Priorities
I stand with our communities.
I grew up in Saint Paul as the daughter of Hmong refugees. My family relied on public housing, food assistance, and medical assistance, not because my parents didn't work hard, but because working hard wasn't always enough. One unexpected bill could change everything. And for us, it did.
When my parents lost their jobs, we moved in with relatives. My sisters and I shared one small bedroom. My brothers slept in the hallway. As kids, we worked alongside our parents, picking cucumbers in the heat, pulling weeds from acres of land with our bare hands. My parents didn't complain. It was just life.
But I saw what that life cost my parents. The aching backs. The rough hands. The calloused feet. The stress. They never got to rest, and they deserved so much better.
And, as a child who navigated and translated the system for my parents, that stayed with me.
Today, too many families in District 6 are living that same story.
Rising rents. Rising costs. Jobs that don't stretch far enough. And now, a federal government pulling back on the very programs like SNAP and Medicaid that help families stay afloat.
In Payne-Phalen, Dayton's Bluff, Battle Creek, Highwood, and across the Greater East Side, I hear it every day, people working as hard as they can and still not getting ahead. That's not a personal failure. That's a system that needs to do better.
The Trump administration is making things harder for working people, immigrant families, for small businesses, for anyone who depends on a stable safety net. This isn't normal. And we can't respond by just making things slightly better.
Here's what I'm fighting for:
I've spent my time as your County Commissioner working to keep families housed, make our communities safer and more affordable, and make sure Ramsey County shows up when the bigger systems don't.
That work isn't done. And I'm not done either.
Because I know what it means to need support, and I know what's possible when communities actually get it.