Pramila Jayapal

REPRESENTATIVE PRAMILA JAYAPAL LOOKS solemn. She is one of the top leaders of the progressive movement in Congress, and she’s poised to finally effect change in a Democrat-controlled government after a decade of the party’s sharing power with Republicans. But right now, she is in no mood to celebrate.

After the passage of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package in mid-March, Jayapal was preparing to reintroduce her Medicare for All Act when, the afternoon before her announcement, a shooter killed eight people, including six women of Asian descent, near Atlanta and reignited a national conversation about racism, sexism and violence against Asian Americans. When we spoke by Zoom on March 19, Jayapal had just come from a moment of silence on the House