{"id":7429,"date":"2025-08-08T07:52:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T07:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=7429"},"modified":"2025-08-08T07:52:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T07:52:00","slug":"where-little-flowers-bloom-two-by-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=7429","title":{"rendered":"Where \u201cLittle Flowers\u201d Bloom \u2013 Two by Two"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/div>\n

By MIKE MAGEE<\/p>\n

What are the chances that citizens of New York, the largest city in the nation, would vote in a majority to oppose a formerly corrupt politician with a party machine behind him, and instead favor a little known candidate \u2013 the son of immigrant parents with \u201cswarthy skin and belligerent independence,\u201d from a suspect minority and religious heritage, who actively mixed music and politics, who seemed to come out of nowhere but be everywhere at once, and was ultra focused on \u201cefficiency and honesty in municipal government?\u201d<\/p>\n

And what if that had occurred not once, but twice in the last century?<\/p>\n

Certainly by now, the name Zohran Mamdani is already ringing in your ears. More on him in a moment. But let\u2019s first travel back a century to introduce another candidate for mayor whose life and career presaged the modern day version.<\/p>\n

His name was Fiorello La Guardia, and his remains were laid to rest on September 21, 1947 in Woodland Cemetery, a short distance from his home at 5020 Woodbridge Avenue in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. He died at age 64 from pancreatic cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Little Flower\u201d (a nickname that derived from his first name\u00a0Fiore<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 Italian for flower) described his stature (5 foot 2 inches) but not necessarily his personality.\u00a0The New York Times obituary<\/a>\u00a0described him \u201cas much a part (of New York) as any of its public buildings\u201d and \u201ca little firebrand.\u201d<\/p>\n

By any measure, he was one of New York\u2019s own, earning the morning of his death in 1947 the\u00a0Fire Department\u2019s 5-5-5-5<\/a>\u00a0signal, a\u00a0traditional bell code used to honor firefighters who have died in the line of duty.<\/p>\n

An Italian immigrant, his father was raised a Catholic in Foggia, Italy, and his mother (from Trieste on the Italian\/Croatian border) was Jewish.\u00a0 Fiorello was born on the East Side of Manhattan on December 11, 1882, two years after his parents\u2019 marriage in Italy.\u00a0His father<\/a>\u00a0was a skilled musician and became the bandmaster for the U.S. Army. As a result, Fiorello was raised on multiple Army bases, and graduated from high school in Prescott, Arizona, a stone\u2019s throw from Fort Whipple. Along the way, the father taught the son to play the banjo, cornet, and trumpet, and taught his sister, Gemma, to play violin, mandolin, and piano.<\/p>\n

Skilled in languages (Yiddish, German, French, Italian), by the age of 20 Fiorello was employed by the US Consulate in Europe, and on return to the U.S. served as an interpreter on Ellis Island. Within a few years, he managed a Law Degree from NYU in 1910, and in 1914, at age 32 ran for U.S. Congress as a Republican, losing to the Tammany Hall\u2019s Democratic candidate. Two years later, he won the seat even though Republicans initially supported another candidate. By 2018, he was re-elected but this time with Democratic support and declaring himself a \u201csocialist.\u201d<\/p>\n

By 1933, Tammany Hall and its leader, NYC Mayor Jimmy Walker, were out, clearing the way for Fiorello. He ran with the support of\u00a0a complex coalition of German American Republicans, Democratic reformers, Socialists, middle-class Jews, and Italians who in the past had aligned with Tammany Hall.<\/p>\n

He came into the\u00a0Mayor\u2019s office in 1934<\/a>\u00a0good to go. He had promised work relief for the unemployed, merit-based civil service, efficiency over corruption, and a focus on infrastructure including expanded housing, transportation and parks.\u00a0Robert Moses<\/a>\u00a0was the head of his Parks department, a post he held until 1960. His vocal support during the election for FDR paid off handsomely. Fully 20% of the entire national Civil Works Administration (CPA) budget was allocated by FDR to New York City. In return, he delivered his Labor Party\u2019s (which he helped organize) support to FDR in his\u00a0Presidential elections in 1936, 1940 and 1944.<\/a><\/p>\n

One of his main achievements was the maintenance of the Office of Price Administration which placed limits on pricing of food, rents, and other necessities. By the time he stepped down on\u00a0December 31, 1945,<\/a>\u00a0\u201cTammany Hall had been reduced to a shadow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eight decades later, an independent minded, gifted politician, also occasionally self-defined a \u201csocialist\u201d bucked his own political establishment and soundly defeated the modern version of a Democratic Tammany candidate, Andrew Cuomo, surprising many, but not all political pundits. His name is Zohran Mamdani.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

He too is the son of immigrants. He arrived on New York shores at the age of seven, born of Indian parents and raised in his early years in Kampala, Uganda. His father, Mamood Mamdani, is a Muslim from Gujarati, India, and currently a professor of political science at Columbia University. His mother is a Punjabi Hindu, noted filmmaker Mira Nair (Mississippi Masala<\/a>;\u00a0Monsoon Wedding<\/a>;\u00a0Salaam Bombay!<\/a>\u00a0and others).<\/p>\n

