Perez Williams and her supporters attribute her successful primary bid to her life’s story, which they say resonates with Syracuse residents — a childhood in poverty, an immigrant heritage and a history of bucking racial discrimination.
She was born in Chula Vista, California, a poor city wedged between San Diego and the Mexican border. Her parents, Ralph and Lydia, were poor, but they got by on welfare while raising Perez Williams and her three brothers. Her grandparents came to the United States from Mexico.
Her parents tried hard to keep Perez Williams and her siblings out of trouble, she said. But it wasn’t easy.
“The drug scene was horrible,” Lydia recalled.
She said her oldest son told her Perez Williams would be “eaten up” unless she got out of the city. Around the time Perez Williams entered junior high school, her parents decided they needed to leave. Only about 25 percent of students at the high school she would have attended in Chula Vista graduated.
The family moved about 20 minutes east, to a rural town called Jamul. Perez Williams and her siblings were some of the first Mexican-Americans to attend the nearby Valhalla High School, Lydia said. There were some white people who helped her children, but she remembered them coming home from school describing how they’d been teased by other students because of their race.
“They would call them ‘dirty Mexicans,’ or say, ‘go back where you came from,’” Lydia said.
But Perez Williams’ brother was valedictorian. Perez Williams herself graduated a cheerleader and a top student, her mother said. All four children attended college.
On the campaign trail, Perez Williams is quick to connect her childhood and status as a woman of color to the primarily black and Latino Syracuse communities — some of the most impoverished in the country.
“Naturally I am more comfortable in the communities where people are struggling and have challenges that have not been heard,” Perez Williams said. “That’s my story.”
Her campaign, she said, has been trying to go into communities where people traditionally do not vote. Campaign volunteers shared stories about driving through neighborhoods with a megaphone, rallying for Perez Williams in Spanish.
Naturally I am more comfortable in the communities where people are struggling and have challenges that have not been heard.Juanita Perez William
At an event in Syracuse’s North Side — where refugees in Syracuse typically settle — Perez Williams told attendees that people needed to take care of one another.
“She was the only person that’s reached out to the Liberian community,” said Thomas Nimineh, a community leader.
Perez Williams’ grandmother ingrained in her the duty to serve the community, she said. She knew as a child that service would be a part of her future.
Perez Williams joined the U.S. Navy, where she worked as an attorney, shortly after graduating college. She’s held the titles of regional director of the New York State Education Department, New York state assistant attorney general and corporation counsel in Syracuse City Hall, where she helped manage the city’s legal affairs.
Between 2001 and 2008, though, Perez Williams worked outside the public sector, at Syracuse University. During her time at SU, she spent much of her time in the Student Affairs office, where she managed the university’s judicial organization.
Perez Williams said she enjoyed working with young people, despite her role as the university’s disciplinarian. Her daughter, Jackie, said she often took her to campus as a child.
But Perez Williams’ abrupt departure from the university in August 2008, following a judicial proceeding involving three Syracuse men’s basketball players accused of sexual assault, has never been detailed.
In fall 2007, a female student filed a complaint with the Department of Public Safety alleging she had been sexually assaulted by the three student-athletes. Though she didn’t press criminal charges against them, she tried to resolve the incident through the Office of Judicial Affairs.
The student never got a hearing until David Potter, then the associate dean of student services in the College of Arts and Sciences, helped push the proceeding forward in the judicial affairs office. Anastasia Urtz, then the associate vice president and dean of students, said the trial could begin if Potter or the student could provide additional information.
