Nichole Mossalam on what matters most
Nichole Mossalam ran this fall to represent Medford and Malden in the MA State House. We had this conversation before the election. She didn’t win, but I wanted you to still hear this because I don’t think she is going anywhere. She is a leader in the Muslim community, she does interfaith outreach, she organizes events promoting charitable causes and religious tolerance, she worked with Our Revolution, and she ran a creative, energetic campaign against an entrenched incumbent where she called attention to some of the deep injustices in Massachusetts right now. Injustices like inadequate school funding, dangerous lead pollution in playgrounds and in local drinking water, bad decisions about funding for transit transit, predatory housing practices, racist policing, and the need to reform our prison system. Nichole knows that these issues are too important for her to be deterred by one election, and I for one am excited to see what she does next.
The transcript below was edited for length and clarity. To hear the audio, check out the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or search for Sunrise Movement Boston on other podcast apps.
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Sunrise Boston
You’ve been active in the community for a long time, but you decided to get directly involved in politics in 2016. Can you talk a little bit about what that was like?
Nichole Mossalam
I think many of us remember what happened in 2016 and no matter where you fall in your political views, people have to acknowledge that there was a heightened atmosphere and rhetoric getting passed around. Unfortunately, many innocents got caught in the crossfire. One of those innocent was my own son who was eight years old at that time. He came home from school crying, and I asked him what was bothering him. And as he was crying, he told me that one of his friends had told him that they didn’t like Muslims and that if Trump were elected, he was going to get rid of all the Muslims.
For me, it was heartbreaking to find out that my son was being exposed to such intolerance at such a young and tender age. Unfortunately it wasn’t our first time. But this was definitely the most overt [act of intolerance] that we had experienced up to that point. And I thought I was already doing my best with a lot of the interfaith work that I do to build bridges in our community and help people understand one another. But I realized in that moment that it wasn’t enough because we don’t have a diverse set of leaders. We don’t have leaders with different experiences who can understand different groups and where they come from. And not just that, but that I myself as a Muslim woman wasn’t getting involved in the political sphere and that my own community wasn’t getting involved in the political sphere. And this really fell upon us. We need to begin that dialogue and that outreach. It was at that moment that I really began to explore this new political world. And my passion and my drive comes from the fact that I don’t believe any mother, any child, any family should have to go through that experience because we all belong here.
As he was crying, he told me that one of his friends had told him that they didn’t like Muslims and that if Trump were elected, he was going to get rid of all the Muslims.
Sunrise Boston
I think that story is really powerful and hopefully when we get a more diverse set of leaders, that sort of othering destructive rhetoric won’t be as prevalent.
Nichole Mossalam
Exactly. And it’s, it’s not just about diversity, but it’s about also it’s also about being open to the experiences of others. Experience does matter. We need to be willing to open our own eyes and basically walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. And from my experience going out into our district and seeing the increasing diversity of our district, one thing I can say is that we are all united in our concerns and in our values. We all want the same thing. It’s just a matter of how do we get there, and having someone at the helm who is willing to sit down and have those conversations and be open to those different experiences so that we can get the best outcome for everyone as possible.
Sunrise Boston
Can you talk some about the interfaith work that you do?
Nichole Mossalam
One event that I organized was the fast-a-thon. Many people know that Muslims fast during Ramadan, but they don’t understand why or what the experience is. Whereas fasting is shared universally through many different faiths, each faith is unique in how they look at it.
We ask non-Muslims to pledge to fast for one whole day during Ramadan with Muslims. It’s like a marathon, they’re getting sponsors to raise money for a local charitable cause. The first year we did it we raised over $6,000 to pay off student lunch debt for Malden public school students. People weren’t aware that children in our district, if they didn’t have enough money, got a plain cheese sandwich. We were having lunch shaming for children who come from families who just can’t afford to eat. And for some of these children, what they eat at school could be the only meal that they get all day long. So really it’s about highlighting these common causes that our community really needs to come together on, and celebrating each other by coming together.
Sunrise Boston Nichole Mossalam
That sounds really powerful, how you’re building bridges in several different directions at once. Not only are you allowing people to better understand and empathize across religious divides, but also you’re raising awareness about lunch debt and lunch shaming, which I think a lot of people are horrified about when they learned about it.
Could you talk some about your policy agenda and what you want to change in the state house?
Nichole Mossalam
This year it’s difficult to narrow it down. I mean, we’re hearing so many concerns district-wide from all of my neighbors. It’s sustainability, it’s climate change, it’s affordable housing, infrastructure, public transit, education. All of these things have been going on for years. COVID-19 is new and has had a significant impact on the state budget, but the fact of the matter is we wouldn’t be where we are right now if we hadn’t already been neglecting these [existing issues].
