Most of us can deliver a Bernie Sanders’ stump speech from scratch. Call for a political revolution. Say we must defeat the millionaires and billionaires. Rally the 99% to unite against the 1%. It’s a powerful, simple message that he rarely strays from. And for good reason: it works.

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For a long time, his personal life story wasn’t part of Bernie’s narrative. His campaign slogan, after all, is “Not me. Us.” But last weekend, in his first two major speeches since announcing his candidacy, Sanders spoke at length about his upbringing in a way he had never done before. It turns out, Bernie’s background can help make his message more, rather than less, relatable. And it dispels the myth that he’s “just another white male candidate”.

During his speech in Brooklyn College on Saturday, which he attended as a teenager, Sanders spoke of his working-class roots. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Sanders was the son of Jewish immigrants who had nearly their entire family wiped out in the Holocaust. Fleeing poverty and antisemitism in Europe, his father immigrated from Poland at the age of 17 “without a nickel in his pocket” and without knowing English. He worked as a paint salesman, living paycheck to paycheck. His mother, as Sanders recalled on Saturday, dreamed of moving out of their small rent-controlled apartment and into a house. “She died young while we were still living in that rent-controlled apartment.”

Sanders talked about family in a way that resonated far deeper than his usual accounting of the unearned wealth of the 1% and the perilous fortunes of the 99%. Hearing him open up about his upbringing, one understood his angry and tireless organizing on behalf of ordinary people: he remembers economic anxiety, is grateful for his parents’ sacrifices, and wants others to have the chance to succeed. As Sanders put it in his Brooklyn speech: “I know where I came from.” Now, so do we.

Neither his father nor his mother lived long enough to see their son’s foray into politics. In their story, we can see so many of our own: working people sacrificing everything for their loved ones. And if they don’t reach their goals, after fighting largely on their own their whole lives, society tells them its their fault. As Donald Trump is fond of saying: “You’re fired.”

Sanders reminded us this weekend of why he struggles, and why we should struggle with him

On Sunday night in Chicago, Sanders talked about his political awakening as a young activist in that city. It was in Chicago that he joined the Young People’s Socialist League and became a student leader with the Congress of Racial Equality. He admitted he wasn’t the best student at the University of Chicago, but he spent time in the library stacks reading politics and economics and eventually “put two and two together” about how racism, poverty and war weren’t separate occurrences, but rooted in an economic system in which a powerful minority rules over a dispossessed majority.

It’s telling that Sanders spoke about his time fighting against housing discrimination in Chicago, and that it’s possible he will face a president in 2020 who got wealthy off perpetrating housing discrimination. The choice before Americans couldn’t be clearer.

At the rally in Brooklyn, I was reminded at how young and diverse Sanders’ audience is. Far removed from the “Bernie Bro” trope on social media, Sanders supporters come from an array of backgrounds and identities, but they all could relate his experiences and political awakening with their own. As he put it in his speech that afternoon: “I came from a family who knew all too well the frightening power employers can have over everyday workers.” After all, capitalism may divide us, but it also exposes billions of us to common feelings of powerlessness, precarity and stress.

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Politics can’t get rid of all the anxieties that plague us, but the universal programs that Sanders is still making the core of his appeals can free us of many of them. And it can also help us dream again.

Sanders was lifted into the middle class by the sacrifices of his parents, but also by public schools (including a tuition-free year at Brooklyn College) and rent controls. Like millions of immigrant families, his parents wanted something as simple as a home of their own – not the power to exploit others, or to become billionaires, but enough resources to look after their children and achieve a little more than their parents had.

These dreams are personal, but the way to achieve them is political. Sanders reminded us this weekend of why he struggles, and why we should struggle with him.