As we look forward to the 2020 elections, Shondaland will be covering the candidates and the issues that are important to the American people. Be sure to check back for our continued coverage.

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I won’t be on that debate stage tonight, but I’m still fighting for the millions of working families who are hurting and hoping for a better future.

Last night, I was in Atlanta, Georgia with Angela Rye , one of America’s most influential advocates for real change. She hosted a community conversation at Paschal’s restaurant, which during the Civil Rights Movement was the meeting ground for leaders like the Rev. Dr. Martin Lurther King Jr., Mayor Andrew Young, and Congressman John Lewis — giants for justice who peacefully pushed a movement from protest to power.

In the community I’m from quitting is not an option.

We talked about generational poverty, criminal justice , immigration reform , and a new direction for our nation. We discussed issues often dismissed by politicians in Washington and the mainstream media, and that probably won’t be discussed during the next Democratic debate.

In the community I’m from , quitting is not an option.

My grandmother came here as a 7-year-old orphan from Mexico and worked her entire life as a maid, a cook, and a babysitter. She raised my mom as a single parent, and my mom raised my twin brother and I as a single parent, too. We grew up on the West Side of San Antonio, where my mom was a Chicana activist who fought for equal rights. We rented homes, rode the bus, and I can remember watching the grocery list get shorter and shorter as the budget got tighter and tighter.



But we got a chance to pursue our dreams. We’re proud products of the public schools of Texas and then attended Stanford University and Harvard Law School thanks to federal investments like Pell Grants. I ran for City Council when I was 26 years old, and later became the youngest mayor of a major American city. We expanded high-quality pre-K education and access to higher education, made unprecedented investments in underserved communities, and then President Obama asked me to join his cabinet as the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

I’ve lived the promise of America, and that’s why I’m fighting for everybody to have that opportunity. I believe everyone counts in this country.

Justin Sullivan Getty Images

Our campaign for the presidency has been a little different . We’ve been bold in the pursuit of justice and fearless in the fight for progress. We’ve put front and center the challenges and aspirations of the most marginalized communities and most vulnerable people. I haven’t been afraid to use my voice to lift up people who have been left out.

That’s why I put forward an immigration platform that completely rejects Trump’s cruelty and set the standard for the entire field of candidates. I visited Matamoros, México , where asylum seekers are living in squalor due to this administration's failure to fix our broken immigration system.

That’s why I’m the only candidate with a stand-alone plan to reform policing and why I don’t hesitate to say the names of victims. Police violence is gun violence too, and we must speak out for Black and Brown people who often don’t have an effective first chance at life.

That’s why I’m speaking up for the poor, not just the middle class, including those I met experiencing homelessness in the drainage tunnels under the Strip in Las Vegas and living in makeshift camps in Oakland . Across America, we have a housing affordability crisis and I’ve proposed a sweeping agenda to provide relief to working families .



The real divide in America is not right versus left, but the inequality between a wealthy, privileged few and a struggling, underrepresented majority.

My Economic Plan for Working Families invests in universal child care to reduce the cost of raising a family, guarantees at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave to ensure gender pay equity , establishes a national sick leave standard, and creates a 21st Century Safety Net. This ambitious economic agenda focuses on raising wages with a massive expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit of up to $9,000 to reward hard work, a $15 minimum wage that increases with the cost of living, and a $3,000 Child Tax Credit that will reduce child poverty in America by more than half. The plan is paid for with a new wealth inequality tax for those at the top to pay their fair share.



The real divide in America is not right versus left, but the inequality between a wealthy, privileged few and a struggling, underrepresented majority.

This election is about whether power will be wielded from the top-down or from the bottom-up. And in a democracy, we know that power belongs in the hands of the people.

My mom first ran for City Council in 1971 as part of a slate of candidates challenging an unjust and unequal status quo. Her slogan was, “bring government back to the people.” She was running to represent a community that never before had representation in the halls of power. She lost that race and afterwards told a reporter, “ we’ll be back .”

She was right. I’m running for president so that no matter who you are, you can reach your American Dream. And I will not stop fighting for that future.

I won’t be on that debate stage tonight, but I will always elevate the voices of vulnerable people and I know that we’ll be back



Julián Castro is an American politician from San Antonio, Texas. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the youngest member of President Obama's Cabinet, serving as the 16th United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 2014 to 2017. He is currently running for President of the Untied States. Twitter: @JulianCastro

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