For our district, we’re focusing on affordable housing. This is a big issue. Even during the COVID eviction moratorium, we had a large company come in, buy up a big apartment building, and increase rent by 50%. They effectively evicted everybody in the building who couldn’t afford a 50% jump in rent overnight. They immediately began to harass these individuals and change the locks on their apartments illegally. We’ve had to get the attorney general involved as they’re trying to force out people who wouldn’t be in this situation. Again, this isn’t happening just during COVID. We’ve been having this happen for at least the past two years on an increasing basis. These predatory companies coming in, buying up the rental stock, and then fixing the market for a higher price. We’re seeing more and more development, but we’re not seeing affordable housing development. We’re not seeing mixed use or multifamily development. We’re seeing luxury high end apartment development.
So [housing cost] is a big issue in this area, as well as infrastructure and public transportation. Our roads are in horrible condition, which leads to significant costs for families with vehicle maintenance and gas. We have water infrastructure that’s over a hundred years old. We’re in a compliance order with the EPA because of the led content in our water.
[Editor’s note: see this map for public data on lead water service in Malden. It is a widespread issue.]
This doesn’t even get to all of gas leaks that we have from our gas infrastructure. And we have two T stops on the orange line in district here. The orange line has literally been on fire at least two to three times in the past year. This is a very working class area. People rely on public transportation to get to and from work, to get to and from medical appointments for our seniors, because of lack of proper funding for education. The city of Malden had to cut transportation from their budget a few years ago. And so we don’t even have school buses. So many of our students are relying on public transportation to get to and from school. These are vital services for this area. They’ve been steadily defunded for years, and we’re at a crisis. We’re at a breaking point with all of these things.
To mention our students, school districts are hurting. It speaks volumes when a school district like Malden has to make the brutal choice between transportation for students or laying off teachers and increasing student to teacher ratios in the classroom. These are harsh decisions and it all stems from the fact that we don’t have our priorities straight. We’re too busy cutting taxes on the wealthiest earners in Massachusetts, so much so that there’s only two other States in the U S that have cut taxes more than we have in the past few decades. And we’re doing it at the expense of what? Our children? Because we’re not investing in their future. The economy is set up to load them up with lifelong debt. When they graduate, are they graduating job-ready? Are they graduating with the life skills that they need to make it out into the world? They’re not. Many of them are going on to pursue higher education and in order to do that you have to strap yourself with crippling, predatory student loan debt. That needs to change. And that’s why we’re focusing on these areas, because these are the things that impact upward mobility for families, or even just simply staying in a comfortable frame of life.
Sunrise Boston
So many of the things that you just touched on there are so important. Over the past several decades, I think we’ve transitioned from a society in which we really did believe in taxing people who could afford it and using that to give people broad-based opportunity. To have a well-funded public education system, and things like public transit, school buses, a T that doesn’t catch on fire. Ideally a T that’s not only safe, but it would be great if it could also be reliable. But the bar is so low right now, we just don’t want the train to catch on fire. I think we’ve really transitioned over the course of a few decades from a society that believed in the government having a role to fix some of these problems to one that has de-legitimized that. How can we get past that?
There’s only two other States in the U S that have cut taxes more than we have in the past few decades. And we’re doing it at the expense of what? Our children?
Nichole Mossalam
I believe we need to change our mindset. Many people have this negative view of taxes and a negative view of community obligations. But the fact of the matter is that everyone benefits from taxes. It’s not an expense, it’s an investment. You want a police officer or a paramedic to be able to come to an emergency? Your taxes pay for that. You’re getting a direct service for that. When it comes to corporations, they rely on transportation of goods. Their semis are driving on our roads. That’s wear and tear. By [the government] maintaining roads, [companies] are gaining a direct benefit. We need to make sure that they’re paying into that. They’re benefiting from those services. They benefit from us having proper roads and traffic flow, because if we have so much traffic, then they don’t get their goods on time.
So if employees are using our roads to get to and from work or using our transit system to get to and from work, they are gaining a direct benefit. Why shouldn’t they be paying into the system to preserve that? And again, getting into this mindset of investment, studies show that for every dollar that we spend in public transportation, we gain $4 back in economic growth. To me, it just makes fiscal sense that if we want to grow as a society, if we want to grow as an economy and for our children to have a future and compete in the global market, we need to be willing to make these investments into our future. Otherwise we’re not going to be able to keep up.
Sunrise Boston
That example is such a good point. You could imagine a situation in which the amount that you are a taxing people to have good [public transit] is too much, and it’s an overall drag on the economy. But that is not the regime we’re in. We’re currently in a regime where for every dollar that we tax someone to be spent on public transit, they make $4 back. We’re just like completely outside the bounds of where the arguments against taxation for this make sense. We’re just not in that regime. So clearly, there’s a ton of good to be done by building these public services and maintaining them.
