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There’s a political aphorism that says “personnel is policy. For Tram Nguyen, the policy is personal.
Nguyen, a Massachusetts state representative who is running for an open Congressional seat outside Boston, has had her priorities forged by lived experience. You can link every step of her unlikely journey to one stance or another.
Her deep concern for the state of democracy, including voting rights and reforming a corrupt Supreme Court? Nguyen has seen authoritarianism close up, as her father spent eight years in a Vietnamese prison camp for fighting alongside Americans.
Wanting to abolish ICE and create pathways to citizenship? She’s an immigrant herself, having moved to the US after five years of living in “abject poverty” in Vietnam after her father’s long internment, and she served immigrant communities as a nonprofit lawyer.
Writing bills to strengthen workers’ rights and raise wages? Living in public housing, watching her parents hustle between low wage jobs, and years of providing legal assistance to workers.
“My parents were working two to three jobs, barely making minimum wage, and didn’t have access to benefits like healthcare,” Nguyen told Progress Report. “I know what it’s like to wait for my dad to come home from delivering pizza and Chinese food. I know how they had to stretch every dollar. I know what it’s like to stand in the food pantry line, or see how much they had to worry when they couldn’t make rent.”
On the subject of healthcare, Nguyen’s support for Medicare for All? Her mom, who is on a very low fixed income, just had her health insurance premium jacked up from $4 to $235 per month, among other things. Nguyen covers the monthly payment, but knows that millions of Americans don’t have that kind of personal safety net.
More broadly, Nguyen’s focus on making government function for working people is informed by the fact that it worked for her, taking her from poverty in Vietnam to serving in the Massachusetts state legislature and running for Congress.
“That American dream is so far away for so many people now, and I want to give people the same opportunities that my family and I were able to get,” Nguyen said. “Families should not just survive. They should be able to thrive, and policy should be able to help them get there.“
Policy was at the center of the conversation when Nguyen joined me for a live stream on Tuesday night. We went deep on immigration, regulating artificial intelligence, strengthening workers’ rights, and more. She’a thoughtful about all of these questions, and gets specific, an edge in what is a crowded and tight open primary for a seat that has not been open in decades.
Below is an excerpt from our conversation: watch the whole thing at the top or enjoy the clips throughout the piece.
Progress Report We welcomed immigrants when you came to the US very differently than we do now. Seeing what ICE is doing — how does that hit you, and what have you been able to do about it at the state level?
Tram Nguyen: Talk about ruling by fear — I come from an authoritarian regime. I understand what it’s like when they rule by fear. And this fear that permeates throughout our communities not only impacts immigrants, but everyone around us.
I had a host at a recent meet-and-greet who was in tears. She said her daughter is trans and from China — and she’s a citizen — but she’s afraid to leave the house. And there are so many of these stories of citizens afraid to leave their house without a passport, without documentation. What world are we living in? My family moved from across the world, from Vietnam to here, for democracy and freedom. And I just am in disbelief that this is the situation that we’re in right now.
As someone who’s been thinking about comprehensive immigration reform and why we need to abolish ICE — these issues are things I’m so committed to working on. And I think I’m uniquely positioned to go to Congress to contribute to that conversation. This is not sustainable — this world where people are afraid to go to the hospital, to go to school, to go to work, to get access to basic needs.
Progress Report: Labor and workers’ rights have been a big focus of your legal career and your time as a legislator. Why was that important to you, and what has Massachusetts been able to do?
Tram Nguyen: This is how I got into politics in the first place. I was working at Greater Boston Legal Services, and as part of that work we did some advocacy work. As a union member — UAW Local 2320, part of Region 9A — I have done a lot of work to expand workers’ rights, but particularly benefits like paid family medical leave. We were at the forefront of the fight to increase the minimum wage to $15, and I’ve been the lead to increase it to $20. And I think that should be national. On Medicare for All, to finally untie healthcare from employment and make sure all members get access to healthcare.
Some of the work we’ve been able to do at the state level is around safety, unionization, and protecting workers’ ability to organize. But also some of our tests here to make sure that people are actually categorized as employees and not independent contractors who don’t get access to benefits like unemployment, workers’ compensation, etc. Those things are very important to me. And right now we don’t have the same tests at the federal level. Workers are being exploited. They don’t have the same security.
For me, immigration and employment are hand-in-hand. When you don’t have comprehensive immigration reform and people are constantly living in fear, many of the low-wage workers being exploited are also immigrants. So many of the protections I’ve been able to work on at the state level are things I want to work on at the federal level. I’m very much in favor of the PRO Act to protect workers and supercharge unions; to really aggressively raise wages across the country for everyone to be able to have a livable wage and be able to buy a house, have healthcare, have basic needs.
Progress Report: Massachusetts passed a ballot initiative allowing Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize while staying independent contractors. What did you think of that?
Tram Nguyen: The right to unionize is very important, and for them to be able to get the protections they need — insurance coverage and so many of the other benefits that come from that. The independent contractor piece is more to give them the flexibility so that they don’t have to work full-time hours. I think it’s a good compromise for where we’re at right now. Of course, I would want them to get more protections — unemployment, workers’ compensation. These discussions are not a one-bite-of-the-apple situation.
I think it is important for them to get the right to unionize so that they can get protections now. And many of them have limited English proficiency — they might not know their rights. Being part of a union would help them better understand their rights. That’s why I’m in support of it. And I think it’s exciting for Massachusetts to lead the way yet again on these issues.
Progress Report: The PRO Act has died before, and we’ve seen Democrats like Abigail Spanberger and Jared Polis block labor measures in their states. If you go to Congress, what can you actually do for workers?
Tram Nguyen: Raising the minimum wage is going to be huge. The sub-minimum wage at the federal level is not sustainable for people. And we need so much reform with the Labor Relations Board. I wouldn’t give up on the PRO Act — if we elect enough people who want to put people first, we’ll be able to give workers the protections they need, and also fight against right-to-work in so many of these states. This is outrageous, because we’re seeing movements picking up in all of these red states too. It’s a scary time. And we’re already seeing a decline in unions anyway.
Massachusetts is one of the states where unions have real organized power, and we’re thrilled to have been able to work with them on so many of these measures. But at the end of the day, it’s really about making sure workers are at the table to tell us what they want. And workers’ rights intersects with everything else. When we’re talking about climate, making sure the conversation on transitions to clean, green energy includes unions and making sure they have union jobs with the training and benefits they need. Or when we’re talking about affordable housing — how do we build it? Also union jobs. All of these issues relate back to workers. How do we make sure they can come home, make the money they need, and actually afford to provide for their families.
Progress Report: You’ll be a freshman going into a caucus where you’ll also have to fight battles within the Democratic Party. How do you think about that?
Tram Nguyen: That’s going to be a huge part of my platform — to not only hold Republicans accountable, but also hold Democrats accountable. One of the first bills I’ll file is to end insider stock trading. That’s both a Democratic and Republican issue. Why are public servants going into public service to benefit themselves and get rich? That is not public service.
I also want to make sure we’re working towards ending Citizens United, making sure we’re taking money out of politics, because elected officials should be responding to people, not special interests. And I’m very concerned about the amount of money being poured into CD6. Why do execs of Palantir or Blackstone want to throw all this money into the district rather than letting the people actually elect who they would want to represent them in Congress?
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