Blogger-Podcaster Benny Johnson’s Visit to Yorktown to Look into AOC Now Has 9 Million Views
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Lived in Yorktown Heights, Not the Bronx, from Age 5-17, Graduated from Yorktown High School in 2007
By Dan Murphy
Past and present residents of Yorktown Heights NY, including this reporter, are saying “job well done” to Assemblyman Matt Slater for exposing Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for hiding the fact that she did not grow up in the Bronx, but that she grew up in Yorktown Heights and was a graduate of Yorktown High School.
We wrote about this topic back in 2021 (https://yonkerstimes.com/letter-to-aoc-please-come-home-to-yorktown-for-christmas/) and wrote, “I also have wondered why AOC does not use her history in Yorktown as part of her story, and explain how her parents made sacrifices to ensure that she had a better life than their own.”
I thought that AOC could have used her life story as an example of the American Dream, and how hard her parents worked to get her out of the Bronx and up to Yorktown. Many, many Yorktown residents have that same life story, including my family, back in 1972.
What cracked the AOC story wide open was a recent Twitter-X exchange between AOC and President Donald Trump. AOC called for Trump’s impeachment over his decision to bomb Iran without approval from Congress. “The President’s disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers. He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment.”
Trump responded with, “Instead of her constant complaining, Alexandria should go back home to Queens, where I was also brought up, and straighten out her filthy, disgusting, crime ridden streets, in the District she ‘represents,’ and which she never goes to anymore.”
AOC responded with “It only took you 5 months to break almost every promise you made. Also, I’m a Bronx girl. You should know that we can eat Queens boys for breakfast. Respectfully.”
This is where Assemblyman Matt Slater steps in. Slater attended Yorktown High School with AOC; he was a senior she was a freshman, and she was known then as Sandy Cortez.
“If you’re a BX girl then why are you in my Yorktown yearbook? Give it up already,” Slater tweeted, along with a yearbook photo of Sandy.
“She’s embarrassing herself for doing everything possible to avoid saying she grew up in the suburbs instead of the Bronx. She has said she visited extended family, she has said she commuted. Now she’s in between. It’s clearly desperate attempts to protect the lie that she is from the Bronx,” said Slater. “She’s lying about her upbringing, to win elections.”
Slater appeared on Fox News, where he said, “For years, AOC has lied about her upbringing in Yorktown to create her tough Bronx girl persona. What it really shows is how the Democrat Party has turned its collective back on our suburban values.”
“She grew up in Yorktown, and she was on my track team. There’s an authenticity problem with the Democratic Party. They don’t connect with voters if they know the truth about them. Yorktown is nothing like the Bronx; she is a product of Yorktown.”
“The truth is AOC is Sandy Cortez who went to Yorktown High School and lived at the corner of Friends Road and Longvue Street. It’s a disrespectful gesture towards our community.”
After Slater appeared on Fox News, the NY Post picked up the story, and so did the Conservative bloggers and podcasters, most notable Benny Johnson, who took a trip to Yorktown to check it all out. Calling it the biggest fraud in all of politics, Johnson’s video reached 9 million viewers, https://x.com/search?q=benny%20johnson%20aoc&src=typed_query&f=top
For the first time since her election to Congress in 2018, AOC felt the need to respond. “I’m proud of where I grew up and talk about it all the time. My mom cleaned houses and I helped. We cleaned tutors homes in exchange for SAT Prep. Growing up between the Bronx and Yorktown deeply shaped my views of inequality and its a big reason I believe the things I do today,” Tweeted AOC.
Her campaign pointed to her website which also mentions the fact “The state of Bronx public schools in the late ’80s and early ’90s sent her parents on a search for a solution. She ended up attending public school 40 minutes north in Yorktown, and much of her life was defined by the 40-minute commute between school and her family in the Bronx.”
A Vanity Fair story included Yorktown is mentioned and acknowledged as the place where she grew up and attended high school. “My dad would get coffee every day at the town Dunkin’ Donuts, and we would invite the cashiers over for dinner,” said AOC.
After her father’s death in 2008, the family struggled to pay the mortgage on the Yorktown home, forcing AOC to take a bartending job in NYC. “This is the story of a young Latina who’s trying to put food on the table for her family.” Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats, making the case for AOC 2024!. And a 60 minutes interview years ago also mentions her time in Yorktown.
AOC also added, “I tell this story on the Fight the Oligarchy tour. When my dad died during the financial crisis, my mom almost got foreclosed on. GOP always think this is some gotcha but I ran my whole campaign for Congress on this w/the motto “your zip code shouldn’t determine your destiny”
If you know Yorktown, AOC’s home was near Junior Pool and BOCES.
The other interesting thing about the AOC-Yorktown story is how it falls perfectly in between our divided country’s political lines.
A friend of mine who is a big AOC supporter and attended YHS around the same time as AOC and Slater, said, “It’s funny to me because, I’m not a millionaire. I’m not an elite Ivy school kid with a trust fund. Is that what is implied if you went to YHS? So her family was located in Yorktown for a time. Who friggin cares?”
But Conservatives and MAGA members can’t get enough of it. “It not a crime to grow up in Yorktown, but pretending to be a product of inner-city struggle while your family fled to a leafy enclave for better schools? Classic D.C. hypocrisy. Gotcha AOC.”