Nichole Mossalam
Exactly. We’re not asking for money for nothing, we’re asking it for your own benefit. And it is a balancing game, like you said. It’s very easy to go to one extreme or the other, which is why I believe we need more people who come from a background — like I do — of balancing the budget every single month, living paycheck to paycheck. Someone who understands how each of these things which may seem like abstract issues really do impact us at the ground level. We need to have that balanced approach. We need more levelheaded people in [the statehouse] because right now I don’t believe we [have them]. And we’re seeing it.
Sunrise Boston
Yeah. We’re seeing it in the decisions that they make and in the fact that the T lights itself on fire.
One thing that you touched on a few minutes ago is this set of really serious environmental problems in Malden. Lead levels in the water and in the ground and gas leaks. What role do those environmental issues play in your thinking about policy?
Nichole Mossalam
As we’ve already stated, we’re at the very bottom of the barrel right now. Our roads are falling apart. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Why not use this as an opportunity to build up in a sustainable way? We know that it’s needed simply for our future survival. 2020 is already shaping up to be one of the hottest years on record. I was just reading some report that it’s only going to get worse, and people around the world are under threat of losing their lives simply from the heat. I don’t see why when we’re investing in building [back], we don’t do so with an eye to the future.
It’s great to look back and have nostalgia and have those warm feelings of how things were when we were children. But we also have to think about the future of our children, and our children need a world that they’ll be able to breathe clean air in and drink unpolluted water. They’re going to need a world where they’re not in danger of dying from extreme heat when they walk outside. These are very simple things we can do.
And in fact, getting back again to the fiscal part of it, it makes fiscal sense. My family, like I said, lives paycheck to paycheck. I’m always looking for ways to cut our budget. One of the ways we did it was we got solar panels on our home. I was able to take advantage of the the Mass Solar Loan program, especially the incentives that they have for lower income households. And I’ve got to say, my electric bill has gone way down. It’s way less than the payments that we have on the panels themselves. Plus we’re getting money back from the net metering and from smart payments, these are things that could really be a tipping point for lower income households. So I’m able to help the environment, I’ve got a nice app on my phone that it hooks up to because that was part of the legislation that went through and it tells me how many pounds of carbon my system has saved. It’s a good feeling to know the positive impact that this is having on the environment and the cost that it’s saving me as well. That’s money that I could put towards food from my children, that’s money that I can put towards medical expenses. Let’s be honest, with three children if just one person in this house gets sick it spreads like wildfire. Then I’ve got four to five copayments at 30 bucks a pop. So I got to think of where can I make latitude in my budget? Because just one thing is enough to push not just my family, but any family over the edge.
Sunrise Boston
Absolutely, medical debt is a huge problem in this country.
I think in addition to the solar panels, you mentioned that you also bought a plugin hybrid electric vehicle recently. How did navigating the process to get state incentives inform your view from a legislative perspective as to how these programs should work?
Nichole Mossalam
We need to make it easier for working families who don’t have the time to navigate all of the paperwork. The state does have a website for the Mass Solar Loan program, but many of the banks that they list as participating banks either are not aware of the program, don’t know what the guidelines are, or have maxed out on how many borrowers that they’ll accept through the program. It’s difficult to navigate by yourself. Part of my job, my day job, is administration. I’m used to paperwork. I’m used to being on phones with people and getting through all of the red tape. But even I found [the Mass Solar Loan Program] challenging. So I know that for someone with a similar background to myself, working and having three children in a home to take care of, but without that administrative background, it would be completely overwhelming. That is a big barrier in and of itself. So we need to lower that barrier.
This can impact people’s [ability to get electric vehicles]. And let’s be honest, we don’t quite have the infrastructure for these vehicles. Again, [our plug in hybrid has] been a huge blessing on our bottom line because I’ve only had to buy gas for our vehicle three times this year, and it’s $20 to fill the tank. I remember with previous vehicles, it was $40 to $80 sometimes per week for gas. That adds up for families. So if we can help them get into more fuel efficient vehicles it’s good for the environment, it’s good for their bottom line and meeting their monthly expenses. These are all things that add up on a family’s pocket book.
We [also] need more infrastructure for electric vehicles where you can plug in and you combine that with solar panels. Because I have solar panels, [the vehicle] hasn’t impacted how much we pay for electricity. We’re really starting to improve the technology. If we take a comprehensive look at how these issues impact families and how it really does make sense to be able to provide for themselves and their children, it’s a no-brainer. We need to be able to do this.
Sunrise Boston
I believe that in some fields in Malden that kids play in, they’re putting down AstroTurf because the fields have lead contamination. Why are they doing that and what should they be doing?
