Ocasio-Cortez’s Reclusive Mother Fled to Florida to Escape NYC’s High Property Taxes

Blanca Ocasio-Cortez gave an exclusive interview from her home in Florida and talked about why she left New York shortly before her daughter got elected as US representative and what does she think about her.

Daily Mail had a candid conversation with the mother of 29-year-old democratic political star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Blanca, who opened up about her daughter’s achievements and the hardships she has faced.

56-year-old Blanca now lives in the small town of Eustis, Florida, outside Orlando, with her mother Clotilde and a rescue dog, but she is still adapting to the drastic change of location after years living in New York City.

ON LOSING HER HUSBAND

“I lived in the New York area for most of my life but I started being unable to afford it,” Blanca said, explaining that the death of her husband Sergio in 2008 brought financial shortages to the family.

'”It was scary. I had to take medicine, I was so scared. I had to stop paying for the mortgage for almost a year. I was expecting someone knocking on the door to kick me out at any time,” she recalled.

“There were even real estate people coming around to take photos of the house for when it was going to be auctioned. The worst is that I only had $50,000 left to pay on the loan,” she added.

THE COST OF LIVING IN NEW YORK

It was with great effort on her part that Blanca could manage to keep her Yorktown Heights home, reaching a deal with the bank and working two jobs, determined as she was to support her younger child Gabriel until he left for college.

“After the children graduated from college, I figured it was time for me to move to Florida,” Blanca told the news outlet, adding that she had realized she was going to save a lot of money and stress by moving down South.

“I was paying $10,000 a year in real estate taxes up north. I'm paying $600 a year in Florida. It's stress-free down here,” Blanca said.

AWAY FROM THE SPOTLIGHT

Although she is proud of her daughter’s political rising political career, Blanca doesn’t feel too comfortable with the exposition it might bring to her family, and she is even hesitant of her neighbors learning she is Alexandria’s mother.

“I love privacy and calm. I don't like the limelight for myself and my family. But it seems that God played quite a joke on me with this politics stuff,” she shared.

ABOUT THE CRITICISM AGAINST AOC

She is also unhappy about the negative attention Alexandria has brought upon herself from Republicans who criticize everything she does and says.

“Some in the media, especially Fox News, look for anything they can find to criticize Alexandria. They don't even check the facts,” she complained.

Despite the criticism and controversy around her daughter’s political platform, Blanca defends Alexandria’s work and she believes she is doing the right thing by trying to advocate for the “little guy.”

“My daughter works from the heart. What you see is what you get. She saw how unfair the system is, and she wants to change that,” Blanca said.

SHE HOPES HER DAUGHTER TO GET MARRIED SOON

On a personal level, Blanca has hopes for Alexandria to get married to her longtime boyfriend Riley Roberts, who works as a social media consultant.

“I love him. He is the most loving, supporting person I've seen. He helped her tremendously during the election. They've been together for four years now, after they reconnected from a college breakup,” she shared.

“So, I hope they get married soon. Although they haven't told me anything about their plans,” she added.

AOC CALLS OUT DOUBLE STANDARDS

Alexandria has spoken out to address the controversy surrounding her fellow democratic Congressional freshman Ilhan Omar because of the latter’s comments about Israel that were considered anti-Semitic.

Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter to question why there is not a similar response when derogatory comments about other minorities are made.

"One of the things that is hurtful about the extent to which reprimand is sought of Ilhan is that no one seeks this level of reprimand when members make statements about Latinx + other communities,” she tweeted.

“Incidents like these do beg the question: where are the resolutions against homophobic statements? For anti-blackness? For xenophobia? For a member saying he’ll “send Obama home to Kenya?” she also wrote.