Hispanics generally have experienced lower representation in nearly all elected bodies than have other demographic groups in the United States when compared to their presence in their communities (Garcia and Sanchez 2008). Nevertheless, Latinas have enjoyed greater increases in electoral success than their Latino male counterparts (Sierra 2009). Between 1996 and 2009, the number of Latina elected officials grew more quickly than the number for Latino males; the total number of Latina officials doubled (a 100% increase) compared to a 36% increase for Latinos (Sierra 2009). Local offices are an important entry point into politics for Latinas; for example, about 42% of Latina office holders in Texas can be found here (S. García et al. 2008). Bejarano (2013) even finds that Latinas have an advantage in winning races compared to their male coethnics and Anglo women at the local level. If these patterns hold, Latinas are the future of Latinx politics in the United States.

Overall, however, we find few Latinas in national-level offices. The underrepresentation of Latinas in national elected offices is an important reflection on the (p.133) health of US democracy, with real-world implications for descriptive and substantive representation. Descriptive representation refers to whether elected officials mirror their constituents in terms of ethnorace, class, or sex, while substantive representation refers to the ability of the representative to act for the interests of the represented (Pitkin 1967).

First, in terms of descriptive representation, proportional representation of Latinas (and other major subgroups) serves as a measure of the strength and health of a representative democracy, indicating the capacity of all citizens to participate in governance in meaningful ways. If the political voice of any group that exists within a society is muted or silenced, then representation, and ultimately democracy, fades. Moreover, Mansbridge (1999) argues that minority and women representatives engender feelings of trust and legitimacy on the part of people of color in cases where a history of discrimination exists. They also represent the views of that group at the policymaking table and can bring new issues into consideration. Minority and women representatives can advocate, speak with moral authority as group members, and serve as role models for others. Additionally, Burrell (1996: 6) notes that, “When citizens can identify with their representatives they become less alienated and more involved in the political system.”

Turning to substantive representation, Fraga et al. (2005) and Jaramillo (2010) posit that elected Latinas have a distinctive approach to politics as a result of their intersectional identities as women and Hispanics. That is to say, their intersecting identities of ethnorace and gender—along with other sociopolitical identities, such as language, immigration status, and history—shape their political worldviews. The disparity between constituencies and the demographics of the members of elected governmental institutions such as the US Congress raise doubts about the representativeness of the policies these leaders adopt. This representation gap is likely to increase given the dramatically changing demographics and Latino population growth in the United States, particularly in the Southwest. In other words, representation and democracy themselves are threatened when governance is not inclusive (Thomas and Welch 1991; Tate 2003; Swers and Larson 2005). Latinas in office, then, can play an essential role in broadening the scope of voices making policy for the country, just as has been the case for other cross-sections of the population. For instance, research shows that the ethnorace and gender of elected officials can effect substantive policy outcomes (Pinney and Serra 1999).

I now turn to a discussion of the Latinas who have been victorious in their pursuit of elective office in Congress. Nine Latinas have held congressional office, and they are shown in Figure 6.1. Table 6.1 lists all Latinos who have held office in Congress, including the nine female members (names bolded). These nine Latina congresswomen are a diverse group. The group includes women born in Latin America and the United States; the children of immigrants; women whose families have been in the United States for over ten generations; women of Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Mexican origin; bilingual and monolingual English speakers; and Democrats and Republicans, to name just a few characteristics that differentiate them. So what do these women share in common beyond gender and ethnicity? (p.134) What are the commonalities in their biographies? In addition to holding intersecting identities and confronting intersecting ethnoracial and gender barriers, all of them were socialized in families that were politically involved, either in the United States or abroad. Additionally, the majority of these congresswomen came to elective office from service-oriented careers like teaching, government and nonprofit work, and organizing, often with prior political experience at the state or local level or both. In short, the training ground for Latinas in Congress has been family and community. These women have all blended various aspects of their private lives into their public, elective leadership roles, all while confronting and overcoming intersecting ethnoracial and gendered barriers to their success.

Figure 6.1 Las Políticas

http://www.scpr.org/blogs/politics/2014/02/18/15874/rep-negrete-mcleod-to-leave-congress-after-one-ter/.

Blending of Public and Private

As highlighted in the work of Hardy-Fanta (1993) and Michelson (2013), decisions of Latinas to become politί‎cas, to throw their hats into the ring, are often the result of a combination of private lives and prior public service. This rings true for Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Latina congresswomen. She said she decided to enter public life “largely because of the influence of her father, Emilio Ros, a certified public accountant who also dabbled in local politics.”¹⁴ Additionally, Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban American Republican representing South Florida since 1989, was a teacher before entering politics and has publicly stated that it was through getting to know the parents of her students, and the problems they had with immigration, Social Security, and Medicare that inspired her to run for office. Her goal was to make these complicated policies work for the people in her community.¹⁵ Further, the Ros family lived in a highly politicized community where (p.135) the key issues were Cuba and communism—issues that were deeply personal to most Cubans and that pushed many in the community into the Republican Party (Torres 2001).

