Aftab Pureval, the mayor of Cincinnati, spoke at a student congress meeting this November. The mayor brought up numerous topics ranging from current local political issues like the Westside shooting but also talked about some of his own personal experiences of being mayor.

“[When I ran for Congress] the Republican Super [Political Action Committee] spent $5 million on TV ads calling me a Libyan terrorist,” Mayor Aftab Pureval said. “That’s not an exaggeration, and nobody said a word, so a lot of Asian American candidates and elected officials have to turn the other cheek and keep going.”

In order to deal with such encounters, Pureval has developed different coping methods.

“What I find is that the most powerful tool that an elected official politician of color can use is humor,” Pureval said. “I use humor a lot as either a defense mechanism or as an opportunity to create empathy between myself.”

These meetings are the result of a new Executive board effort to reach out to see if any local leaders are interested in being able to talk to students, including Mayor Pureval and Senator Greg Landsman.

“It’s a new thing, and I think it’s really offering a nice perspective, especially to the younger classes about what’s important, how it’s important to be involved, how you can be involved and how that involvement can [go] further,” Bryce Agyapong, ‘24, SENIOR class president, said.

Many had taken note of the Mayor’s attitude when discussing such serious topics as an inspirational sign.

“When he was talking about his experience dealing with negativity from a lot of different people I was able to connect with that,” Ezana Worku, ‘24, one of the SENIOR class reps and an intern for the mayor, said. “I could tell he obviously felt some type of way about the discrimination he faced, but you can tell that he was able to fight back and just not worry about it.”

While not the main idea, Mayor Pureval did have some words of encouragement for students considering a possible future in politics, emphasizing on the importance of local politics in our government.

“It’s easy to get disillusioned about the presidency or Senate or Congress,” Pureval said. “But it’s really, really important that people focus on what’s happening in their local communities and get involved in local politics to enact real significant and potentially transformational change in and where they live.”

Most importantly, the mayor wanted to emphasize the message of maintaining a connection with others to our student leaders.

“We as student leaders were able to connect with local leaders, and there needs to be that connection,” Agyapong said. “At the end of the day, even if it’s planning an event, or if it’s writing legislation, it’s still so important to have that connection so that things are communicated well and things are handled effectively.”

This story was originally published on The Chatterbox on December 13, 2023.