Rep. Ritchie Torres on

The 15th Congressional district in New York’s South Bronx has a number of distinctions: it’s home to Yankee Stadium and the Bronx Zoo. It’s one of the most Democratic districts in the country. And it’s America’s poorest district. “More than half the residents in the South Bronx pay more than half their income toward their rent,” said Rep. Ritchie Torres. “And that’s before you factor in the cost of food and transportation and utilities and prescription drugs.”

At just 33 years old, Torres represents the 15th in Congress. For him, the issues that Joe Biden has staked his presidency on – reducing inequality, overhauling the social safety net – are not as abstract as the “Build Back Better” term used to describe them. For Torres, they’re personal.

Outside the apartment building where Torres lived as a youngster, CBS News’ John Dickerson asked, “So, that’s the window you looked out of? What are you looking out that window thinking when you’re growing up?”

“Thinking that there’s a whole world of opportunities waiting for me,” he replied.

That might seem like a bold thought, given that Torres grew up in chronically underfunded public housing in the Bronx. “I’m someone who grew up with a whole range of challenges, right?” he said. “I’ve had family members entangled with the criminal justice system. I’ve had to face housing insecurity and food insecurity. But the one constant that I had in my life was a stable, affordable home.”

Torres and his sister and twin brother were raised by their single mother. “There were moments when we could not afford to have three meals a day,” he said. “My mother would lurch from one low-wage job to the next. And so, our income varied widely.”

“What kinda jobs did she have?” Dickerson asked.

“Mechanic, food server, just a whole range of low-wage jobs.”

“Mechanic? Car mechanic?”

“Yeah.”

The motivations that would drive a future congressman were all around him. As a teenager, he helped care for his grandmother after she was widowed and in declining health, but he learned he could only do so much.

Dickerson asked, “What was that experience like?”

“Painful,” Torres replied, getting emotional. “It’s painful to see people you love who are the leaders of your family, the strong matriarchs of your family, struggle in their final years and become shadows of their former selves. And it’s part of the reason I feel so strongly about home care. I want for every elder in America what I would want for my own grandmother.”

In high school he was captain of the law team, leading his school to win New York City’s moot-court championship. He entered New York University full of promise, but faced a personal crisis that cut his studies short.

“I was hoping that I would graduate and go on to law school, or go on to become a teacher,” he said. “But during the latter years of my high school time, and then during my early college years, I came to struggle with depression. And so, I dropped out. There were moments when I thought of taking my own life, because I felt as if the world around me had collapsed.”

Torres sought therapy, started taking an antidepressant, and found his way back by immersing himself in local politics. He ran for the New York City Council despite calling himself an introvert. “I would have to drink one glass of wine before every speech!” he revealed.

He won, becoming the youngest member ever to win a city council seat. After six years Torres ran for Congress, becoming the first gay Afro-Latino representative. He has the idealism of youth, but recognizes politics has limits. Some moral debates, for example, are distractions.

Dickerson asked, “So, I’m a Democratic candidate out there somewhere, and my Republican opponent is mischaracterizing critical race theory – do I answer those mischaracterizations? Or do I talk about prescription drug costs with the bulk of my remarks?”

“I would focus on prescription drug costs,” Torres said. “Because if you conduct your campaign on the terms set by your opponents, then you’re going to lose.”

Moderates must win, or Democrats will lose the majority.

“I’m in a deep blue district; I’m in one of most Democratic districts in America,” Torres said. “And so, I’m respectful and mindful of the perspectives of members who are on the front lines, who are in purple districts, and who have a feel for swing voters much more than I do.”

And half a loaf is better than no loaf, which might mean whittling down social policy legislation to win the vote of moderate Democratic Senator Joe Manchin.

Dickerson asked, “As a progressive, why put all this blood, sweat and tears into electing Democrats and marching and speaking passionately about these issues, if a West Virginia senator is gonna call the tune for what the party believes in?”

“I refuse to allow progressive purity to be the enemy of progress in the real world,” he replied. “And for me, and for the district that I represent, an expanded Child Tax Credit, home care, affordable prescription drugs, childcare, all of these represent progress.”

Torres will be able to see the results when he visits his mom, who still lives in the apartment of his youth.

“How will the lives of the people who live here improve if President Biden’s legislation gets signed?” asked Dickerson.

“We’re finally going to have the opportunity to bring public housing into a state of good repair,” said Torres. “So, none of it is sexy … but we’re going to replace elevators, so that disabled residents are no longer prisoners in their own homes. We’re going to replace boilers so that people have consistent heat and hot water in the winter. We’re going to bring people closer to the idea of safe and affordable housing.”

For Ritchie Torres, it’s key to giving the next kid like him some reason to look out the window, and hope: “When people ask me how my mother raised three children on minimum wage, I describe it as ‘Mission: Impossible.’ But there are mothers who pull it off, who manage to remain hopeful in the face of real deprivation. And it’s, in some sense, a miracle.

“And it’s that triumph of hope that inspires me and sustains me every day.”

     
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Story produced by Alan Golds. Editor: Carol Ross.

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