Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive lawmaker from New York’s 14th district, expressed her gratitude to the Bengali community in New York City on Thursday. “Dhonnobad”, the Democratic Representative wrote in a social media post. 

AOC posted a video on her Instagram and captioned it “Shout out to the Bengali uncles in the community, they are always giving me flowers for no reason and it gets me every time.”

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“Dhonnobad”, she added, and translated her gratitude in Bengali script too. She also tagged Khalil Biryani House, a Bengali cuisine restaurant in New York City‘s Bronx, in the social media post.

See her social media post here:

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According to census data (2009-2019) released by the Pew Research Center, New York tops the list of top 10 metropolitan areas in the United States with the highest Bengali population. More than 93,000 Bengalis reside in the area. Detroit, Washington and Los Angeles follow New York on the list.

Democratic Congresswoman AOC has previously demonstrated her connect with the Bengali community on social media. In July 2020, at the onset of United States census, she started tweeting in Bengali and urged people to participate in the process.

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She wrote, “The census does NOT ask any questions about immigration or citizenship status. The census is for all the inhabitants of the United States. No one will see your private census data – not your landlord. Neither the ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]”, the tweet read when translated to English. 

“The more of us who complete the census, the more money we get for NYC’s schools, roads, bridges, healthcare, housing, and more. Complete it in less than 10 minutes”, she added in the tweet thread.