By Gladys Vega and Roseann Bongiovanni
We wish to recognize every candidate who ran in the recent elections and to address questions that have surfaced regarding our participation. Chelsea stands at a genuine crossroads for the first time in years, and voters made their preferences clear about the city’s direction. We are confident in the roles we have taken on throughout this electoral process.
As longtime political participants in Chelsea, we made choices about which candidates to support—just as we have done repeatedly over the years. We backed those we believed would embody our community’s core principles and position Chelsea for a brighter tomorrow. One of us is a progressive Latina mother and grandmother committed to diversity in leadership at every level; the other brings experience as a former City Councilor, parent, and property owner. These perspectives inform our distinct but complementary vision for Chelsea’s schools, municipal services, and economy. Though we have collaborated for twenty years, we do not always agree on every issue. Our consensus, however, remains unwavering: Chelsea must advance, improve, and become more equitable.
Like thousands of neighbors across Chelsea, Massachusetts, and the nation, we took action. During our personal hours, we visited homes, distributed letters, placed calls, and promoted the candidates we favored.
Our choices reflected candidates who share our values—those determined to propel Chelsea forward, convinced that schools deserve better outcomes, committed to strengthening public safety, and focused on raising residents’ quality of life.
Our candidate endorsements carry the same weight as any other citizen’s involvement in local races. We make no apologies for being two engaged women who invested effort and employed standard “Get Out The Vote” tactics to mobilize supporters for our chosen candidates. The candidates we backed represented multiple backgrounds—Hispanic, African American, and Caucasian—and included both men and women. We appreciate the Chelsea Record and others for granting us credit as Chelsea’s kingmakers—suggesting our postcards and correspondence determined electoral outcomes. Though flattering, reality tells a different story: the victors simply outworked their opponents, built stronger networks, and better represented the values voters embraced.
This work has defined two decades of our lives. We have supported officials including former Rep. Gene O’Flaherty, Former State Senator Jarrett Barrios, Current State Senator Sal DiDomenico, former Governor Deval Patrick, former Attorney General Martha Coakley, Congressman Michael Capuano, State Senate candidate Paul Nowicki and many more — a list too long to list.
We reject being silenced by a misogynistic worldview that confines women to kitchens, stripping them of voice and influence. We champion giving voice to all people—irrespective of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or any other characteristic used to exclude.
We take pride in participating in Chelsea’s watershed elections. We offer our congratulations to Chelsea and all successful candidates for embodying the richness of our community’s diversity.
The entire city deserves to celebrate. The Boston Globe and WBUR acknowledged the significance of Chelsea’s elections—not just locally, but statewide and for Latino communities everywhere. Massachusetts has only two cities where incoming elected representatives proportionately mirror the Latino population; Chelsea is one of them. Regrettably, our local newspaper has chosen to emphasize alleged procedural concerns and complaints about the Chelsea Collaborative—an organization serving our community constructively for almost 30 years and spearheading countless initiatives benefitting all residents for decades ahead—rather than spotlight this historic milestone in Chelsea politics.
The irony is striking. These very complaints originate from a publication that previously urged mobilization of Latino voters during an election of utmost importance to Chelsea – maintaining a State Representative who hails from Chelsea. Specifically, an Op-Ed from Chelsea Record writer Seth Daniel on March 5, 2014 stated: “To get elected from Chelsea in the 2nd District, one now has to bank on and count on the Latino vote. That’s a conundrum. It’s an enigma. Will they vote? Mark my words -the Latino vote is a potential tidal wave of political power that could one day turn this City and the entire area on its ear. That day has not come yet, though, if it ever does unlocking that vote would be no small piece of magic. But if a born-and-raised Chelsea Latino guy like Roy Avellaneda cannot do it, then I don’t know who will. And so the tables have turned on Chelsea, and there doesn’t appear to be any clear path to victory any time soon – barring that piece of magic referred to above.”
That magic has materialized. What once seemed impossible is now Chelsea’s lived experience. Remember these words.
Congratulations to our candidates and to Chelsea itself.