Nithya Raman becomes Los Angeles mayor after defeating Karen Bass
The 45-year-old Indian-American politician has roots in Kerala and previously worked on civic activism in India.
Nithya Raman has been elected as the Mayor of Los Angeles, defeating the incumbent Karen Bass, according to reports from The Hindu, Indian Express and South First. The 45-year-old, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is the first mayor of South Asian descent to lead the city.
Raman, who was born in Thrissur, Kerala, spent her early years in Thiruvananthapuram and Thrissur before migrating to the United States at age six. Her father, Venkataraman, previously worked for Keltron, while her mother, Sudha, was an employee of Indian Overseas Bank.
Before her political career in the U.S., Raman worked with NGOs in India. She led movements against the eviction of slum dwellers in Delhi ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games and co-founded the nonprofit Transparent Chennai in 2010 to improve sanitation in unmapped slums.
Raman graduated in Social Studies from Harvard University in 2003 and earned a master’s degree in urban planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She moved to Los Angeles in 2013 and has served on the Los Angeles City Council since 2020.
Her mayoral campaign focused on increasing affordable housing, improving city services, and addressing the city's movie business. She previously founded the SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition in 2017 to address homelessness in the city.