Interview by Jason Farbman

Chanan Suarez is running for city council in Bellingham, Washington, a small city (population ninety thousand) not far from the Canadian border. He has campaigned for “housing for all”; a Bellingham Green New Deal; workers’ rights; “sanctuary for all”; municipalization of electricity, childcare, and hospitals; and financing reforms by taxing the rich.

A socialist since returning from Iraq as a Navy corpsman (an enlisted medical specialist), Suarez — a Miami native — settled in Seattle, where he became one of the leading figures on the left. As the founder and president of the Seattle chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Chanan addressed thousands and led marches throughout the Bush years. He later founded Queer Ally Coalition to protect the LGBT community from intensifying gay bashing in Seattle’s rapidly gentrifying Capitol Hill.

Suarez is currently shop steward at the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3937, where he works at the Social Security Administration as a bilingual claims specialist. He is also the cochair of the Whatcom County chapter of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).