Phoenix City Council's District 7 contenders Yassamin Ansari, Cinthia Estela talk experiences, respond to critics

Jen Fifield
Arizona Republic

Yassamin Ansari and Cinthia Estela are both daughters of immigrants who were raised with expectations to work hard and with inherent drives to succeed.

Yet the two grew up in vastly different homes and took different paths to becoming the top two contenders to represent District 7 on the Phoenix City Council. The runoff election is March 9.

As the candidates have talked about their successes on the campaign trail, their opponents have raised questions about their backgrounds. 

Estela's opponents want you to believe her history is shrouded in violence and run-ins with the law, and that her temperament is ill-suited for the City Council.

Opponents of Ansari want you to believe she's a Scottsdale elitist, out of touch with lower income residents of the district, which covers parts of downtown, south Phoenix, Laveen and Maryvale.

Neither candidate had fully responded to the political attacks questioning their backgrounds until recently sitting down with The Arizona Republic.

Both say their life experiences are a strength, not a weakness, and have prepared them to represent a diverse district where many face long-term economic and health consequences of COVID-19.

Much is at stake. Whoever voters choose will replace outgoing Councilmember Michael Nowakowski and could influence the council's leanings on key issues, from development to police accountability.

Money has rolled in to influence the race. Ansari raised $689,475 and Estela raised $304,268 by Feb. 20, according to the latest campaign finance reports. Political action committees and dark money groups have jumped in, spending on mailers and canvassing.

'Dark money':It's still trying to influence Phoenix elections despite new law. Here's how

Many voters already have cast ballots by mail. Others will head to the polls on Saturday, Monday or Election Day on Tuesday to vote in-person or drop off their ballots at vote centers in the city.

Here are the candidates' stories.

Estela: Daughter of Peruvian immigrants

Estela’s parents immigrated from Peru to Arizona when she was an infant, in the late 1980s, she said.

Cinthia Estela, a Phoenix City Council District 7 candidate, is seen at her home in the Laveen neighborhood of Phoenix on March 1, 2021. Estela is running against Cinthia Estela for the District 7 seat.

They were both college educated in Peru. She said her dad got a degree in accounting but then worked as a police officer and captain in Peru. Her mother is the daughter of a former mayor of a community in Lima.

Estela said her parents didn't speak English when they moved here, which made life in the U.S. hard. Her father worked as a dishwasher at Pizza Hut and McDonald's, and her mother worked as a housekeeper and custodian at Fiesta Mall.

They each held two jobs to provide for her and her two brothers as they grew up in Mesa, she said.

Estela said she tried to stay out of trouble so she wouldn't be a burden to her hard-working parents.

They divorced when she was nine. Estela primarily stayed with her mother in Arizona, while her two brothers lived mostly with her father, who moved to New York.

Ansari: Daughter of Iranian Immigrants

Ansari's parents emigrated from Iran around the late 1970s, she said.

Yassamin Ansari, a Phoenix City Council District 7 candidate, is seen at Hance Park in downtown Phoenix on March 1, 2021. Ansari is running against Cinthia Estela for the District 7 seat.

Her father came to the U.S. to go to school at the University of Oregon and planned to return to Iran until the Iranian Revolution happened.

Her mother was born in the U.S. when her grandfather was in school here, but she grew up in Iran. She fled the country in 1979 to avoid persecution, Ansari said.

Her parents met after attending college in the U.S., her father getting a degree in civil engineering and her mother earning a degree in physical therapy.

The family moved to Arizona from Seattle in 1997 when she was 5. She grew up in Scottsdale.

Ansari said the importance of an education was ingrained in her early. Ansari said she was "quite the nerd" and a straight-A student.

She's always been interested in politics, pushing to create a student government in fourth grade. "I just walked into my principal's office and pretty much lobbied her to start a student government," she said.

She served on Chaparral High School's student council, was president of her speech and debate club, and got involved in local politics. She volunteered for the Arizona Democratic Party during the 2008 presidential election at the age of 16.

Ansari calls it a "transformative experience" that solidified her commitment to public service.

Estela: Working from a young age

Estela said that from an early age her parents taught her to help others. She would step in whenever she saw people in need, she said, such as helping other families translate at the library.

