José “Che-Che” Turrubiartez Wilson is running to be the Democratic nominee for Cook County Commissioner and bring real life experience to government.
“I was born and raised in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. My parents immigrated from Mexico, and were undocumented until only a couple years ago. My step-dad has been a landscaper my whole life, and my mom was a homemaker, raising me and my three sisters. Wicker Park was very different in the 90s and early 2000s compared to today. I remember gangs tormenting my community and surviving drive-bys and shootings. Like my family, almost everyone I knew growing up was raised in an undocumented household and my community was often forgotten by every level of government.
“I grew up in extreme poverty, living in 11 different homes growing up because my family would be evicted or priced out of apartments. At the time, there were few resources to educate people about their tenant rights in Spanish. In high school, the apartment we lived in, my parents, my three sisters and I, was 400 square feet. Until I moved out at 18, I never had my own room, even my own bed. I slept on the couch, because we never had enough space.”
In his own words:
Che-Che is the grassroots candidate running against establishment politics. He is in this race because of his merit and impactful record, not because of loyalty to machine bosses or nepotism.
“There is not a single person in Cook County government that has my lived or professional experience. I first began my advocacy for LGBTQ rights providing sexual health education and helping people know their HIV status. I did not do this work because I sought out to become the LGBTQ leader I am today or a politician, but because the government ignored the HIV/AIDS pandemic for years. Harm that is still felt to this day.
“"I came out as gay when I was 14 years old and just wanted to find a sense of belonging. I found this in the LGBTQ organizations providing afterschool youth spaces, transportation, food and healthcare services, resources that at the time, saved my life. The government’s failure to provide adequate public health for everyone has been the driving force behind most of my career in public service.
“The direct, frontline work I did at these organizations is life-saving. We connected people to healthcare, often for the first time; prevented people from committing suicide; and prevented the spread of communicable diseases like HIV and Hepatitis C through testing and connecting people to medicine. Because of my work, I participated in the first nation-wide CDC campaign for HIV prevention in Spanish just a decade ago. My work also led me to Lambda Legal where I supported litigation defending civil rights and legislative policies expanding them.
“Now at Equality Illinois, I organize to ensure state legislation, driven by the need to protect LGBTQ rights, but ultimately also benefits everyone regardless of their identity, gets enough support from our communities across the state to become law.”
Government often moves slowly, Che-Che is a fighter whose life work is to enable the communities around him.
“I think diversity in government is important, but not simply as an end to itself. Governments, like any organization, thrive with diverse experiences, expertise, and ideas. Part of the reason government is slow to adapt to our modern problems is because we rarely elect people like me to office.
“Yes, I am Brown. I am Latino. I am from an undocumented family. I am gay. I was raised in poverty. I am Jewish. These identities have influenced the professional expertise I am bringing to the County Board. My work experience is critical, especially now when so much is threatened to be taken away from us: our healthcare, our financial security, our civil rights. I am running because I want to keep Cook County the bedrock of Illinois and I hope you vote for me to make that happen.”
- Che-Che