A summer meeting of the Democratic Club of West Orange County has just kicked off at Congregation B’nai Tzedek in Fountain Valley when Ada Briceño walks in, unnoticed. It is quite the feat. She wears a neon-pink T-shirt, stands nearly six feet tall, and is possibly the only Latina in an audience of about 40.
Not exactly a reception befitting the chair of the Democratic Party of Orange County. But this is how Briceño wants it. She has come to give a speech, but she wants to read the room first, from the back. It’s a few days after a shooter killed seven people during a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois—and the West O.C. Dems are angry and motivated.
After about 20 minutes of letting the crowd vent, Briceño approaches the synagogue’s podium.
“I have too many mixed emotions after this holiday,” she says, reading from a cell phone. “Independence Day 2022 will always represent a dark time in our history for me.”
She lists some of the calamities that the United States has weathered: A radicalized Supreme Court. Mass shootings. Joe Biden’s declining popularity. But as she sees the pained faces of the Dems before her, Briceño ditches the script.
“As an organizer, I’ve been taught ‘Don’t mourn, but organize,’” the Nicaraguan immigrant says
