MORGANTOWN – Longtime community activist Ace Parsi chose Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday to announce his run for U.S. Congress.
Parsi, a Democrat, is seeking the 2nd District seat currently occupied by Republican Riley Moore.
“This is my love letter to American democracy,” Parsi said.
He was 8 years old when his family emigrated from Iran. Parsi was born in 1982, shortly after one of his uncles, a pro-democracy student, was imprisoned for being part of that movement.
“You don’t know how precious American freedoms are,” he said, “unless you don’t have them.”
Those first days in his new country, he remembered, were lean – and scary.
He was an undersized kid who didn’t know one word of English.
His mother did sewing and baby-sitting to bring in money and his older brother worked in a grocery store to help put food on the table.
For a time, their household relied upon public assistance, which, Parsi said, helped sustain the family, and build it up, in its new country.
Teachers in English as a Second Language programs helped him navigate the classroom, he remembered.
He would go to earn a graduate degree at the University of California at Berkeley.
When he launched his career, it was as a teacher through AmeriCorps, the federal outreach concern whose funding has been in jeopardy in recent months due to cost-cutting practices in Washington, D.C.
Parsi currently lives in Morgantown, where he’s known for his organizing and activism.
He’s married and the father of a daughter who is around the same age he was, when his family pursued their American dream on these shores.
Parsi said he wants to keep that dream attainable for his daughter – and all sons and daughters in West Virginia – as the nation is set to mark its 250th year in existence.
Visit www.aceforcongress.com for more information on Parsi and his candidacy.