There is a similar storyline for Nydia Velázquez, a Puerto Rican Democrat serving New York’s Seventh Congressional District since 1992. Like Ros-Lehtinen, she entered politics from the education field and was influenced by the political engagement of one of her parents. She came from a modest background with a father who was a sugar cane worker in Puerto Rico, and she was inspired to engage in electoral politics by her dad’s political activism. How did the daughter of a sugar cane worker, born in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, become a member of Congress? Politics was part of Velázquez’s childhood socialization. Growing up, (p.136) dinner conversations about politics were commonplace. Her father cut sugar cane but was also a local political activist and started a political party. Although he never finished elementary school, he was a political leader in her hometown of Yabucoa, and hearing him speak at political rallies inspired her to engage in politics (Geer, Schiller, and Segal 2013). Her dad focused on the rights of sugar cane workers and denounced the abuses of wealthy farmers.¹⁶ One can see her father’s focus on human rights evident in Velázquez’s political career.

Another example is that of Jaime Herrera Beutler, who was elected to Congress in 2010 to represent southwestern Washington State. Herrera Beutler, a moderate Republican born in California and raised in southwestern Washington, is one of the youngest women currently serving in the US Congress, and she is the first Hispanic in history to represent Washington State in the US House of Representatives.¹⁷ As a young girl, she worked alongside her parents going door to door for former Republican congresswoman Linda Smith. Homeschooled through ninth grade, Herrera Beutler’s parents encouraged an interest in politics, including a trip to the state capital, Olympia, in the fifth grade. Herrera Beutler has said that that trip was what first sparked her interest in a career in public office. Visiting the capital inspired the idea, along with the encouragement of her parents’ political activism in Republican congresswoman Linda Smith’s campaign.

Lucille Roybal-Allard is the first Democrat, woman, and Hispanic to represent her greater Los Angeles district since its creation in 1973. Roybal-Allard’s story also illustrates the general theme of familial political socialization, but her biography also reveals another common theme among Latinas in Congress, that of having a family member in elective office. Roybal-Allard is the eldest daughter of the late congressman Edward R. Roybal. Like the Latinas who preceded her, Roybal-Allard was exposed to politics at an early age. Her father in 1949 was the first Hispanic elected to the Los Angeles City Council, and her mother was active in his campaigns. Roybal-Allard has acknowledged her parents as Latino pioneers in California politics, and her father is called the “dean of California Latino legislators.” She is quoted as saying, “My mom has been a tremendous role model, she’s really the one who has helped to support and spearhead my father’s career.”¹⁸

Michelle Lujan Grisham’s story provides another example. She was elected as a Democrat to the 113th Congress in New Mexico’s First District in 2012. Her grandfather Eugene Lujan was the first Hispanic chief justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court. Additionally, former representative Manuel Luján (R-NM) and current representative Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) are her relatives.¹⁹ A final example is that of Loretta and Linda Sánchez, both Democrats elected in 1996 and 2002, respectively, to represent California congressional districts. They are the first sisters and the first women of any relation ever to serve in Congress.²⁰ Having a politically active family, therefore, is a theme among these Latinas and shows us how their private lives influence their pursuit of public political office.

(p.137) Careers of Service and the Importance of Local Experience

Another commonality shared by Latinas in Congress is their differing pathways to federal office holding when compared to other office holders. While most members of Congress move from careers in law and business, Latinas have entered from work in communities and public service in local politics. The aforementioned examples of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Nydia Velázquez came to public office after working as educators. However, both women had political experience prior to running for Congress. Similar to Ros-Lehtinen, who served in the Florida House of Representatives from 1982 until 1986, Velázquez entered local politics prior to becoming a member of Congress. She taught political science and Puerto Rican studies through the early 1980s. By 1983 she was appointed as a special assistant to Congressman Edolphous Towns (D-Brooklyn) in the Tenth District of New York. Then in 1984 she became the first Latina to serve on the New York City Council, eventually becoming the national director of the Migration Division Office in the Department of Labor and Human Resourses of Puerto Rico.

