Lively memories and stories about woe have left scars on two descendants of socialism, which now give public warnings about the future of New York City under the rule of Democratic-Socialist mayor candidate Zohran Mamdani.
“My ears are forced when I hear people who embrace socialism, especially very privileged people such as this aspiring mayor candidate from New York City, talk about how he wants to grab the means of productions, as he has spoken in the past, he does not like private-owned,” the first generation of Lithuan Litouwamikaan.
Hoffman and Rodriguez, who emphasized the Mamdani election, expressed great worries for New Yorkers and emphasized the struggles of their own families with ‘miserable ideologies from first -hand’.
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Although the Mamdani campaign platform has not formally called for a complete nationalization of industries-a system that is described as government that manages the means of production and the acquisition of private affairs include proposals for free buses, rental control and city shops.
Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani from New York City next to the Fidel Castro of Cuba and the Joseph Stalin of the former Soviet Union. (Getty Images)
Rodriguez, a former journalist and the current teacher for the public school, said that the connection of her family started communism before she was born. Her mother’s father and sister fled Cuba for Miami under the Fidel Castro regime during the Mariel Boatlift in 1980, which she notices as the second largest mass immigration from Cuba.
Her mother was a 15-year-old professional gymnast in Havana when her father and sister left and chose to stay in Cuba. Years later her mother’s father started the “advertising” process to bring his daughter to the US, but because of long waiting lists for immigration, they emigrated and Rodriguez.
Rodriguez came to the US at the age of six, shortly before he turned seven, an important milestone in her home country.
“If you are seven years old in Cuba, the government decides that you no longer need milk. So in seven years old they no longer give children the right to buy milk. And I was a milk lover. And I would drink my milk morning and night to go to sleep,” explained Rodriguez. “So milk was super important to me because sometimes there were not many other things. And for them to take it away, my parents would be difficult to find out what else they could feed me.”
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Hoffman now leads the DC-based Independent Women Forum’s Center for Energy and Conservation, and the first was born in America in her family after fled the former Soviet Union almost 40 years ago. Her parents entered the US via New York City and eventually settled in California.
Her mother and father are Lithuanian Jews who have endured life under the Soviet occupation in one of the 15 Republics of the USSR who also survived her mother’s side for 18 months in one of Stalin’s Gulags, a brutal Soviet work camp.
“I remember the horrors and sacrifices that my family members made, different generations, my grandparents, my parents. My parents make the tough journey … It was not an easy journey to make,” Hoffman said. “They lost a few friends in the process. Some of their relatives shake them. And it was a big sacrifice to come to the United States. My parents came here almost without money.”
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“They live the American dream, they have benefited from having the rights and privileges that you are offered as an American. And if the will of Zohran Mamdani were to be advanced and added, added and mainstream.
Both Rodriguezs and the respective history of Hoffman share many parallels, such as limited food supply, government overwatch, electricity loss and brownouts and high tax aid that enforces poverty.
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‘We had what we call [the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution]which is basically a community nitch. So on each block you have a person who is designated to keep an eye on his neighbors … and when [my family] Decided to get on the boot lift, I think it started to spread rumor that she and my grandfather would leave, “Rodriguez detailed.
“They thought it was:” You are a traitor, and if you are not with me, you are against me, so you resist the regime. ” So these actions often include screaming, insults, throwing objects, vandalism, physical intimidation.
“You had to bribe people. You had to negotiate for certain goods under the table. My father remembers that he had a stay in medicine, in pharmacy, and he would be a kind of this mediator between people who needed medicines. He would have to operate under the table to get medication,” Hoffman remembered.
Hoffman further described how the former Soviet Union controlled almost all economic output, so that people had little or no disposable income or choice.
“In the former Soviet Union it was 90% that The government has charged you“She claimed.” It was empty shelves, a perfect metaphor for what is democratic socialism … So take the experience of my family, apply it to politics … As the government becomes more involved and more interfers in our personal lives, especially with regard to taxes and all these other major spending measures, that is where you lose freedoms. “
Both Rodriguez and Hoffman encourage voters in New York City to think critically, to inform themselves about candidate platforms and talk to their neighbors.
Mayoral candidate in New York, says Rep. Zohran Mamdani (D-NY) speaks to supporters during an election night meeting in the Groten of Craft Lic on 24 June 2025 in the Long Island City district of the Queens Borough in New York City. | Getty images
“Listen to these stories, listen to the people who have experienced it,” Rodriguez insisted. “Listen to the people who have lived it, who went through it, read, compare, look at your life and look at it from a perspective to be grateful and realize what a privilege it really is to live in America.”
“When I arrived here from Cuba, my aunt asked me:” What is the first thing you want to eat? ” She remembered. “And I had never seen a strawberry in my life … Only on TV and cartoons … is that you want your children to experience? … that is a reality of people who live in communist countries. “
“If Mamdani needs to be chosen as Mamdani to the regular platform, we could not only see New York ‘Moscow on the Hudson’,” Caracas on the Hudson, “maybe even something worse,” said Hoffman. “And I know that some of the younger people are like:” Oh, that’s a tired trope. We hear about this, maybe we have to experiment with this, “but every time it is tried, replicated, it always has fair misery.”
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Gristedes CEO of the shopping chain and billionaire real estate Mogul John Catsimatidis says that the 33-year-old assemblyer is “not qualified” to run New York City.
“Ik denk gewoon dat de toon die hij zou overnemen, en zijn houding, New York City gewoon onaantrekkelijk zou maken voor investeringen. Het zou het onherstelbaar maken. Veel mensen zullen vertrekken. Hij belooft de betaalbaarheid. Wat zijn platform zou leveren, is uiteindelijk onbetaalbaarheid, hoge prijzen, energieschaalheid, energieschaalheid, energieschaalheid, energieschaalheid, energierechte, energierechten, energiekracht en het like … als de New York City in This direction falls, what other city will be, what other city will be? “
“If he won, I would feel so bad for New York City,” concluded Rodriguez, adding that in her experience, “Communism is the only government model you can vote for, but you can’t vote,” she warned. “Once you are too far, once you have completely appeared in communist experience, and you decide that that is not for you, that is when it is too late.”
