Latest news with #Fischel
Boston Globe
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Alex Alex's quixotic candidacy for Boston mayor
As expected, Wu was polished, sharp, and unsparing in her critiques of Kraft: 'This is a city that cannot be bought,' she said in her opening remarks. Meanwhile, Kraft came across as overly cautious, vague, and out of his depth, calling for a 'pause' on bike lanes and generic 'new sources of income' for the city. He may have the money to run for mayor, but judging by his debate performance, he forgot to buy an actual plan. Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up Related : Then there was Alex — no tailored suit, no entourage, no name recognition. The formerly undocumented immigrant only decided to run for office last month and won't even make the ballot; the deadline to submit the required 3,000 certified signatures from registered Boston voters is May 20. As of Monday morning, he'd only collected around 150. Advertisement And yet, Alex, for all his inexperience and rough edges, seems clear-eyed about the odds. 'I don't really have the delusion that I'm gonna win the race for mayor, but I know that my ideas are gonna get out there. I know that people are gonna see there's value in them,' he told me over the weekend at a coffee shop in Roslindale, where he'd biked from his place in Uphams Corner. So why run at all? Before I get to that, it's worth learning who Alex is, including the story behind his undeniably odd name. He was born Alex Palacios Santos in Oaxaca, Mexico, to a single mother who left for the United States when he was just 8 months old. When Alex was 3, his aunt brought him illegally through the US-Mexico border to reunite with his mother in Boston. 'My mother was abusive my whole life,' Alex said. 'There were a few weeks where I couldn't leave my room.' Despite the instability at home, Alex stood out academically. After attending two public elementary schools in Boston, he landed at Excel Academy, a charter school in East Boston, for fifth grade. Around that time, he was connected to At 16, he left home and has been estranged from his mom ever since, he said. Sorting his legal status 'helped him feel settled, because there was so much that's unsettled in his life,' said Josh Fischel, a former Steppingstone program associate who met Alex about 15 years ago and remains a mentor today. 'He denies this, but I have a strong memory of him always carrying a dictionary around. Not because he needed to translate stuff. He just wanted to know what bigger words meant.' Advertisement Fischel, now an English teacher in Acton-Boxborough, was surprised when Alex told him he's running for mayor. 'Did I try and talk him out of it? Sure.' Fischel was worried that Alex would come across like 'a bit of a crank' at the debate. 'But he sounded more prepared than the billionaire's son.' Alex, Fischel told me, 'was not born to stay in his lane. If he's interested in doing something, he's just going to do it, damn the consequences.' Alex attended college at New York University and majored in critical systems studies, an academic field perhaps fitting for someone who's interested in dismantling inefficiencies and spotlighting structural injustice from the ground up. Big, ambitious goals for any public servant, let alone a 24-year-old long shot candidate. 'I've faced so many issues that people my age and people older than me would not have faced,' Alex said. 'I'm also trying to gain experience.' He said he's applied to multiple jobs at City Hall with no luck, including a youth outreach coordinator position and a climate innovation analyst role, 'looking at the city's infrastructure and making sure that it's more responsive to the realities of ecological collapse,' he said. At the forum, Related : Advertisement Where Alex starts to lose the room is when the conversation veers into As for his last name, Alex said he changed it when he became a US citizen in 2023. He'd thought deeply about how neither of his last names reflected any part of him, but he also didn't feel it was right to appropriate an Indigenous name without the connection. 'People don't see me as Black. People don't really see me as Native. They just see me as a question mark,' Alex said. So, he doubled down on the one thing he could claim fully: himself. Gimmicky? Maybe. But also revealing — it's a symbol of someone who's still in search of an identity, political or not. After our interview and before starting his work shift at a fast-casual Mediterranean restaurant, Alex biked to Franklin Park Zoo Advertisement Sure, he's not going to be your next mayor. But in a race filled with polish, money, and manufactured messaging and barbs, maybe we needed someone like Alex Alex to make us look twice. Marcela García is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
Yahoo
04-02-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Glenview athlete competed in Wichita before ice skaters who died in D.C. plane crash
As two professional skaters warmed up for their solo exhibitions Saturday at the Glenview Community Ice Center, there was a sense of quiet despite the laughter of children and families enjoying ice bumper cars and other activities at Glenview's Winterfest. It was the first time one of the skaters, Alexa Gasparotto, would perform to a public audience since competitively skating in Wichita at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships 2025, where she placed in both the Women's Free Skate on Jan. 24 and the Women's Short Program on Jan. 23. Only days after her success at the figure skating nationals, many young skaters who had also been in Wichita, and possibly seen Gasparotto skate, were flying to Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C. on American Eagle Flight 5342 when it crashed into an Army helicopter Jan. 29 and all on board were killed. 'I feel like from here on, every performance is dedicated to each of the skaters that were lost on the flight,' said Gasparotto, of Glenview, softly before performing her solo. 'I feel like for the whole skating community, that's a no brainer,' Gasparotto said. 'Every skater's mind is going to be like, 'Okay now when I skate, it's going to be for them.'' Josh Fischel, a figure skating coach at the Glenview Ice Center and also a Team USA figure skating coach, said the figure skating world is small and that he, and other skaters, knew many of those who perished in the crash. He knew coaches Vadim Naumov and his wife Evgenia Shishkova, who died in the crash. The Russia-born couple won the pairs title at the 1994 world championships in Chiba, Japan and also competed twice in the Olympics. Another Glenview coach, Nicole Maguire, knew Aleksandr 'Sasha' Kirsanov, an ice dancer and University of Delaware figure skating coach, who also perished. U.S. Figure Skating, the governing body of the sport, said 28 from the figure skating community, including skaters, parents and coaches, lost their lives in the collision. Authorities have said there were a total of 67 victims of the disaster. The skaters on the doomed plane had been attending U.S. Figure Skating's National Development Camp, which was started in 2020 to allow about 150 young skaters at the juvenile, intermediate and novice levels who excelled at the U.S. Sectionals finals to sharpen and polish their skills in a collegial atmosphere, according to the U.S. Figure Skating website. It also said the National Development Camp immediately follows, and is held in conjunction with, the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, which were held Jan. 20-26. Fischel said skaters enter the juvenile level at around age 10 or 11, and that it contains girls under 13 and boys under 14. 'I believe the intermediate level caps out at 18,' he said, adding that those who go to the National Development Camp are usually about age 13 to 15. Skaters at the novice level may range from about 14 to 16, he said. 'The connections in Chicago to the passengers who passed are extensive,' Fischel said. 'So many of the elite athletes in Chicago have competed against these young skaters as they all travel across the country to do various events.' Kayla Lindgren, general manager of the Glenview Community Ice Center, said, 'The tragedy of American Airlines Flight 5342 touched multiple skaters and coaches at the Glenview Community Ice Center,' adding that many coaches and skaters knew or had skated alongside the victims. Recovery work resumes at the site of the deadly plane and chopper collision near Washington Rainbow Animal Assisted Therapy provided therapy dogs last week and this week to help skaters as they grieve, she said, and the center is also working with Youth Services of Glenview/Northbrook to bring therapists on-site for anyone wanting to talk. Lindgren also said the Glenview Ice Center is celebrating Gasparotto's victory. 'We are privileged to have Alexa 'Lexi' Gasparotto as one of our talented Glenview Park District Skating Academy coaches at the Glenview Community Ice Center,' she commented. 'This year, Lexi was celebrated as the first African American woman to land a triple axel, and qualified for U.S. Figure Skating Nationals in Wichita, Kansas. The Park District and the Glenview Community Ice Center are incredibly proud of Lexi and her figure skating journey.'