"It's really important that I was able to help my community because I was always seeing my mother or my father help other people," she said.

Estela began working as a hostess at a family friend's Peruvian restaurant at the age of 15.

She got a job as a mail handler for the U.S. Postal Service at 17.

Estela graduated from Mesa's Dobson High School in 2004, and a year later had saved up enough money for a down payment on a house in Laveen. She was 19.

Estela, her mother and her two children still live in that home in District. 7. She said she bought the property as a dirt lot and watched the neighborhood grow around her.

She immediately became active in the community, she said, serving on the neighborhood block watch and becoming involved in community events.

She was attending Lamson College in Tempe and dating someone she'd worked with at the post office. They got married when she found out she was pregnant.

Ansari: Opponents question her Scottsdale upbringing

Ansari often says she grew up in the "Phoenix area" when asked about her background in interviews.

As she runs for a seat in a district with many low-income neighborhoods, her opponents have highlighted her family's wealth and her childhood growing up in Scottsdale.

A political mailer sent by a political action committee shows a photo of Ansari over a birds-eye view of luxury homes, a golf course and mountain views, and a photo of Estela set over Laveen Village Park.

Ansari said she grew up in McDowell Mountain Ranch and moved to D.C. Ranch when she was in high school.

She said her parents worked hard to become successful. Her father eventually opened his own finance company in the Valley.

Yassamin said it's unfair for her family's success to be used against her.

From an early age, she said, she was taught to help and support others.

Her family has supported refugee families, in particular. When she was young, her mother found out about families coming from Sudan and Somalia that needed support in Phoenix, and she remembers spending much of her childhood with those families, mentoring and tutoring the children that were similar in age to her.

"My mom especially always wanted to make sure that my brother and I were as humble as possible," she said. "And so community service was a huge part of our upbringing."

Her mother established the Persian Cultural Center in Phoenix, where she holds community events such as Persian New Year festivals and tries to educate the community about Persian culture.

Ansari said she has spent her life working with low-income and marginalized communities.

She said she recognizes her privilege, including parents who paid for college costs not covered by scholarships. But it was her hard work, good grades and leadership in high school that has brought success.

That's what got her accepted into Stanford, she said.

After graduating from high school, she moved to California.

Estela: Court attorney worries about her children's well-being

After having two children, a boy and a girl one year apart, Estela said her marriage wasn't working. Court documents claim there was domestic violence on both sides of the marriage, although Estela was never convicted of domestic violence.

Cinthia Estela (left), a Phoenix City Council District 7 candidate, walks the Laveen neighborhood of Phoenix with her cousin, Ronny Pardo, to talk to potential supporters on March 1, 2021. Estela is running against Yassamin Ansari for the District 7 seat.

The couple separated in 2008 and divorced in 2010. She moved back into her old house with her mother.

A few years later, the custody battles began.

Anonymous opponents of Estela sent The Republic and other media the court documents outlining that custody battle, along with other documents. The courts verified that the documents are legitimate.

At the time of her divorce, the court granted her sole legal custody and primary physical custody of her children. A few years later, in 2013, her ex-husband asked the court to reconsider the custody arrangement, saying that Estela threatened to move with the children to Las Vegas.

Estela's children were about 6 and 7 years old at the time.

Her ex-husband told the court she was living part-time with a boyfriend in a Glendale trailer park. She told The Republic that was untrue, that she was living in the Laveen home she had purchased with her mom.

A court-appointed attorney investigated on behalf of the children.

The attorney's 2014 report said she had "serious concerns about (Estela's) judgment in the current living arrangement and the safety and appropriateness of the home."

The attorney recommended that Estela's ex-husband have primary custody and final decision-making authority, and Estela have only supervised parenting time until she completed parenting and domestic violence classes.

Estela said the allegations raised in the court documents were never substantiated. Estela has joint custody of her children, and only had supervised parenting time for a short period in 2014, court documents show.

"If there was anything that was substantiated, I wouldn't have my children," she said. "You should see how happy these children are. They love being with their mother. They're my babies."

Estela said that she did everything the courts asked to ensure she was fit to care for her children, including domestic violence and parenting classes. She said she didn't want to go much further into detail, because her children "are 14 and 13 years old and they have access to the internet," she said.

"But it was very difficult. And I learned a lot from that divorce," she said. "It's a chapter, and all you can do is learn from it."

She compares herself to the phoenix bird, rising from the ashes.

"I pulled myself out of the fire" she said, "because truly, that's where I was in."

Ansari: Traveling and serving at U.N.

In 2010, Ansari began college at Stanford University. She earned a bachelor's degree in international relations with honors in security studies.

Ansari spent much of her college and post-graduate years traveling across the U.S. and the world. She did humanitarian work in Jordan and Morocco in 2011 and 2013.

In Jordan, she volunteered at a camp for Syrian refugees. She led an initiative to raise funds for the cause and to raise awareness among college students.

Yassamin Ansari, a Phoenix City Council District 7 candidate, takes a selfie with staff organizers Juan Cervantes, 17, (center) and his brother, Marcos Cervantes, 16, while walking the Maryvale neighborhood of Phoenix to talk to potential supporters on March 1, 2021. Ansari is running against Cinthia Estela for the District 7 seat.

She also was active in the Democratic Party, interning for a short stint with Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, and getting a few other fellowships.

She graduated at 22 and moved to New York when she was selected for the John Gardner Fellowship Program, which allowed her to work in the office of the United Nations secretary-general's office.

She then was hired full-time to serve on the secretary-general's climate change team, serving as the youngest adviser on the team that helped deliver the Paris Climate Agreement. It was there that her passion for climate issues grew.

Still working for the U.N., she moved to D.C. for a short time. By 24, she said, she was in leadership roles at the U.N.

In 2016, she moved to the U.K. to get a master's degree in international relations and politics from Cambridge University.

That's when she started working for Mission 2020, a job that would lead her to California and eventually back home to Valley.

Estela: ‘Life experience’ is better than a degree

In 2015, shortly after her custody battle, Estela's father became ill with cancer. She was his primary caretaker until he died in 2019, she said. She also cared for her mother after a back injury.

Cinthia Estela (right), a Phoenix City Council District 7 candidate, hands information to Aliani Adelis at her home in the Laveen neighborhood of Phoenix on March 1, 2021. Estela is running against Yassamin Ansari for the District 7 seat.

Estela was working as a freelance paralegal, after getting an associate's degree in paralegal studies from Everest College in Phoenix.

She also was caring for her children and volunteering in Laveen. "Being a single mom you're trying to do a million things at once," she said. "Time is not on your side."

And 2015 was a hard year, she said.

She had moved out of her house to an apartment in Glendale, she said.

Her brother and his family was staying at the apartment, as well, when Glendale police officers arrived in response to a fight between the siblings.

The officer wrote that he could not get Estela to calm down, and "all parties were still very agitated."

"Cinthia was unwilling to cooperate and there was a high likelihood that this situation would become worse if police left the residence," the officer wrote in the report.

Estela explains the incident as a family fight.

"I don't think what happened was the right outcome," she said.

She was arrested for disorderly conduct and domestic violence, but the charges were dropped.

She was convicted that same year for driving with a suspended license.

Estela said she didn't know that her license had been suspended because of points on her record. She said she got it taken care of as soon as she could.

She says her experiences allow her to truly know the struggles of others in her district.

"It's not enough to just read about it or learn about it," she said. "It's another thing to experience it. And let me tell you, my story matches so many people in District 7, and that's what makes me relatable. You know, I didn't just come out of thin air and think that I'm going to be able to really help these people."

To voters, she asks: "Do we want someone that had an easy road or someone that had those challenges?"

Ansari: Bringing global perspective to Phoenix

Ansari said her education, global work experience and volunteerism gives her the understanding she needs to work with diverse perspectives and bring together opinions at City Hall.

Yassamin Ansari, a Phoenix City Council District 7 candidate, walks the Maryvale neighborhood of Phoenix to talk to potential supporters on March 1, 2021. Ansari is running against Cinthia Estela for the District 7 seat.

She said her time at the UN taught her that "divergent perspectives can be a powerful source of innovation."

