Ritu Jha-
The Indian American juggernaut American politics continues. Janani Ramachandran, a public interest attorney, activist, and artist who has devoted her life to empowering under-served communities, has become the youngest councilmember in Oakland’s history
At age 30, not only is she the youngest, but also the Indian American councilmember and the first openly gay woman of color to be elected to the city council. Ramachandran ran for the Oakland District 4 council seat and received 18,858 votes (68.47%), while her opponent Nenna Joiner received 8,685 votes.
Ramachandran spoke to indica on her hard-earned victory and her plans for serving the city of Oakland.
“Every minute was a struggle,” she said. “We were fighting till the very last second. It was only when the polls closed that we were okay.” She said earning nearly 70% of the votes in a council race “is pretty good.”
“I am really proud we got that far. But I don’t want to take any chances. I worked hard for this. My opponent had much more money than I did. She is a businesswoman, and I respect her background. But it was a very difficult election; mud-slinging, and the usual politics. It was stressful. Every day was a fight.”
Being an Indian American and from the queer community, Ramachandran’s election seems even more remarkable. “My being from the minority community definitely impacted the nature of the race. My opponent was never racist against me. But there are a lot of naysayers out there in politics across Oakland and even outside of it that want to criticize me for my age.”
She said the sexism is not direct. “For example, when I’m attacked publicly, a younger South Asian woman is not expected to fight back or defend myself or argue. There are different expectations from South Asian women. A white man running for office wouldn’t get the same criticism.”
Ramachandran said people “liked our ideas and what we were fighting for.” She said they wanted to see a positive change in Oakland. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re an immigrant or white, black, or brown. To the voters, we represented a clear vision of positive change. People care about public safety, they want to reduce crime, get cleaner roads, safer neighborhoods, and less homelessness. All of those were our focus.”
She feels her campaign’s strength was direct communication with voters. “I personally knocked on 10,000 doors in the course of this campaign. We met voters at their doorstep, at the farmers’ market, at the community centers to ask them what they really care about, and how can we listen to their needs. This approach helped us win the election.”
Ramachandran may be young, but she has the political wisdom of a seasoned councilmember. “I’m one of eight council members and together we can tackle big issues such as homelessness. It’s not a one-person task, neither is it easy.”
The big task on her agenda is affordable housing. “Every county needs to produce a certain number of regular market-rate housing, low-income housing, very low-income housing, just different levels of housing. Oakland has fallen short on many of those calls.”
However, public safety is her top priority, and with good reason too. “We need to make sure we have a faster police response when someone calls 911, it shouldn’t take four or five hours for help to arrive. We’re seeing a lot of gun violence, and we’re also seeing a lot of deaths of pedestrians and cyclists. We need better road infrastructure; we need to make sure that our streets are walkable for different communities. And, whether you’re a cyclist, a child, or an elder, you should feel free to walk your own neighborhoods in a safe manner.”
She added, “Oakland is in the news for all the wrong reasons – crime, homelessness and dirty streets. But Oakland has such a beautiful culture and so much potential. We have amazing art, food, history, parks, nature, and so many other things. That’s what we need to celebrate. We need to deal with some of the issues involving safety and then attract more people here to set up businesses, employ more people, and bring back the positive culture.”
She has plans to bring business to Oakland “by having safer neighborhoods.” She said these issues are linked. “The more safety we have, the more our crime goes down, and the safer our neighborhoods get. This will attract some of the businesses we need to come back to start operations here.”
Ramachandran does not shy away from calling a spade a spade, the disconnect between elected representatives and the people: “People don’t feel they have faith in their local government. My job is to make sure that people restore the faith. It’s a difficult path, but my focus is making sure we can rebuild a little bit of that trust.”
Oakland Councilmember Janani Ramachandran: We need to rebuild trust between people and the City Council