Similarly, Jaime Herrera Beutler went from being a university student to holding temporary positions in both the Washington State Senate and in Washington, DC, at the White House Office of Political Affairs, which further ignited her interest in government and public service. Before running for Congress, she gained political experience as a senior legislative aide for Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Spokane), where Beutler served as the congresswoman’s lead adviser on health care policy, education, and veterans’ and women’s issues.²¹

Latinas also often first gain valuable political experience through community, social, or church activism (S. García et al. 2008: 131). This community activism, often underappreciated as political engagement, teaches valuable skills, such as how to bring people together, build connections, and plan and execute successful meetings and events (Hardy-Fanta 1993). As a result of her community work, Grace Napolitano, a liberal Democrat and daughter of Mexican immigrants, was elected to serve California’s Thirty-Fourth Congressional District in the greater Los Angeles area in 1998. She built her political resume in the same way as most Latinas in Congress—entry into local electoral politics. Her road to Congress began in 1974 when Napolitano was appointed a commissioner on the International Friendship Commission and was charged with cultivating a sister-city relationship between her city of residence and Hermosillo, Mexico. The program’s focus on cultural exchanges and the experience of being politically engaged pulled Napolitano into public service.²² Though she “hated politics,” she says she got involved to show her children and “other youngsters on this side how lucky they were.”²³ Here again, we see the interconnectedness of local engagement in public service and the decision to run for elective office.

Similarly, Roybal-Allard worked for the nonprofit sector before becoming a stay-at-home mother. She was approached to enter politics by political activists (p.138) in California after she had raised her two children. In an interview about her entrance into electoral politics, she said she “shocked everyone including myself” when she decided to run.²⁴ Since then, Roybal-Allard has never lost an election.

Another example of how community work can lead to electoral pursuits is that of Loretta Sánchez. She was a financial planner who became the first Mexican American to represent Orange County in Congress in 1996. When she was asked what inspired her to run for Congress, however, Sánchez replied,

When I was working as a financial planner, I spent some of my free time volunteering in summer school classes and mentoring programs in math and science. The experience inspired me to go to the Anaheim School Board members and try to get these programs in all the schools. But they did not act. I then tried to make an appointment with my congressman, Bob Dornan, but he refused to meet with me. I remember thinking that if I wanted to talk about a defense issue he would have been all over it, but it seemed he had no interest in education. If he was treating me this way I know he was probably treating others that way and he had to go. At that point I went home and said, “I’m going to run for Congress.” I wanted to see change and I felt that I could do it. (Lavariega Monforti 2015)

It was her volunteer activity, not her career in business, that kindled her interest in politics.

In 2002 Linda Sánchez joined her sister Loretta in Congress, representing California’s Thirty-Ninth Congressional District, which includes southeastern Los Angeles County. These sisters are the first sisters and the first women of any relation ever to serve in Congress. After working her way through school as a bilingual aide and an English as a Second Language (ESL) instructor, Linda Sánchez earned her law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1995. She then worked in a private law practice, specializing in labor law, before going to work for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 441 and the National Electrical Contractors Association in 1998. Prior to her congressional election, Sánchez served as the executive secretary-treasurer for the Orange County Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO. She started her political career after a new Thirty-Ninth Congressional District was created following the 2000 Census. Although the Sánchez sisters, as a financial planner and attorney, to a degree embody the more traditional professional pathway of the majority of members of Congress, both were also active in community service, suggesting once again the importance of this community activism in preparing Latinas for the political arena.

Intersecting Identities, Intersecting Barriers, and Policy Focuses

Another commonality across the Latinas in Congress is that their respective policy focuses stem from the multiple marginalities they face, as Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Mexican American women—that is, as Latinas and women of color. Here, it (p.139) is important to pause from the use of pan-ethnic identifiers like Latina, and focus our attention on the fact that this group includes one Cuban American, one Puerto Rican, and seven Mexican American members of Congress, and all are women who have significant interests in the well-being of families and communities. The specific country-of-origin backgrounds held by these women, however, intersect with their stories as Latinas and congresswomen and the issues they choose to pursue as elected officials.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Latina and to date the only Cuban American woman to hold a seat in the US Congress, represents a district including the cities of Miami and Miami Beach. In 1980, 50% of the district’s population was of “Spanish origin,” and parts were heavily Cuban (Barone 1987). Ros-Lehtinen ran in a special election after the death of incumbent Democratic congressman Claude Pepper, who had held the seat for twenty-eight years. With her experience as a state senator, Ros-Lehtinen defeated Democrat Gerald Richman, 53% to 47%. During her years in the Florida legislature, Ros-Lehtinen became identified with local and foreign policy issues, including the cause of a “free Cuba,” a concern of hers stemming from her Cuban heritage. Moreno and Rae (1992) argue that her election is one of the clearest examples of a campaign in which ethnic factors predominated over all others. The election of Ros-Lehtinen continued a process of Cuban American empowerment in Dade County that began in 1982 and was a response in part to the targeting of Cubans and the Spanish language itself as being anti-American.²⁵

