When Zohran Mamdani campaigned for New York City mayor, he didn’t sound like a typical American politician, speaking only English at his rallies and public appearances.

Instead, he switched between Arabic, Bangla, English, Hindi, Luganda, Spanish and Urdu to connect with diverse communities. He also made appearances on transnational media outlets to discuss issues that crossed borders.

I am a post-doctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia, studying the integration patterns of immigrants and how they’re shaped by the intersection of language, ethnicity and migration.

For me, Mamdani’s story is more than a local success. It signals how politics is being reshaped by migration and multilingualism and how language itself has become a foundation of belonging in diverse democracies.

Mamdani’s campaign began with a simple but powerful line:

“It’s time to take back our power and unleash the public sector to build housing for the many.”

This message resonated across the city’s working-class neighbourhoods — taxi drivers, nurses, delivery workers and students, many of them immigrants trying to make ends meet. What made it even more effective was how he delivered it: not just in English, but in the many languages New Yorkers speak.

He repeated his call for affordability and fairness in Arabic,

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