Like La Guardia, Mamdani has been vocal and politically active since his early years. Soon after graduating from Bowden College, that voice took the form of his Rap alter-ego,\u00a0Young Cardamom<\/a>. In 2015, he became a fan of rising South Asian American hip-hop performer\u00a0Himanshu Suri<\/a>\u00a0(Heems) and after reading a Village Voice article on the performer\/turned politician, volunteered to help out in Heems\u2019 New York city council campaign. Five years later, Mamdani offered this self-appraisal, \u201cWhen you are a C-list rapper, seeking to get the word out about your music, in many ways you are using the same principles of being an organizer\u2026 We might have an idea of where we should have political debate, we might have an idea of what music should look like and where it should be performed, but frankly it has to engage with the reality of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

His music and his politics since 2015 have never shied away from controversy. Pakistani vocalist,\u00a0Ali Sethi,<\/a>\u00a0with whom he collaborated said, \u201cHe\u2019s talking about class divisions and the truth about them and overcoming them. But he has such a sunniness, which I love. He\u2019s not lecturing you about anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

By 2020, the\u00a0shift in emphasis<\/a>\u00a0clearly pointed to a career in politics. But his time as a performer had been constructive. \u201cArtists are the storytellers of this world\u2026It\u2019s not just that we need to combine the arts with the need for dignity, it\u2019s that we have to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani came out early\u00a0<\/a>and often in support of the Palestinian people, emphasizing pluralism and supporting a New York City \u201cwhere everyone can belong regardless of religion.\u201d In contrast to La Guardia\u2019s final salute by the NYFD, Zohran\u2019s campaign is still in correction territory. As\u00a0journalist Sanya Mansoor<\/a>\u00a0noted, South Asians \u201csee his rise as a sign of hope in a city where racism and Islamophobia erupted following the September 11 terrorist attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the Democratic primary approached, a few national leaders like Bernie Sanders and AOC openly supported Mumdani. But\u00a0most remained quiet<\/a>, even though internal polls showed the young dynamic candidate in the lead. But young up-and-coming journalists like USA Today\u2019s\u00a0Sara Peque\u00f1o<\/a>\u00a0didn\u2019t hold back. as\u00a0she wrote<\/a>, \u201cThe reasons conservatives are criticizing Mamdani are the reasons people my age voted for him. We believe in moving funding from the NYPD into areas like mental health care and community building. We support Palestinian rights. We want to see that working-class New Yorkers can remain in this city. We see taxing corporations and the wealthy as a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the numbers bore her out. In neighborhoods with high South Asian populations, Mumdani\u00a0won 52%\u00a0<\/a>of the first-choice votes. During the Primary campaign, Mumdani\u2019s campaign visited 136 mosques across the city and focused on three Muslim principles: justice, mercy, and commitment to community. But it was more than just values, said South Asian advocacy organization\u00a0Drum Beats<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cYou need a political program for people that speaks to the grave inequalities in society.\u201d And Mamdani had one. And as if the message needed any amplification, the MAGA ICE campaign reinforced what was at stake. As CUNY Hunter College sociologist,\u00a0Heba Gowayed<\/a>, wrote, \u201cICE was born out of Muslim hate.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, Zohran proved himself an agile politician by forming a cross-endorsement agreement with\u00a0Jewish candidate Brad Lander,<\/a>\u00a0city comptroller and highest ranking Jewish official in the city. That led to 2\/3 of Lander\u2019s voters choosing Mamdani as their second choice.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s victory speech echoed \u201cThe Little Flower\u2019s\u201d themes. He declared to ecstatic supporters,\u00a0\u201cI will be the mayor for every New Yorker, whether you voted for me, for Gov. Cuomo or felt too disillusioned by a long, broken political system to vote at all. I will fight for a city that works for you, that is affordable for you, that is safe for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polls seem to suggest that Mumdani, like La Guardia, had his finger on the pulse of the voters. A July 29, 2025 poll found that \u201csupport for Palestinian rights\u201d was important to 96% of voters and \u201cwillingness to criticize the Israeli government\u201d was important to 88%.\u00a0 Younger voters as predicted overwhelmingly supported Mamdani, but in much larger numbers that predicted. Voters under 40 made up over 40% of the early voter turnout.<\/p>\n

UNC 2019 Journalism graduate and columnist for USA Today,\u00a0Sara Peque\u00f1o<\/a>, said it best and suggests we may be witnessing the emergency of a \u201cLittle Flower\u201d of our own.\u00a0She wrote,\u00a0<\/a>\u201cI have personally seen the way my generation has reacted to Mamdani\u2019s campaign. There is a palpable excitement reminiscent of Barack Obama\u2019s first run for the presidency, an excitement fueled by the idea that the Democratic Party can change, in spite of itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Magee MD is a Medical Historian and regular correspondent for THCB. He is the author of CODE BLUE: Inside America\u2019s Medical Industrial Complex. <\/a>(Grove\/2020)<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By MIKE MAGEE What are the chances that citizens of New York, the largest city in the nation, would vote in a majority to oppose a formerly corrupt politician with a party machine behind him, and instead favor a little known candidate \u2013 the son of immigrant parents with \u201cswarthy skin and belligerent independence,\u201d from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7429"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}