Living Outside of the Box

Catalina Lauf is a 27-year-old Latina who ran for Congress in the 2020 republican primary for Illinois' 14th congressional district. She ran as an anti-establishment candidate and was branded as the Republican version of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, or AOC, as she's usually called. 

When someone runs as anti-establishment their views are seen as opposing the conventional social, political and economic principles of society. Other examples of anti-establishment candidates are President Trump and ... AOC. 

On this episode of LatinEQUIS, I speak with Catalina about her journey to running for Congress, being a Latina, assumptions about the Republican party, the need for newer and younger voices in US politics, and identity.

Learn more about Catalina at catalinaforcongress.com and @catalinalauf on all social media. 

Resources mentioned on the episode:

According to a 2019 report by the Pew Research Center, 78% of the public overall believes that divisions between Republicans and Democrats are increasing, 55% percent say that there is a "great deal" of difference in what each party stands for ... and to put this in perspective, in the early 2000s no more than a third of Americans said that there were major differences between the parties. 

Klemens Kappel, a professor at the University of Copenhagen said: "asserting facts is not simple; it is often a way of signaling broader religious, moral, or political allegiance and this makes it harder for us to fully respect our fellow citizens when we disagree over factual matters."