Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Family History

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) was born on October 13th, 1989 to Sergio and Blanca Ocasio-Cortez in the Parkchester secton of the Bronx, New York.  She was the eldest of their two children.

When she was five, the family moved from their Bronx flat to a small house further north in suburban Yorktown Heights.  She attended Yorktown High School and subsequently Boston University.  However, in 2008 when she was nineteen, the family finances were thrown into turmoil by the death of her father from lung cancer.

She graduated cum laude from Boston University in 2011.  But she immediately moved back to the Bronx and took a job as a bartender and waitress in order to help her mother fight foreclosure on their home.

Politics.  AOC’s first involvement in politics came in 2016 when she worked as an organizer for Bernie Sanders’ Presidential campaign.

This involvement inspired her to take the plunge into politics.  A year later she entered her name in the Democratic primary for New York’s 14th Congressional district (covering eastern Bronx and northern Queens).

At first her entry was little noticed.  But things changed when she defeated the 10-term Democrat incumbent.  Her approach was novel.  She undertook grassroots mobilization and proved skilful in the use of social media to connect to a younger audience.  The national media took notice and she was a star being born.

AOC entered office at the age of twenty-nine, the youngest woman ever to have been elected to Congress.

Since her arrival she has become a leader of the progressive faction in the Democratic Party; and also a member of the “Squad,” an informal grouping of other young progressives.

Puerto Rican Ancestry

AOC’s name combines her father’s last name of Ocasio and her mother’s last name of Cortez.  Both are of Spanish origin. but hardly appear in Spain as last names.

Ocasio’s meaning is unclear.  It is very much a Puerto Rican name, with records there dating back to the late 18th century and possibly earlier.  There are some 6,000 Ocasios in Puerto Rico today.

Cortez, derived from the Spanish word cortes, is descriptive meaning “courteous” or “polite.”  The Cortes last name is found in Spain.  Cortez appears mainly in Mexico.

The Ocasio Line.  The first Ocasio sighting among AOC’s forebears was at Guayama on Puerto Rico’s southeast coastline.  Etanislao Ocasio was born there around 1870.  Little is known about him.  His son Gumersindo, born in 1899, was married three times.

Gumersindo’s first two wives died at young ages.  But his third wife Felicita, whom he had met and married in nearby Yabucoa in 1924, would end up outliving him by more than thirty years.   Gumersindo and Felicita had three sons:

• Pedro Ocasio-Cruz who died of TB in 1946 at the age of twenty
• Carmelo Ocasio-Cruz was a US Army Korean War veteran who emigrated to Cleveland, Ohio
• and Sergio Ocasio-Cruz who emigrated to New York in the 1950’s.

Sergio who died in Brooklyn in 2005 was AOC’s paternal grandfather.

Sergio and Blanca in New York

Sergio’s son Sergio Ocasio-Roman met his wife Blanca in the late 1980’s when he was visiting Puerto Rico from New York as a young man.  She was then a teenager from a poor family, helping to raise her siblings while her mother Clotilde worked.  Their home was near the town of Arecibo on Puerto Rico’s north shore.

Sergio and Blanca married in Puerto Rico and moved to New York.  Their daughter Alexandria (AOC) was born in 1989.

Family Business.  AOC has said: “My parents started from scratch: new languages, new life, new everything.” Her father founded an architectural firm and Blanca helped to make ends meet with secretarial and cleaning work.

Although Sergio’s early life was filled with obstacles, he ended up establishing a successful enterprise. His company, Kirschenbaum Ocasio Roman, specialized in building and land inspection services.  The business employed six people and enabled his family to live in some middle-class comfort. 

Family Struggles.  But life changed in 2008 when Sergio died suddenly of lung cancer at the age of forty-nine.  The family fell into serious debt.  Sergio had left unpaid medical bills and no life insurance to cover them.  And he had died without making a will.  The family became involved in a lengthy probate dispute in order to settle his estate.

Blanca worked two jobs in an effort to save their house.  She later said:

“After my husband died the family went through tough times.  I was cleaning houses in the morning and working as a secretary in the afternoon.  We had moved from the Bronx to Yorktown Heights, but it was still difficult making ends meet.  I was skipping mortgage payments and we almost lost the house twice.”

Alexandria took a job after college and began assisting to provide for the family.

But eventually it was New York’s high property taxes that caused Blanca to abandon her struggle and leave the city for Florida.  She moved with her mother Clotilde to Eustis, a small place in the Orlando suburbs.  

AOC’s Family Tree

• Etanislao Ocasio from Guayama (b. 1870) m. Eleonor Valentin (1874-1924)
• – Dolores Ocasio (1894-1946)
• – Gumersindo Ocasio (1899-1956)