Amaral’s remarks provided a perspective on the global fight against authoritarianism. She has been widely compared to U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with both women noted for their active legislative presence and bold policy agendas as first-term or junior legislators. Amaral acknowledged the comparison, stating that she and Ocasio-Cortez occupy a political space that many previously considered out of reach for women of their background. At 25 years old during her initial election in 2018, Amaral quickly established herself as a rising star in a male-dominated chamber, drawing attention from both the political left and right.
The deputy’s political career began with a campaign launched just months before the October 2018 Brazilian elections. Despite the short timeline, she secured over 260,000 votes, defying electoral odds. Her platform focused heavily on access to education, a priority driven by her personal history. The daughter of a bus fare collector and a seamstress, Amaral grew up in a low-income neighborhood in São Paulo. She was awarded a full scholarship to study astrophysics at Harvard University, but the stark contrast between her privileged academic environment in New England and the poverty and violence affecting her family back home led her to switch her major to political science.
“I was there, with all these opportunities ahead of me, but my father, my siblings, were living under completely different circumstances,” Amaral has said regarding her time at Harvard. This disparity motivated her to pursue public service, viewing politics as the primary barrier to educational reform in Brazil rather than a lack of technical solutions. Her legislative prominence was cemented in late March 2019, when she grilled then-Education Minister Ricardo Vélez in a congressional hearing. Her six-minute questioning of the minister’s lack of strategic planning and metrics went viral, contributing to his dismissal by President Jair Bolsonaro days later.
In late 2022, Amaral discussed the dynamics of the Brazilian presidential election, in which Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated Bolsonaro. She noted that the victory required a broad coalition and was decided by a narrow margin of approximately two million votes out of nearly 120 million in the second round. Amaral analyzed the continued support for Bolsonaro among nearly half of voters, attributing it less to economic or corruption concerns and more to social changes that made certain demographics feel excluded from the political establishment. She described Bolsonaro’s appeal as a reaction against perceived arrogance among traditional political elites, arguing that for many supporters, rejecting Bolsonaro would mean denying their own identity.
Amaral currently serves as a member of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB). Her recent international engagement reflects her focus on broader democratic resilience. By speaking at the AJC Global Forum, she aligned her domestic advocacy for institutional integrity with international diplomatic efforts, underscoring her role as a key figure in the new Brazilian administration’s foreign policy outreach. The forum, organized by the American Jewish Committee, aims to advance human rights and democratic values globally, providing a platform for leaders to address the intersection of domestic governance and international moral responsibilities.
