Nithya Raman Elected LA Mayor: Her Life and Political Rise

What is up this year? LA in a minute, and this week the people of Los Angeles elected Nithya Raman to become the 44th mayor for the city of Los Angeles.

A relative newcomer on the political scene, Raman's meteoric ascension underscores her ambitious political vision.

So who is Nithya Raman? Let's get into it.

Nithya Raman was born in 1981 in Kerala, India.

Just two years later, her father left India for opportunities in the United States, while she and her mother moved in with her maternal grandparents.

Four years after that, Raman and her mother took their first ever airplane flight from India to Newark, New Jersey, before moving on to Dayton, Ohio, with the family eventually reuniting in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Mother earned a master's degree to establish a new career in America and raised Raman as an only child until she was 14, when they eventually settled in Burlington, Massachusetts.

From there, Raman attended Harvard University, where she graduated in 2003 before going on to earn her master's degree in urban planning from MIT in 2008.

After earning her master's, she returned to India, where she worked with residents of impoverished neighborhoods in Delhi, advocating for basic services like running water and sanitation.

And in 2010, she co-founded an organization called Transparent Chennai, which used mapping and data to improve public infrastructure in underserved communities.

By 2013, Raman returned back to the United States and moved to Los Angeles, where she initially worked on homeless policy, later serving as executive director of Time's Up Entertainment, an organization combating workplace sexual harassment in Hollywood,

where Marie Claire named her as one of the, quote, "women revolutionizing Hollywood."

It was the homeless crisis in her own Silver Lake neighborhood that ultimately propelled her into politics.

Raman became involved with the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council and co-founded the SaLa Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, organizing volunteers to serve people experiencing homelessness.

And in 2020, she ran for office, challenging incumbent city council member David Ryu in the fourth council district, and she won.

She was the first, quote unquote, "outsider to defeat an incumbent in 17 years in Los Angeles."

That quote unquote, "outsider campaign" saw her emerge as a prominent progressive voice, supported by grassroots organizations and the Democratic Socialists of America.

And she was also the first Asian American woman and first South Asian ever elected to the Los Angeles City Council.

Re-elected in 2024, Raman became a leading voice in the city on homelessness, affordable housing, tenant protections, environmental policy, as well as eviction protections and expanding affordable housing development.

In February of this year, she entered the mayoral race against incumbent Karen Bass with the support of her husband, television writer Vali Chandrasekharan.

Raman ran a spirited and energetic campaign, winning handily over incumbent Karen Bass and becoming LA's 44th mayor since the incorporation of the city.

From a young immigrant reunited with her father in Louisiana to an urban planner working in India to mayor of America's second-largest city, this has been a remarkable political ascent for Nithya Raman, a true LA American dream story,

and the 44th mayor of Los Angeles. All right, LA, it's been a minute.