Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s widely promoted identity as a tough native of the Bronx is facing scrutiny after a New York state lawmaker released high school photos and information that appear to tell a very different story.
Earlier this week, Republican Assemblyman Matt Slater, who now represents Yorktown, posted images on X showing a younger Ocasio-Cortez in the Yorktown High School yearbook—highlighting that the progressive congresswoman spent part of her upbringing in the affluent suburb located roughly an hour north of New York City.
Slater said he and Ocasio-Cortez were classmates at the time, recalling, “Everybody in our community knows this is just a bold-face lie,” during an interview on Fox & Friends First Friday. “She grew up in Yorktown, she was on my track team.”
Fox News reports the town of Yorktown, situated in northern Westchester County, contrasts sharply with the urban Bronx neighborhood often central to Ocasio-Cortez’s political story.
Describing his hometown, Slater called it a “great suburban town” with “a touch of rural to it.” Ocasio-Cortez graduated from Yorktown High School in 2007, where the school’s mascot is a cornhusker.
While Ocasio-Cortez has previously acknowledged spending part of her childhood in Westchester, her roots in the Bronx have played a prominent role in her public image and political identity.
Slater said he decided to share the yearbook photo amid Ocasio-Cortez’s renewed attacks on former President Donald Trump, particularly following her calls for his impeachment over his unilateral decision to order military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
In one of her posts on X, Ocasio-Cortez wrote: “I’m a Bronx girl. You should know that we can eat Queens boys for breakfast.
Respectfully,” referencing Trump’s own New York roots in Queens.
“I saw the attacks on the president and her [Ocasio-Cortez] claims that she’s a big, tough Bronx girl,” Slater said. “To sit there and say that she’s a Bronx girl is just patently ridiculous.”
Slater argued that Ocasio-Cortez has deliberately downplayed her suburban background to bolster her political appeal and accused her of being disingenuous. “She’s lying about her background, she’s lying about her upbringing,” he claimed.
