UPDATED: Nov. 1, 2017 at 11:57 a.m.

Jordan Lally joined Juanita Perez Williams’ mayoral campaign the day after hearing her speak to Syracuse University’s College Democrats. She was looking for an internship and, after hearing from the other mayoral candidates, decided Perez Williams fit the bill.

During the summer, she spent her days making phone calls, typing emails and canvassing in Syracuse neighborhoods.

Day after day, Lally said, she and Perez Williams would sit in an office at her campaign headquarters, making fundraising phone calls. Once, while alone with Perez Williams, the pair discovered a typo in an email blast they had just sent.

“Juanita got very, very upset about it,” Lally recalled. “Not at anybody, like it was anybody’s fault, but she was very upset.”

For Perez Williams, the frontrunner in the race for Syracuse’s next mayor, the typo was more than a simple mistake.

Lally remembered Perez Williams, who is Latina, tell her that people assume she has having trouble speaking English. Perez Williams said Lally, as a white woman, wouldn’t understand what it feels like to be Latina and have a typo in an email that’s supposed to be coming directly from Perez Williams.

“Clearly, people of color in a community that’s predominantly white have to be better,” Perez Williams said.

They have to always be on top of their game, she said. They always have to be articulate or they’ll be questioned. Or stereotyped.

Perez Williams, who comes from a family of Mexican immigrants, is one of the four remaining candidates in a race for mayor that, for most of the year, was primarily dominated by white men.

She’s never run for office — her background is in law — but in September she defeated Democratic designee Joe Nicoletti in the party’s primary, claiming the only spot on the Democratic ballot in November’s general election.

If she wins next week, Perez Williams will be the first woman of color to lead a city with the most concentrated black and Hispanic poverty in the country.

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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.

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.

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Though the female student transferred to another school, Potter filed new information on behalf of Arts and Sciences. The hearing panel did not find the players guilty of sexual assault, but they were found guilty of causing the student mental anguish. All three players were put on probation.

By the next summer, Urtz, Potter, Perez Williams and another administrator were out of their jobs. The Daily Orange confirmed in 2008 they were involved in the judicial hearing, but then-Chancellor Nancy Cantor denied in 2012 that the firings were related to the sexual assault proceedings against the basketball players.

Perez Williams declined to comment on whether her removal was related to the judicial hearing. But the candidate said she believed she served honorably at SU.

“Until my final day there, I stood up for students. I stood up for respect of women on campus and left knowing that I did the right thing,” she said.

Cantor, through a spokesman, declined to comment further on her 2012 statement.

Perez Williams thanked Urtz during her victory speech after the September primary. She said during the speech that Urtz was a member of the campaign team. Urtz has also donated more than $2,000 to Perez Williams’ mayoral bid.

Urtz, now vice president of administration and compliance at Onondaga Community College, could not be reached for comment.

Those close to Perez Williams have said she’s always been motivated to do the right thing, a product of her time working in the justice system.

Perez Williams said she believes it’s difficult for people who want to run for mayor to do it the “right way.” She has repeatedly attacked Ben Walsh, the independent candidate who narrowly trails her in the race, for the money he’s raised from developers and businesses.

She said she’s uncomfortable reaching out to people she’s helped or worked with for donations. Walsh has raised just more than $440,000 since he launched his campaign, according to New York State Board of Elections disclosures. Perez Williams has amassed about $256,000.

Though the Democrat only has a narrow lead over Walsh, she is confident her story will propel her to victory on Election Day. So are her supporters.

Matt Johnson, who was canvassing for Perez Williams’ campaign earlier this month, lit up when he heard Spanish music blasting from a barbecue on the front lawn of a house in East Syracuse.

“Hi,” he said in Spanish, walking up the driveway. “I’m from the campaign of Juanita Perez Williams. I wasn’t sure if you had questions about the campaign.”

Some of the people gave him a confused look.

“Juanita Perez Williams? She could be the first Latina mayor of Syracuse,” Johnson told them.

Suddenly, a woman burst from out from the garage, smiling.

“Juanita! No te preocupes, no te preocupes,” she said. “Don’t worry. Don’t worry.”

She reassured him Perez Williams had her vote.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, the location of Jamul in relation to Chula Vista was misstated. Jamul is 20 minutes east of Chula Vista. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

CLARIFICATION: In a previous version of this post, attribution for Juanita Perez Williams’ comment to Jordan Lally about making a typo as a Latina woman was unclear.

Published on November 1, 2017 at 12:51 am

Contact Jordan: jmulle01@syr.edu | @jordanmuller18