Nichole Mossalam
This area is a swamp land. The field does get flooded, which is why they were deciding to lay down the AstroTurf. But here’s the thing. Our city is a huge heat island. We don’t have enough green space. We don’t have enough natural grass for kids to play on. And really, this process was done without input from the surrounding community that it is going to affect. While it’s a public park, it’s also a school playground. When they did testing on the soil there, and we found out how contaminated it was, I began to learn about the history of that area and that we ever built an elementary school there in the first place is mind boggling. It used to be a factory. I’ve talked to residents who said everybody knew not to light a match in that area because [the ground would catch fire]. These are anecdotal things that I’ve heard from people, but the fact is it highlights the history that we’re going up against [of lax environmental regulation].
It’s a complicated issue. It needs to be cleaned up rather than just putting AstroTurf on top of it. This is contamination that our children are playing on. And this is a hard thing for a city to have to deal with. Clean up like this is a lot of money. We have a lot of these polluted sites throughout the state because we failed at environmental regulations on factories and corporations. It’s great that we’ve gotten better, but really the state should have made it a priority to clean these sites up, especially in communities like Malden and Medford along the Mystic river and the Medford river. The shores of these rivers are horribly contaminated, which is what we found when the Everett casino went up. I think this comes back to [the fact that] cities have very limited funds. They can only raise property taxes every year by two and a half percent, which doesn’t even keep up with inflation for city services. We know it’s not enough. Many more affluent communities are able to do an override [to raise more revenue] but communities like Malden and Medford have never done one. Really it’s a budgetary crunch, and because the state failed to regulate [polluters historically] it should step up to the plate and help these communities to clean this up. Then it wouldn’t be an issue for Malden.
The state should have made it a priority to clean [polluted] sites up, especially in communities like Malden and Medford along the Mystic river and the Medford river.
Sunrise Boston
Just the logic that ‘this area is contaminated enough that everyone knows not to go smoke there because if you light a match it might all burst into flames… so let’s build a school there’ doesn’t add up. And yeah, it comes from the fact that doing this sort of cleanup is expensive. It also employs people. It creates a lot of jobs, which is one of the points of the Green New Deal. If we commit to fixing these problems we are going to be able to employ a lot of people, which is a win-win. People are going to get a paycheck and have a job to work on transitioning to renewable energy and cleaning up some of these polluted areas. But we do need to commit as a society to doing that, which means the money has to come from somewhere.
Nichole Mossalam
Touching on the Green New Deal, and you were just talking about the role of government, we know that we need to make some drastic changes towards sustainability to address climate change. And we know this is going to impact many industries. Some jobs are gonna die off. New ones are going to be created. Government has to step in because we know what we need to prioritize. It is our job to help these individuals who are leaving one industry, provide them with training so that they can go on to be prosperous in the new industry that is going to provide a better future for everybody.
Sunrise Boston
As a last question, as we wrap up, Medford and Malden are working class areas with a lot of people who are kind of conservative. What is your message to them?
Nichole Mossalam
There are a lot of people out there who just don’t feel heard. They don’t feel listened to. They’ve got piles of problems. They can’t afford to pay their rent. They can’t afford to go to the doctor. Food is becoming an out of reach expense. How many millions of Americans last week didn’t have enough food to eat? These are not new issues. This has been going on for a very long time. People are becoming despondent. They don’t feel like their elected officials are listening to them or even care about their problems. And it just keeps getting worse. So I would say, I hear you. I have sat down and talked with some [local conservatives] and they’re relieved just from having someone listen to them, to say, yes, your concerns are valid. And I have a plan to address them. I don’t care what view you come from. We’re going to get through this together as a community, as neighbors. The relief in their tone, in their face, that’s all they want. I think it’s something very basic that we’ve lost sight of. We’ve become too hung up on, are you Republican or Democrat? Are you this, are you that, it doesn’t matter. You’re my neighbor. I’m going to listen to you and I’m going to help you. And that’s what it comes down to at the end of the day.
Sunrise Boston
I think that’s so compelling and so important that with the big national news spotlight on these issues, it’s easy to lose sight of exactly what you just said. You’re my neighbor. And we can get through this together. Putting the focus back on that can be so restorative.
Nichole Mossalam
Yes. That’s what we need to get back to. At the end of the day, we are a community. We’re neighbors living side by side with each other. If my neighbor is hurting, I’m hurting. I don’t want them to lose their home. I don’t want them to go hungry. I did that when I was a child. I remember the pain of hunger and not having something to eat. I remember the insecurity that I felt as a child when I was homeless with my mom. I don’t want anybody to go through that. I don’t care what your views are. And I think we need to get back to that fundamental caring for each other, because if we don’t, it’s all going to blow up and nobody’s going to get anywhere.
At the end of the day, we are a community. We’re neighbors living side by side with each other. If my neighbor is hurting, I’m hurting. I don’t want them to lose their home. I don’t want them to go hungry. I did that when I was a child. I remember the pain of hunger and not having something to eat. I remember the insecurity that I felt as a child when I was homeless with my mom. I don’t want anybody to go through that.
