Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez


Cristina Costello Tzintzún Ramirez is an American labor organizer and writer. From August 12, 2019 until March 3, 2020 Tzintzún Ramirez was a potential challenger to incumbent United States Senator John Cornyn in the 2020 United States Senate election in Texas as part of a twelve-person Democratic primary, in which she placed third.

Early life and education

Ramirez is of mixed-ethnicity. Her mother, Ana Tzintzún, is from a rural agricultural community in Michoacán, and her father, Pat Costello, is a white American who came to live in Mexico in the 1960s and 1970s. Tzintzún's original surname was Costello, which she changed to Tzintzún as an adult. She was born and raised in Ohio, where her parents operated a fair-trade Mexican jewelry business. The family business required that the Tzintzún family live and travel to Mexico throughout her early life. Her parents, both progressive, encouraged their children to participate in various causes, especially those involving the Latino immigrant community. In high school, Ramirez began organizing and working with newly-arrived Mexican immigrants in Ohio. She graduated from University of Texas at Austin in 2006 with a Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Latin American studies.

Career

Tzintzún began organizing with Latino immigrant workers in 2000 in Columbus, Ohio, and then moved to Texas, where she helped establish the Workers Defense Project, serving as its Executive Director from 2006 until 2016.
At the WDP, Tzintzún and co-founder Emily Timm led the organization to focus its efforts on the construction industry, the largest employer of undocumented labor in Texas. She helped spearhead the organization's efforts to organize workers in one of the most-hostile political climates for worker and immigrant organizing in the country.
Tzintzún served as the lead coordinator of immigrant mobilizations and strikes in Austin, Texas, on April 10, 2006 and May 1, 2006. It was estimated that 60% of restaurants and 80% of construction sites closed in Austin for the strike.
In 2008, Tzintzún co-founded the Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition, which brings together stakeholders across the city to advocate for the rights of immigrants.
Tzintzún helped lead the organization to pass over half a dozen local ordinances and state laws better protecting the rights of hundreds of thousands of workers by combining grassroots organizing, strategic research and smart communications strategies. She co-authored two reports on construction workers in Texas that resulted in a federal investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and led the agency to review 900 construction sites resulting in $2 million in fines.
Tzintzún created and developed the organization's Better Builder Program, which won construction workers living wages, higher safety standards, training and on-site enforcement by Better Builder monitors against some of the largest corporations in the world. At the close of 2015, the Better Builder program had won agreements on nearly a billion dollars in construction projects covering 10,000 workers.
A quarter of workers surveyed on Better Builder sites reported receiving a raise from their last job, 38% reported receiving safety training for the first-time and 30% reported receiving workers’ compensation coverage for the first time in their construction careers.
In 2017, Tzintzún founded Jolt, a civil rights organization that works to increase voter turnout among Latinos in Texas.
On August 12, 2019, Tzintzún announced her intention to challenge incumbent United States Senator John Cornyn in the 2020 United States Senate election in Texas as a progressive candidate. Her bid was endorsed by New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Texas representative Joaquin Castro, and actor Alec Baldwin, as well as by the PACs Blue America and Latino Victory Fund, labor unions UNITE HERE Local 23 and Communications Workers of America, 350 Action, the Working Families Party, and the University of Texas at Austin University Democrats. Tzintzún’s campaign was criticized for also accepting an endorsement from actress Susan Sarandon, who had supported Green Party candidate Jill Stein over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. She received additional criticism for her comments made in a speech, in which she said:

Tzintzún is more Mexican than any Garcia or Lopez. We were the only indigenous group in Mexico that were not defeated by the Aztecs. So you know I come from good lineage and I’m ready to defeat John Cornyn.

Ultimately, Tzintzún placed third in the March 3, 2020 Democratic primary with 13.2% of the vote. She and fellow former candidates Chris Bell and Michael Cooper then endorsed Royce West, who had advanced with MJ Hegar to the Democratic primary runoff.

Electoral history

2020

Personal life

Tzintzún married Jose Manuel Ramirez on November 13, 2015. The couple has a son, Santiago, who was born in 2017. The couple separated in March 2019. Tzintzún adopted the surname Ramirez in 2019. The couple divorced in December 2019.

Boards

She is a board member of Zev Shapiro's organization TurnUp

Honors and awards

In 2013, Tzintzún was selected by Southern Living Magazine as one of four honorees who represent the next generation of leaders, and named her as the 2013 New Hero of Civil Rights. As part of its 60-year anniversary, The Texas Observer selected her as one of seven Texans "who’ve helped change the state for the better."

Selected works

Tzintzún is also an author on issues of race, gender and immigration her work has appeared in the Huffington Post, The Dallas Morning News and Al Jazeera and in the following publications: