About Me
Jonathan has dedicated his life to serving people over profits and communities over special interests. Growing up to a working class family that moved between New York and Puerto Rico, Jonathan saw his parents work 3 to 4 jobs at a time in order to make ends meet. During this time, he realized an inconvenient truth: hard work alone didn’t guarantee access to good public schools in his neighborhood; hard work alone didn’t stop the threat of foreclosure of his family home when big banks crashed the economy; hard work alone didn’t guarantee job security when his parents weren’t represented by unions. It became clear to Jonathan that democracy’s institutions did not support his family when most needed. What wasn’t clear was who was weakening our institutions and why.
These experiences motivated Jonathan to become a community organizer by day and law school student at night. During the day, Jonathan organized with workers to advocate for a living wage, lead community resilience efforts to help Bronx neighborhoods and small businesses recover from Superstorm Sandy and fight alongside communities of color to end stop-and-frisk. At night, Jonathan learned how special interests weakened labor protections and manipulated tax laws to shift economic benefits away from our neighborhoods to benefit the few at the top. He learned how special interests deregulated environmental laws that hurt our environment. He learned how racism was used to pass laws that criminalized black, brown and LGBTQIA+ communities. Most importantly, Jonathan learned that special interests weakened campaign finance laws to increase their political influence and drown out the voices of the people. Jonathan realized why hard work was not enough to access the benefits of democracy; it was because politicians didn’t work hard for the people but for the special interests that put them in office.
As Jonathan was finishing law school, he was appointed by the Mayor of New York City to launch the Center for Faith and Community Partnerships. As its Executive Director, Jonathan mobilized community-based organizations and houses of worship to serve New Yorkers impacted by issues of mental health, LGBTQIA+ discrimination, homelessness, immigration, domestic violence, and domestic workers’ rights. Soto worked with City agencies to create programming that supported the creation of affordable housing and small business development. After Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico, Soto was on the leadership team that deployed 150 NYC employees to provide technical assistance to municipalities and the central government of Puerto Rico. Soto advised City Hall on the creation of NYC’s Hurricane Evacuee Center that provided services to people displaced by hurricane Maria.
Jonathan served as the Associate Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Union Theological Seminary and trained with the next generation of leaders to address the issues of our day. He worked with seminarians, community organizations and faith leaders to support social justice initiatives, whether it was advocating for services to support families that have been separated at the border or supporting the restoration of public schools in Puerto Rico.
Most recently, Jonathan served as an organizer for Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, where he helped lead the Homework Helpers program and mutual aid efforts, that provided free tutoring to 500 students, 100K meals to families, and supported workers’ safety throughout the pandemic.
With over 10 years of collective experience in law, urban planning, human rights advocacy, government administration, academia, emergency response/disaster relief, faith-based organizing and public education advocacy, Jonathan is ready to take on the special interests that have shifted resources away from our communities. Jonathan is ready to represent the people of the Bronx's 82 Assembly District and work to bring democracy home.