a fermented mixture of maize and cassava; suya, a spiced meat skewer; kwenkwen, a type of jollof rice.<\/p>\n

She was less circumspect about the historic nature of Mamdani\u2019s run.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat he is Muslim, for us, is huge progress,\u201d the 46-year-old, who is originally from Ghana, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s huge progress for the Muslim community in America, not just in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City – In the Bronx’s Morrisania neighbourhood, you often hear a familiar refrain: \u201cMamdani, Mamdani, Mamdani\u201d.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[153,416,9,24,55,54,12,56,87,901,2272],"class_list":{"0":"post-11907","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-elections","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-city-news","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-us-canada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}