Nyx Mendoza has worked on twelve campaigns across North Texas in the short span of three years. She is a campaign guru that the political community in the area knows by name. Nyx taps into her creative side when she works on campaigns—generally helping teams with their social media presence. As an introverted person, she learned to take advantage of her voice through online mediums like Facebook and Instagram. Though political social media has been embroiled in negativity in recent years, Nyx has learned that social media can be used as a tool for good.
Nyx’s family is from Mexico City but she was raised in the North Texas area. With parents who immigrated to the United States, she describes her personal journey as one requiring spiritual work. “There’s lots of baggage, especially in ethnic households,” Nyx said. Part of that baggage includes pressure to work in a “stable” job according to societal expectations. When Nyx expressed that she was interested in being an artist, her family was hesitant to support her. Consequently, she suppressed her creativity. Because her family lived in poverty in Mexico, Nyx believes it is difficult for them to wrap their minds around her desire to tap into her artistry to earn a livelihood.
At age 13, Nyx and her family moved to Royse City, a fast-growing suburb outside of Dallas. It wasn’t until her senior year in high school when Nyx started to realize that she was interested in politics. During a social studies course, her teacher hosted a mock election concurrent with the actual 2016 Presidential election. Each student was tasked with researching the candidates and learning more about different political platforms. Nyx came to the conclusion that she would hypothetically vote for Bernie Sanders. Following the project and subsequent election, tensions rose among the student population. Nyx remembers her friends being physically harassed and called slurs against the LGBTQ community. Classmates started chanting “build that wall” during passing periods and using slurs against the Hispanic community. Nyx started to feel guilty about her identity and political views… until she started college.
After graduating from high school, Nyx started attending Collin County Community College. There, she immediately connected with a professor that opened her world to a network of empowered women. Nyx started working with organizations like IGNITE, a non-profit building political ambition in young women. Eventually, she met Ann Bacchus who was running for Plano City Council at the time. Ann offered Nyx her first campaign position when she met Tania Rodriguez (read our feature on Tania here). In this campaign role, Nyx created the “People of Plano,” a social media project when she interviewed potential constituents and shared their stories. It made Ann’s campaign personal not only for Nyx but for many voters. She described this experience as the birth of her realization that social media can be a tool used for good.
Since then, Nyx has worked on a number of political campaigns including Beto Orourke’s senatorial race, Paige Dixon’s school board and state district race, and Cydnei Drake’s school board race (read our feature on Cydnei here). She has created a name for herself as a campaign guru that specializes in social media and digital marketing strategy. Nyx feared that her introverted nature would prevent her from giving back to her community, especially in the political world. However, she found a way to leave a footprint in this world without changing who she is. She compared it to her first set of role models from the show Winx Club, an animated cartoon that follows the adventures of fairy warriors. On the show, there is a character that has the capability to manifest fire and Nyx looked up to this manifestation. She compares her service on campaigns as the manifestation of her fire. “I am not doing this for anyone else, I am doing this for me,” Nyx said.
Now, Nyx is working with RideShare2Vote, a ride share company offering free rides to the polls for voters. She also works on social media campaigns for Future Generations and Our Revolution, both progressive political organizations. She tells other women+ to give back to the causes they care about in the way that they want. Nyx channeled her creativity and artistic talent into a way of giving back, saying “everyone has their own talent growing up and people have their own causes they care about.”
