My Experience of Meeting Cory Booker

I had the amazing opportunity of meeting Cory Booker. The NGO I’m apart of, Give Chances, invited me to the MOM & I event. There were around 30 to 40 people in the Korean community who came together to ask him questions. He first started off by giving a speech about what he is currently working on and how its related to whats happening in the government.

He first started off with how he grew up. I was shocked to hear that he grew up in Harrington Park and not Newark, since many of his past work focused on the Newark community. Him growing up in a town I live close to makes me feel a deeper sense of relatability. He then explained that he had much love for the Korean community because he grew up in a town with a lot of Korean people, where he said he fell in love with the culture.

After he mainly focused a lot on how the democratic party is responding to the Trump administration. He said they are fighting them in the courts and that every voice is being heard.

The Q & A was after his speech. I raised my hand and asked him about his stance on the current immigration policies. I also asked a follow up on how he feels about Trump’s “America first” and how citizens should respond to any rhetoric that follows it. His answer was amazing as he explained that Trump’s immigration policies were never mainly about the American people. He said that it was rooted in racism and xenophobia. He put emphasis on how we shouldn’t be deporting immigrants who come to the country to take the jobs Americans don’t want to do.

I think as the first question I set the tone for the rest of the questions, as most of them were talking about how their friends or co-workers who had green cards weren’t being let back into the country. Senator Cory Booker had good responses to them asking them for their business cards to make their concerns heard and prioritized.

I was inspired after meeting him because of his genuine concerns to help us. He made sure to hear our problems and continued to ask us follow up questions. In ways I felt relieved to have politicians like him to make a change. I was reminded that representatives were here to help us and not to take control of their power.