The 44-year-old Democratic politician won with 68% of the votes in California’s 42nd district.
Robert García, born in Peru and mayor of Long Beach (California), this Tuesday became the first homosexual Latino immigrant to reach the US Congress.
The Democrat became the representative of California’s 42nd congressional district after winning the midterm elections over Republican John Briscoe with 68% of the votes to 32%.
“Mom, we did it!” the politician wrote on his social networks, in a brief message that he accompanied with a photo of his mother and him when he was a child.
“That hard-working woman who worked in clinics, who cleaned houses, is the reason why I am here,” she said in her celebration speech, in which she invited several members of her family to the stand, according to Gestión.
Graduated in communication and with a doctorate in higher education, García, 44, came to live in the United States at the age of 5 with his family, originally from Lima.
«At this moment when the democracy is in danger, that we are being attacked for loving others, patriotism must be honored and remembered. It has never been about individuals or just thinking about yourself or your family. For those of us who believe in patriotism, let us remember that it is about helping the people of the country, that is being an American. We are going to go to Washington D.C. for the reasons we believe,” he said after the victory.
According to his campaign website, the proudest moment for this former professor of public policy and communications at California State University, Long Beach That’s when he became an American citizen. “This was an impetus to enter public service”he claimed.
In 2014, Robert García won the election for mayor of Long Beach at just 36 years old, becoming the youngest councilor in the city’s history Californian.
His political training began on the side of the Republicans, because his family was followers of former President Ronald Reagan, who signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which allowed his relatives to apply for citizenship.
Later, his ideas led him to switch to the Democratic Party. «My worldview and my politics have not changed much. But “With immigrant rights and the war, and me being gay, we all realized that we were more progressive.”he acknowledged in a 2017 interview.
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