I’m a 28-year-old Brazilian immigrant and San Franciscan. I was raised by a single mom and our public schools in Miami. I came to the Bay Area to study design and engineering at Stanford, where I’ve lived ever since graduating—I have had family in San Francisco for decades. Unlike conventional candidates, I do not have a house, or kids—but I do have three housemates and a jump-rope. In high school, I was a nationally competitive jump-roper and I continue to double dutch, sharing LED ropes with the community at Oakland First Fridays.

Before quitting my job to run for Congress, I worked at the intersection of technology and democracy with Democracy Earth, and on documentary filmmaking and political advocacy with Emerson Collective. Through this work, I talked to the people least-served by our democracy: indigenous peoples, the incarcerated and paroled, asylum seekers, and the undocumented. After seeing so much unnecessary suffering caused by policies written by establishment politicians, I felt a moral imperative to run for office and change how things are done.