Opinion: Amy Sangiolo Is No Stranger To The Underdog

NEWTON, MA — The following opinion piece was submitted by Julie Vogel.

Although I no longer live in Newton, my ties to the city are lifelong and my engagement in Metrowest politics is deep. I have been inspired by Newton's mayoral race through friends and family members enough to get to know candidate Sangiolo better in a recent sit-down interview.

With early voting for the Nov. 2 Newton municipal election already under way, Amy Mah Sangiolo, challenger to an incumbent mayor with a much larger campaign warchest, is taking on a role she knows all too well; that of David taking on Goliath.

Recent reporting by The Boston Globe finds that Sangiolo's campaign war chest is dwarfed by Fuller's.

But Sangiolo is familiar with wielding the slingshot of politics. She began her political career in Newton as an underdog, and well before that fought against discrimination as an Asian American minority growing up in the majority white town of Weehawken, NJ.

When she first moved to Newton over 20 years ago, a new mother with no political experience, her outrage over an exchange with the City Councilor representing her Ward left her feeling she had no choice but to challenge him for his seat. She had recently gathered signatures from 300 neighbors on a petition protesting a new commercial development abutting their community. But when she presented the petition to her Councilor, “he looked at the paper, looked at me, crumpled it up, and put it in his pocket."

Outraged, she challenged him for his seat. In the end, Sangiolo was the last one standing: She beat the incumbent by 12 votes in a recount and went on to be reelected to City Councilor of her Ward for the next twenty years.

“It was a tough race,” she recalls. “But I ran to make a point that no one is immune from being accountable.”

Sangiolo, whose mother immigrated from Japan post-WWII and whose father was first- generation Chinese American, both now deceased, never imagined she would run for public office. This was partly because of a debilitating fear of public speaking she developed as a young child. A star student, she recalls being rewarded for her grades with chances to run errands for teachers or lead classes.

“I’ll never forget walking into a class in elementary school and the whole class is chanting, ‘Chink! Chink! Chink!’” she recalls as her eyes well and voice cracks. “So now, when I’m campaigning and speaking before an audience, I hear that in my mind.”

Because her mother thought she was too timid, she enrolled her only child in ballet and piano classes. Sangiolo excelled at both. A talent agent spotted her, and she appeared in commercials for Zest Soap, Eastern Airlines, and on the Alan King show, where she was interviewed by Barbara Walters. In high school she was accepted to the Juilliard Pre-College program. Planning to major in music in college, she took her first political science class at Barnard, found it “the most exciting class I’d ever taken,” quickly switched her major and never looked back. Later, she earned a law degree from Rutgers.

As an environmental lawyer, Sangiolo discovered she was “meant for advocacy and lobbying work.” At the National Wildlife Federation, she played a pivotal role in the passage of Senator John F. Kerry’s National Flood Insurance Reformation Act. Sangiolo unearthed information showing a major blocker of the bill, had a personal conflict of interest with the legislation. After she went to NY and did some digging, she confronted his staff with the information. He then he dropped his opposition, making way for the legislation’s passage.

Sangiolo sees significant overlap in the requirements for success in her roles as an elected official, and her current role as a Supervising Consumer Specialist with the Housing Teamor in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Consumer Advocacy and Response Division, where she works to find housing solutions for people who are one step away from being evicted from their homes.

“I’ve always taken up the minority’s side,” she said in a recent sit-down interview. ““I’m all about taking time to understand someone’s story; so you can find the best way to advocate for them.”

Almost a year ago, going through papers after her mother died, Amy discovered that early in her life, someone had taken the time to understand her story, and advocate for her. Research and conversations with family members revealed she had been adopted. Her biological parents were really a couple she believed were her aunt and uncle living six houses away. When she had been born to them, they already had a daughter, and they planned to put her up for adoption.

Her grandmother, who had left two daughters in China when she emigrated to the U.S. in the early 1930’s, insisted that Amy be kept in the family. A different aunt and uncle stepped up and adopted her, and the family agreed to keep it secret from her.

While she regrets she never got to know her biological parents well, she’s grateful someone tried to guarantee her a safe home.

Just as she does, at the Attorney General’s office, for residents of Massachusetts facing hard times.