Hillary Ronen (S3E19)

Photography by Michelle Kilfeather

In Part 1, District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen tells the story of how her parents, one from Israel, one from Milwaukee, met in Los Angeles, where she grew up. She went to college at UC San Diego and engaged in activism on the state level, fighting props 187 and 209. After graduation, she wanted to learn Spanish, and she spent a couple of years in Barcelona. She came back to the states to go to law school at UC Berkeley, where, after a couple of summers doing various legal work, she had a realization that landed her in the Mission District in San Francisco.

In Part 2, Hillary talks about her work at La Raza Centro Legal in the Mission. She goes on a verbal tour of places in the Mission she hung out (hello, margaritas at Latin American Club!). She applied for and got a job as a legislative aide to then-D9 Supervisor David Campos. Fast-forward to 2016, when she was tapped to run to replace Campos. She shares stories from a bittersweet Election Night that November, working with former Mayor Ed Lee, and what she hopes to accomplish if she wins reelection this year.

We recorded this podcast in Zoom during quarantine in San Francisco in April and May 2020.