meet shervin aazami
Shervin is an immigrant, public health activist, husband, father, and working class champion fighting for economic and racial justice.
early life
Shervin was born in Bologna, Italy, the son of two Iranian asylum seekers who faced religious persecution and fled for their lives in the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Before his second birthday, his parents immigrated to the San Fernando Valley and settled in Canoga Park, California. Raised for most of his early youth by his grandparents, Shervin grew up watching his mom work long hours, nights, weekends, and holidays at a department store to make ends meet for the family, while his dad took the bus to and from California State University Northridge and studied to become a family doctor. From an early age, Shervin learned the power of responsibility from his mother and the power of service from his father. As a young teenager in the wake of the 2008 economic crash caused by endless corporate greed, he wrote countless letters on behalf of his parents to Wells Fargo urging the bank to not foreclose their home.
As Shervin grew up, he thrust himself into public service and the fight for social justice through the lens of public health. While in community college, Shervin joined student groups advocating for climate justice by addressing the impact of the city’s toxic urban runoff on low-income Black and Latinx neighborhoods. After transferring to UCLA, Shervin worked for a residential treatment facility where he witnessed how our broken healthcare system criminalizes mental health and substance use issues, and fails to meet people where they are at.
After college, Shervin moved to the Bay Area and worked on HIV prevention and harm reduction within the LGBTQ+ community, and later in Washington D.C. as the city health department’s HIV Screening Coordinator. There, he built bridges between the city and low-income Black communities to ensure teenagers had access to sexual health education, free HIV and STI screenings, and contraception. After joining a national Indigenous healthcare advocacy non-profit, Shervin delved further into national health policy as he wrote public comments to the EPA and USDA to address water access, pollution, and food security in Tribal communities, and later became their Director of Congressional Relations. As the organization’s lead advocate on Capitol Hill, Shervin prepared Tribal leaders with testimony, talking points, and issue briefs to assist their advocacy with lawmakers, while he worked behind the scenes to push critical health legislation forward.
Professional life
By the time Shervin left to launch his bid for Congress back home in the Valley, he had successfully led advocacy efforts that resulted in the passage of legislation that eliminated copays and cost-sharing for Native American Veterans seeking healthcare services through the VA; secured long-term funding for community health centers and diabetes prevention programs like the federal Special Diabetes Program for Indians (SDPI); delivered over $100 million annually into underserved communities to address the opioid crisis and to establish patient-centric community behavioral health programs; and over $10 billion in direct healthcare and public health funding to Tribal governments to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Throughout his advocacy work on Capitol Hill, Shervin firmly understood that real change and real solutions required much bolder, institutional reforms that directly serve the working class and dismantle white supremacy. He saw first-hand the corruption that leads many to believe that things won’t change, but he also witnessed the power of organizing and what our Congress could achieve when it serves people, not profit; and community, not corporations.
Shervin holds a Masters of Public Health degree from George Washington University where he wrote his thesis on the generational public health consequences of mass incarceration, and a Masters of Public Administration degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Shervin and his wife Jamie Ishcomer-Aazami, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and fellow public health activist, live in the West Hills neighborhood of the San Fernando Valley with their deaf rescue dog, Vicki. They proudly welcomed their first child, Barrett Ishcomer Aazami, on June 9th, 2021.
