Two days before election day outside a polling site in Queens, the air was abuzz with the excited voices of campaign volunteers. It was the last day of early voting and they were waving signs, handing out flyers, and urging voters to choose their candidate: Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani.
Among the volunteers was Oma Anderson. She moved cooly from voter to voter, armed with a clipboard, fliers, and a patient smile.
A little after 1 p.m., her daughter, Cassie Persaud, arrived to take her place. The 26-year-old greeted her mother with a brief hug before turning toward the line of people who were stepping off the Q37 bus and filing towards the polling center.
For the next several hours, until the polls closed, Cassie continued her mother’s work, talking to voters about affordability, housing and public transit — issues that have not only dominated the mayoral race but also shaped conversations in working-class neighborhoods like theirs.
As the polls closed around 5 p.m., Anderson and Persaud headed to the Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) chapter office in Richmond Hill to continue phone banking for Mamdani until 9:00 p.m.
For Anderson, who arrived in the U.S. from Guyana in 1990, this was a moment to speak up for the same communities that had once helped her start anew. For her daughter, this election symbolizes the continuation of a fight she began in college: to make politics accountable to the city’s working people, especially first-generation immigrants like her mother.
From Guyana to New York
Anderson emigrated to the United States 35 years ago, sponsored by her grandmother who was living in New York. “We left our home where it’s warm and beautiful and came here during Thanksgiving,” she said. “It was freezing. We didn’t have coats. They had to bring jackets for us.”
She was a teenager then, part of a family of six that was starting over in Bushwick, Brooklyn. “It was not easy because we were not used to living in such a small place,” she recalled. “My father died very young and I had to work because we had bills to pay.”
Over the years, she worked wherever she could — at retail shops, pharmacies and grocery chains. “I worked at Vim, Conway, Duane Reade, CVS,” she said. “I was a pharmacy tech for 12 years. I worked many jobs.”
Persaud was born in 1999 at Jamaica Hospital and was raised in Ozone Park. “Money was always a big conversation,” she recalls. “How are we paying the bills this month? How are we paying for groceries? People working long hours, being exploited. My mom’s job wouldn’t give her time off to come to my school awards.”
She attended elementary and middle school in Queens and high school in Manhattan before earning a scholarship to study gender and sexuality studies at a college in Indiana. When she returned home in 2021 after graduating, she found herself searching for both work and a sense of purpose.
That year, she joined DRUM Beats, DRUM’s sibling organization, which organizes working-class Indo-Caribbean and South Asian Immigrants.
“I was intrigued because it focused on putting people into office who actually serve working-class communities,” she said. “It’s not about identity politics. It’s about what candidates have done historically to show they care about everyday people.”
Persaud said volunteering changed her understanding of politics. “Before, I wasn’t as aware about who the candidates were or who their donors were,” she said. “Now I share that information with others, because people deserve to be well-informed. These decisions impact their lives.”
From inspiration to action
Persaud’s growing activism inspired her mother to get involved. “I used to talk to my mom a lot about DRUM Beats,” she said. “One day I thought: ‘Why isn’t my mom a volunteer too? She wants better for the city and for everyday working people.’ So I said, ‘Mom, come be a volunteer.’”
Anderson remembers the moment clearly. “Cassie told me about DRUM three years ago,” she said. “I came to meetings, I listened and I got passionate. I want to fight for immigrants because immigrants build this city. Everywhere you go, small businesses, restaurants — it’s immigrants. We pay taxes, so we have rights too.”
Anderson said that this is not the first time that her daughter’s activism inspired her. “When [Donald] Trump was running for president, my two kids went protesting,” Anderson said. “I saw their picture in the paper and I was so moved. Adults know a lot, but young people teach parents too.”
Working together, the two have found a special and common ground. “It’s been cool to volunteer with her because we share the same values,” Persaud said. “We both want to see changes for working communities.” Anderson added, “I get to learn from her. She has more experience than me, so I listen and I learn.”
A campaign about affordability and dignity
When Anderson and Persaud were looking to get involved in the New York City mayoral election, their choice was clear. Zohran Mamdani, the Astoria-based assembly member running on a platform focused on affordability, housing and public transit, really spoke to them.
“He did the hunger strike for taxi drivers when they were fighting for debt relief,” Persaud said. “He stood up to Trump’s border policies. He didn’t take money from billionaires or corporations. His campaign was grassroots and centered on affordability.”
Anderson said Mamdani’s background as the son of immigrants from Uganda and India resonates deeply as well. “He wants to make affordable homes, fast and free buses and universal daycare,” she said. “If you don’t have to pay for those things, you can live your life. Immigrants pay a lot of taxes and we’re still not treated fairly. He understands that.”
While Persaud sees hope in Mamdani’s campaign, she’s also pragmatic. “One loss in this movement isn’t the end,” she said. “It just means the fight continues in other ways.”
One voter at a time
Since June, the mother-daughter duo have been knocking on doors, making phone calls and canvassing to encourage voter turnout and increase support for their candidate. They encountered first-hand the mix of fatigue and resilience that so often comes with canvassing. “Sometimes people curse you out,” Anderson said, smiling.
“We say, ‘Have a good day,’ and move on. You have to take the bad with the good. There’s darkness, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel.”
Persaud takes a similar view. “Sometimes people hang up during phone banking, but I still care about them,” she said. “Even if they don’t align with me politically, I still want their basic needs met. Like Zohran says, he’ll be a mayor for everybody, regardless of who voted for him.”
Persaud remembers being at a polling site one morning during the primaries. “A man was heading to the gym and didn’t realize it was election day,” she said. “After we talked, he rerouted himself to go vote. That was really cool.”
The work, they both say, can be tiring. But they keep going, guided by what they believe is a bigger purpose. “Every day you get up and be inspired,” Anderson said. “If you can change one life, two lives — do it. God put you in this purpose for a reason.”
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Beyond one election
By evening, the two were back together at DRUM’s chapter office in Richmond Hill, joining other volunteers who were dialing voters and encouraging them to go out and vote for Mamdani. Around them, other Indo-Caribbean volunteers traded stories about the day’s encounters.
For Persaud, a big part of the experience is about belonging. “Being around other working-class Indo-Caribbean people, across generations, it feels like being part of something bigger than myself,” she said. “It’s about making sure people like us are seen and heard.”
Anderson, who once viewed politics as a fuzzy, distant thing, now sees it in a much sharper light. “I was never into politics before,” she said. “My daughter taught me. Now I’m passionate about it. We can’t give up. If people like Martin Luther King didn’t keep going, we wouldn’t have changed.”
