Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, has built his political identity on a working-class, immigrant-success story. Public records and other reporting now contradict much of it.
Gordillo told the New York Times earlier this month that his parents “came here, they had nothing,” and that “their first jobs were in fast food and cleaning houses.” He said he pushes socialism so that success stories like his parents’ become “not exceptional.”
He repeated a version of that account to Fox News in July: “My dad, his first job in the United States was working at Wendy’s, my mom’s first job was a house cleaner, and they did make a living for themselves, and they had success.”
A 2021 obituary for Gordillo’s paternal grandfather, first reported by the New York Post on Saturday, tells a different story. Manuel Gordillo emigrated from Peru to the United States in 1958 to practice medicine, met his future wife in St. Louis, and had Gordillo’s father, Gustavo, there. He went on to build a career as a psychiatrist in Ohio, at one point serving as president of the Ohio Psychiatric Association, and raised his children in Lakewood, Ohio, according to the obituary.
Asked about the discrepancy, a New York City DSA spokesperson told Fox News Digital: “Gustavo and his parents were born in Peru and immigrated to the US. Gustavo’s father grew up in Peru, not in the United States, and the family had limited contact with Gustavo’s grandfather, who is the subject of the Post’s recent reporting.” The organization later added that Gordillo’s father was a product of the grandfather’s first marriage.
Housing claims don’t match either
Gordillo told the New York Times he was renting a modest apartment in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Reporting since has established he was actually living in a $1.4 million townhouse in a more upscale part of the borough, owned by his father.
New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino called out the arrangement on X: “Not only did DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo’s parents buy him this rowhouse, they converted it from a two family and renovated it into a luxury single-family home for him. Exactly the kind of ‘greed’ the DSA rails against on a daily basis, and reducing valuable housing inventory by one more unit, which is supposedly something the DSA cares very deeply about.”
Still calling himself a “union electrician”
Gordillo continues to identify himself on social media as a “union electrician,” despite having been terminated from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers apprenticeship program in March for failing to show up.
The IBEW confirmed the firing in a statement: “After learning of Mr. Gordillo’s prolonged absence from and failure to participate in required work and classes, the trustees of the Joint Apprentice Training Committee terminated Mr. Gordillo from the program.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been pressed on whether he still stands by Gordillo amid the mounting scrutiny.
