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Trump

Elizabeth Frantz

When the 118th Congress swears in its newly elected members this week, it will include a record number of new Latino members.

The five Republican and nine Democratic freshmen driving the boost in representation include the first member of Generation Z, the first openly gay Republican elected to Congress, and the first Latinas from Colorado and Illinois. Oregon has never sent a Hispanic person to Congress and now is sending two — one Democrat and one Republican.

Many are young, liberal members who embraced left-leaning politics and ran campaigns that championed Medicare-for-all, raising the minimum wage and a pathway to citizenship for the country’s<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/11/19/immigration-biden-spending-bill/" target="_blank"> 11 million undocumented immigrants</a>.  The new lawmakers’ average age is about 38 — 20 years younger than the average age of House members at the start of the 117th Congress,<a href="https://guides.loc.gov/117th-congress-book-list#:~:text=The%20average%20age%20of%20Members,Democrats%20holding%20the%20House%20majority." target="_blank"> according to the Library of Congress.</a>

Robert Garcia will be the first LGBTQ immigrant and first Peruvian American in Congress. After winning his House race to represent California’s 42nd District, the Long Beach, Calif., mayor received dozens of calls from media outlets in Peru and American LGBTQ publications. When Garcia, a Democrat, arrived in D.C. for orientation, cooks and janitors of Peruvian descent came to shake his hand.

“Latinos coming in now represent different parts of our Latino coalition,” Garcia, 45, said in an interview. They “have different perspectives and life experience that are going to make the Latino voice in Congress stronger.”

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Though much has been made of the rightward shift of some Latino voters in recent years, these left-leaning members reflect a growing part of the Latino community whose politics have become more liberal as a result of the relative youth of their voters and in response to the rise in recent years of Hispanic candidates backed by former president Donald Trump, experts say.

“A lot of the news coverage has been sharply focused on Trump’s success [with Latino voters] in 2020 and in 2022, but, of course, there is a wider story,” said Mark Hugo Lopez, the Pew Research Center’s director of race and ethnicity research. Latinos are “not so easily characterized one way or another, so why wouldn’t we see the emergence of candidates from many parts of the political spectrum?”

Many of the incoming Democrats were endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, share working-class backgrounds or immigrant experiences, and ran liberal campaigns in congressional districts with significant Latino populations.

Who are the new members of Congress? Meet the incoming class.

“It’s not just all in Los Angeles and San Antonio and Miami where we have our Latino electeds, but in many of these areas where Latinos were not a majority of a population,” said Matt Barreto, a Democratic strategist who has specialized in Latino voters. “Those candidates are saying, ‘We’re just as much a part of this district as anyone else.’”

Some of the liberal soon-to-be-freshman Latino members gathered recently to hold their first D.C. news conference. As they waited to talk about their legislative priorities, including immediate immigration changes and expanding the child tax credit, Garcia, Delia Ramirez of Illinois and Greg Casar of Texas compared how they had fared in the office-selection lottery and the colors they had picked out for their new spaces. (Garcia, who was wearing a navy blue V-neck sweater, picked the color for his office drapes.)

They also signaled that they wouldn’t shy away from using aggressive tactics to influence veteran Hispanic members of Congress, many of whom express more-moderate viewpoints than theirs.

“We’re going to work really hard to not just change our own Progressive Caucus, but our Hispanic Caucus, and try to bring a new sense of urgency. We do not want to wait anymore” for change, Garcia told reporters, with the stately pillars of the U.S. Capitol behind him.

The group had giddily toured their new workplace, some noting the number of White, upper-class legislators depicted in paintings and statues in the Capitol. Despite a record number of Latino members in Congress, Hispanic lawmakers will make up only about 10 percent of the House, a significantly smaller share than the country’s Latino population. Of the 47 Latinos who will be part of the House, 35 are Democrats and 12 are Republicans, according to <a href="https://naleo.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/12_8_22_-_NEF_Release_-_Post_Election_Analysis_Final.pdf" target=_blank>an analysis</a> by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

Some of the liberal freshmen were meeting for the first time after weeks spent texting in a group chat, swapping advice and support during their campaigns. Two — Casar and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) —<a href="https://progressives.house.gov/press-releases?ID=B81494DC-1682-4B8F-A288-EB2F0B1C84AC" target=_blank> were given leadership positions </a>in the Progressive Caucus.

Casar was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and won the primary in a landslide. Casar, the son of Mexican immigrants, is the first Latino whom Austin voters have sent to Congress. Frost made waves as the first Afro-Cuban person and first member of Gen Z elected to Congress. At age 25, he rose to prominence from his work in gun-control  activism and drove for ride-hailing service Uber throughout his campaign to make money.

