Sophia Warren, realtor of the graphic novel "Radical: My Year with a Socialist Senator," and New York State Senator Julia Salazar joined Cheddar News to talk about their experience documenting the life of the senator through the eyes of a renowned cartoonist. Warren said, "I kind of just decided to shoot my shot and send an email and see if this campaign and her governmental office would be interested in letting a cartoonist tag along." For her part, Salazar said that her initial reaction was that it was "truly an honor to be considered important enough for her to follow us around and to learn about the work that we were doing."

Between Bells

Millennial Cartoonist Teams With NY State Senator Julia Salazar for 'Radical' Book

we went between bells and baker machado in new york earlier this month, top shelf Productions released Radical my year with a Socialist senator. That's a graphic memoir by renowned cartoonist Sophia Warren, that the book is set back in 2018. That's when Julia Salazar, a Democratic Socialist, ran for new york state Senate in one highlighting the memorable journey of the first year senator all through the eyes, the millennial new york cartoonist. The book gives readers an intimate portrait of the life of the state senator behind the curtain. So, joining us now to discuss is new york state Senator Julia Salazar and author Sophia Warren, great to have both of you guys here with us. Sophia, I want to start with you. Why did you decide to create this book chronicling Julius journey here? I was thank you for having us. First of all. Um I was living in Julia as district and was really inspired by this campaign. It was 2018, so two years into the trump presidency, not a great time personally um for my politics and so it was really motivating to see this enormous grassroots effort um in my neighborhood. So when Julio one, I found myself really curious about what would happen after we actually sent her to the, to the legislature. Um and so I kind of just decided to shoot my shot and send an email and see if this campaign and her governmental office would be interested in letting a cartoonist tag along. Okay, so Julia, what was your reaction to that when you had a cartoonist basically say, hey, I'm going to follow you. I'm going to do all of this through my perspective of watching and observing everything that you're doing. What was your reaction to that? I was, well, first of all, thank you for having us. Um, again, I was really honored that Sophia would consider our office, um, to be important enough to, to be the focus of her book. And when she approached me, she actually, um, and trying to describe to me the project and what she intended to do. She let me a copy of john Lewis's March um, and series. Right. And um when I looked at, I just, I thought, wow, it's truly an honor to be um considered important enough for her to follow us around and learn about the work that that we were doing. Just trying to pass housing justice legislation and learn how to legislate now that we had one and election against the odds. And Sophia obviously a lot of books when you, when you have reporters and, and authors in bed with campaigns and politicians, they're long books. This is obviously completely different from all of that. So how are you able to sort of compartmentalize and create something and design something that was based off of all of your interactions with Julia here. Yeah, it was a labor. Um, I spent the first year or so really just trying to be on the ground with them. I was really grateful for the amount of access that I was given. So both in Julia's staff in their office. And then also spent a lot of time with organizers who were working outside of the legislature to push this tenant's rights package. And so really the goal of the first year was to be present as much as I possibly could and to take primary source documents in the form of notes, recordings, video, audio, doing interviews, um, absorbing as much as I could. And then the following two years or so, we're about structuring that into something that felt human and accessible and visually engaging, um, something that people who maybe don't have a good sense of organizing or government yet can read and get something out of and Julia this as she mentioned full year. And then it took years after that to sort of create this. So after all these years of sort of waiting to see what this would look like. What was your first reaction when you saw the finished product? I felt nostalgic when I saw the finished product and got to hold the book in my hands for the first time. Nostalgic for 2019. Um, and also really was a moment for me to reflect on how much I have grown and our staff and our office has grown. Um, and, and really think about the progress that has been made since 2019 as well as some of the things in the book that we were fighting for them that we're still fighting for now in the state legislature. It it really has been an opportunity to assess and reflect on um what we've done in the past almost four years now. Okay, so, Sophia, what were some of your favorite excerpts or highlights that were in the book of of your time following Julia here? I have to say that part of this kind of full access included moments of real tension and stress and moments where things were not looking great. And for me to be able to be in the room in those moments was so meaningful to me, the fact that there was trust there, that this needed to be shown as part of this very difficult endeavor of trying to make meaningful change happen. So for me, the moment that sticks out to me is a pretty stressful staff meeting a moment when the staff was trying to regroup around this legislation, things weren't looking good. And there was a difference in opinion on strategy and um a real, frankly unpleasant moment among the staff. And one that of course they grew from and um came from just, you know, people believing strongly in this project. And so for that to be part of this tapestry. And for them to understand that this is important for people to see as part of the long work that is organizing um and making change through government legislation. Um I think it's really powerful that it's in the book and I'm really glad that it's there. Absolutely, and and Julia, you know, I love a good political memoir. I mean, I read so many during the trump years, but this is so completely different. Is this also show that you can basically tell these stories about what's happening on campaigns through so many different sort of outlets here. Yeah, and these are important stories to tell, I think, especially to bring transparency to the political process uh and and try to dispel the disillusion that so many people I think rightfully feel about about government, about their elected officials being accessible to them. Uh There are a lot of scenes in the book that I think depict the reality um that other ways is sort of mundane in some ways, but is really important. Um and you don't get to see very often of how a government office functions um even the scenes that show public hearings, which a lot of people might not be that excited about, but depicts them in a way that really brings them to life and connects them to the everyday issues that people really care about. Um that's really phenomenal. Uh and unique in in this book. I think absolutely well, incredible job on all of this state Senator Julia Salazar and author Sophia Warren, the graphic memoir radical my Year with a socialist senator is available now wherever you buy your books