José E. Serrano: “so much tonight has been said about Tom Manton and so much more can be said. What I would like to do for a couple of…”

“so much tonight has been said about Tom Manton and so much more can be said. What I would like to do for a couple of minutes is focus on my personal relationship with him and what role he played and the conversations we had about what he saw in the future of the county of Queens and the future of New York politics. As we know, in our American political system, different generations bring forth different communities wanting to share in the American political dream. And as we know, politics is at the very foundation of our full American system. From the day I came here in March of 1990, and I came in a special election, Tom Manton was one of two people that stayed very close to me, the other being Mr. Rangel. In fact, Mr. Rangel and Tom Manton teamed up a couple of years later to make sure that New York City received a seat on the Appropriations Committee, and it is no secret that Tom Manton and Charlie Rangel accomplished that for me. But as part of the conversations that we had throughout the years that he was here and after that, Tommy Manton always made it clear that he understood fully what it meant to be a New Yorker and the history of New York City. He would sit down and talk to me and say, You know, my dad used to tell me about how the Irish wanted to participate in politics.…”