She said her work globally has brought her perspective on how Phoenix fits into the bigger picture. Especially on climate change issues, she said she believes Phoenix is behind.

"We are on the front lines of the climate crisis," she said. "It's getting hotter and hotter every year. We also have some of the worst air pollution in the United States. But our own policies to combat this are way, way behind other cities."

Ansari's goals in City Hall would be twofold, she said: combating larger issues such as climate change and working for District 7 neighborhoods. The latter would come first, she said, despite what her opponents claim.

Her prior advocacy work in the Valley includes taking part in the youth climate strikes in Arizona, marching against gun violence and for public education at the Arizona State Capitol and working with the state Legislature to develop committees to address climate change. She also knocked on doors for Mayor Kate Gallego's mayoral campaign in 2018 and 2019.

She was selected as a 2020 finalist for Greater Phoenix Chamber's young professional ATHENA Award, which recognizes businesswomen in the Valley.

Opponents point to her campaign's many out-of-state donors. They use it to question the interests at play in her campaign and how tied-in she is locally.

Ansari said, when you run for political office, you contact everyone you know first — and her contacts are spread across the U.S. from her time working elsewhere.

Estela: A ‘Laveener’ and community activist

Estela and her children now live back at the house she bought in 2005, with her mother.

Cinthia Estela (center), a Phoenix City Council District 7 candidate, and her cousin, Ronny Pardo, talk to a potential supporter while walking the Laveen neighborhood of Phoenix on March 1, 2021. Estela is running against Yassamin Ansari for the District 7 seat.

She has lived in Laveen for the last 16 years, she said, other than a month or so she lived in Glendale.

She calls herself a "Laveener."

She serves on the Laveen Village Planning Committee and she is vice president of the nonprofit Laveen Community Council, a local nonprofit that puts on events and raises money for causes.

Estela said she has for years helped organize the community's events, including the turkey trot on Thanksgiving, an annual barbecue, an egg hunt and a golf tournament.

"I really love this area," she said. "This is a very family-oriented, very community-oriented area. And this is why I love living here so much."

Her first job in the local political scene was as a treasurer for Jonathan Larkin's 2013 campaign for the Arizona House of Representatives. She knew Larkin from high school.

From there she volunteered for many other political campaigns, from Adrian Fontes' race for county recorder to Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016.

She knows her entire district well. She can rattle off very specific needs in each neighborhood — such as bringing sidewalks to Maryvale neighborhoods and sit-down restaurants to Laveen.

Estela said she has accomplished a lot for her district, despite her own personal challenges, and that allows her to understand people in her district.

"These are my people," she said. "This is my district. I am district 7."

She said her experiences, more than her education, make her the best person to serve the district.

"Life experience is much more than any type of degree you could ever get because then you really feel the pain of that person and then you know how to help them," she said.

Ansari: Meets District 7 at their doors

When Ansari moved back to Phoenix, she said she chose to move downtown because she loves urban living.

Yassamin Ansari, a Phoenix City Council District 7 candidate, fixes a yard sign while walking the Maryvale neighborhood of Phoenix to talk to potential supporters on March 1, 2021. Ansari is running against Cinthia Estela for the District 7 seat.

In 2019, she bought a condominium in the Roosevelt Row area.

She said she has put in a lot of work getting to know other areas of her district well. She said she has knocked on "tens of thousands of doors" in the district.

"Everywhere you go in the district, people feel that they've been left behind and their feelings are correct," she said. "The roads aren't repaved, the communities are not invested in, and they don't have the basics like access to health care, access to movie theaters, access to fresh food."

Ansari said this election is not "a contest of who's lived here the longest."

"It more should be about: Do you have the experience to make the changes that people are so desperately needing?" she said.

She said her story — her background, her childhood, her work experience and what she has accomplished should show voters she is the best for the job.

"I think it's very clear that I am extremely responsible, extremely hardworking, have a high sense of integrity and a moral compass that is very focused on improving people's lives," she said. "And I think that's what District 7 really, really deserves."

Reach the reporter at jen.fifield@azcentral.com or at 602-444-8763. Follow her on Twitter @JenAFifield

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