“The Hispanic Caucus is evolving … and I think it’s being challenged to look at all that we are as Latinos,” said Ramirez, 39, a former representative in the Illinois House. “We’re very clear and focused on why we’re here. And I have a mom who will remind me with a chancla<i> </i>if I forget.”

Ramirez will be the first Latina to represent a state in the Midwest. Her Guatemalan mother crossed the U.S.-Mexico border while pregnant with her, nearly drowning in the Rio Grande along the way. While Ramirez was growing up, her parents worked multiple low-wage jobs and today, her mother, now a U.S. citizen, relies on Medicaid, she said. Ramirez’s husband is a beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, a temporary status granted to undocumented people who immigrated to the United States as children.

Sarah Silbiger

“If you would have asked me three years ago, ‘Where will the first Latina come from?’ — I didn’t think it would be me. Some Ivy League school [graduate] probably,” said Ramirez, who graduated from Northeastern Illinois University with a major in justice studies.

Even the name of the Hispanic Caucus feels outdated to her — she identifies as Latina, not Hispanic, Ramirez said, “because being Hispanic negates the African roots of many Latinos who don’t associate with Spain.”

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The liberal first-time lawmakers will come into Congress as part of a House minority and as Republicans are attempting to sway more of the Latino electorate their way. The GOP increased spending in midterm elections by 50 percent in the top 30 most-Latino congressional districts compared with spending in the top 30 Latino districts in 2018, according to a Washington Post analysis. Those 30 districts varied  because of redistricting, but they still demonstrate how aggressively the party has begun courting the Latino vote.

The  GOP’s 12 Latino members in the House  will be a record for the party, and many of the five new Latino and Latina Republican members also made history. Juan Ciscomani will be the first Latino Republican from Arizona. Anna Paulina Luna, who was endorsed by Trump, will be the first Mexican American from Florida. Monica De La Cruz, also endorsed by Trump, is the first Republican and first woman to represent her South Texas district. Anthony D’Esposito, a retired police detective, will be the first Republican to represent New York’s 4th Congressional District in more than two decades.

George Santos, who would be the first Brazilian American and first openly gay Republican elected to Congress, was found after the election to have misrepresented or falsified many aspects of his résumé during his campaign. Several prominent Democrats have called for his resignation, although he has insisted he will be sworn in.

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On the Democratic side, strategists who have long worked to boost Latino representation in politics are advising new members not to lay low as rookie lawmakers.

“Power never succumbs easily,” said Chuck Rocha, who led Latino outreach efforts for Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary. These freshman  Latino members — of both parties — are “walking into one of the most powerful halls in the history of the world. ... So I hope they work together in coalition to take on some of the White power brokers that have controlled our party, our caucus and even the progressive caucus for a long time.”

Some of the new members were becoming political when liberal politicians such as Sanders, known as “Tío Bernie,” and Ocasio-Cortez were already household names. Both lawmakers have assertively gone after far-left priorities, often via social media, and garnered widespread support among young voters.

“If these younger and more progressive [members] can connect well with younger voters, they have the ability to dramatically increase Latino turnout in future elections,” said Barreto, the Democratic strategist, noting the relative youth of the Latino population. “You need to have those newer faces who can speak to a younger generation and get them engaged in politics in a way that older candidates have a harder time with.”

Maxwell Frost is figuring out how to be Gen Z’s likely first congressman

On her last day of orientation, Ramirez said voters have repeatedly reminded her and her fellow freshmen what kind of representatives they want: “Those that will not wait until they get their turn, those that will not wait until they’re told to speak, but those that will constantly speak and fight for our communities. Today, this moment, is the beginning of that.”

<i>Greg Morton and Anu Narayanswamy contributed to this report.</i>

NAHJ Elaine Rivera Civil Rights and Social Justice Award, 2022

Star Reporter of the Year, Texas Associated Press Managing Editors, 2019

First place, Project Reporting, Best of the West, 2019

First place, Cornell Award, Religion News Association, 2019

First place, Michael Brick Storytelling Award, Texas APME, 2018

Reporter of the Year, San Antonio Express-News, 2018

Grinnell College, BA in English

Silvia Foster-Frau writes for The Washington Post about the nation’s emergence as a predominantly multicultural society, exploring its changing racial, ethnic and cultural demographics, and telling the stories of everyday Americans affected by and a part of such change.

Silvia Foster-Frau

washpost

New liberal Latino lawmakers preparing to challenge status quo 

the-washington-post

Press conference with current and incoming Congressional Progressive Caucus members in Washington

For The Washington Post

A record number of Latinos are joining Congress this year // And many are young, liberal members ready to challenge the status quo