The 1980s witnessed Cuban Americans winning seven seats in the Florida State House of Representatives, three seats in the state senate, plus the mayorships of Miami, West Miami, North Miami, Sweetwater, and Hialeah Gardens. The empowerment by Cuban Americans in South Florida has come almost exclusively under the Republican banner, and the 1989 special election strengthened and reinforced the trend of increasing Cuban American support for the GOP (Moreno and Rae 1992). Much was made of electing the first Cuban American to Congress in 1989. However, Ros-Lehtinen was also the first Republican woman elected to the House from Florida. Yet little was made of the fact that she is a woman (Moreno and Rae 1992). Ros-Lehtinen has been in Congress for more than twenty-five years and now serves Florida’s Twenty-Seventh Congressional District. Today Ros-Lehtinen is the most senior Republican woman in the US House, and in 2011 she gave the first Republican response to the State of the Union address in Spanish.²⁶

As a result of their intersectional identity, Latinas may pursue policies and ideas that others do not. For instance, Nydia Velázquez made two significant contributions that perhaps would not have been achieved in her absence. The first contribution was the nomination and confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court, and the second is the pronounced support for women and minority-owned businesses. Her support for both issues is connected to her identity as a Puerto Rican woman. The former is tied to her commitment to advancing Latinas, and the latter, organizing for workers’ rights, is the legacy of her father’s activism in Puerto Rico. During the press conference (p.140) held to announce the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s endorsement of Sonia Sotomayor, Velázquez said,

As a woman, as a Latina, as a New Yorker, as a Puerto Rican and as the chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, it gives me great pride to see that President Barack Obama has nominated such a highly qualified and distinguished individual. Her experience and qualifications speak for themselves. . . . For Latinas and Latinos across the country this is a historic nomination. We feel a sense of pride when we see someone from our community rise past so many obstacles and challenges and earn her place—and I repeat, earned her place—on the highest court of our land.²⁷

Her statement reveals Velázquez’s gendered and ethnic identity as well as her knowledge of the barriers confronted by Puerto Ricans in the political establishment. The gendered, ethnic, and immigrant identities she focuses on in this quotation are turned into sources of power and legitimacy, turning the intersection of her Latina marginality on its head (Hancock 2007; Simien 2007). Sotomayor’s identity as a Puerto Rican woman is transformed from an identity that would stereotypically be seen as negative or limiting to one that accentuates her success—despite the typical double stereotype of being a woman and a Latina.

The other policy contribution is Velázquez’s strong support for women and minority-owned businesses as the ranking member on the House Committee on Small Business, for which she was named the inaugural Woman of the Year by Hispanic Business magazine. For example, she sponsored HR 3867, the Small Business Contracting Program Improvements Act, in 2007, which passed the House and was designed to expand opportunities for women and disabled veteran entrepreneurs. Her support for the bill reveals her intersecting identities, harkening back to her and her father’s engagement with the business community in Puerto Rico while also advocating for women in business.

Lucille Roybal-Allard was the first of a series of Mexican American woman in the Southwest elected to Congress in 1992, and she represents the most Latino district (based on total population) in the nation, at 86.5% Latino. The congresswoman accomplished many firsts, as she was the first woman to chair the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the first Latina appointed to the House Appropriations Committee.²⁸ Congresswoman Roybal-Allard has spent her time in the House focused on issues of central importance to women and Mexican Americans, such as health care, with a particular focus on women and children’s health care needs, domestic violence, and immigration. Roybal-Allard has consistently held ratings of 100% from groups such as the National Organization for Women and the League of United Latin American Citizens.

As a Mexican American woman, she labored on the DREAM Act as one of its original coauthors. The act carries particular importance in Mexican American communities in that it is designed to ensure undocumented students a path to citizenship and college attendance in the United States with in-state tuition. Royal-Allard also led the Congressional Women’s Working Group on Immigration and said she feels “we are losing the focus of the catastrophe and the humanitarian (p.141) crisis of the children and these women” who arrive at the Texas-Mexico border in the hundreds daily from Central America and particularly Mexico.²⁹

While Roybal-Allard has publicly stated that her work is aimed to benefit her primarily Hispanic district, it may have a residual effect on Hispanics everywhere. She uses a sweeping definition of what the issues of importance are to Hispanics. “Latinos in the past have been placed in a very narrow slot, [one that assumes] that we only care about immigration and bilingual education when the reality is that all the issues of American society are also our issues,” she says. She goes on to say that in her view, the Latino movement has graduated from the politics of protest to the politics of inclusion. “It’s no longer about howling at the door and shouting in the streets,” she states. “Hispanics have garnered strength from their numbers and are finally getting the attention that their emerging political power demands.”³⁰

Loretta Sánchez has a strong record on human rights (with an 85% approval rating from the Human Rights Campaign) and is a member of the bipartisan Congressional Human Rights Caucus.³¹ Her parents were immigrants from Mexico, and she has advocated for increased educational benefits for children, such as Head Start programs. In an interview, one can see how her personal experiences and intersecting ethnic, immigrant, and class identities blend to shape her policy goals. She states, “Head Start had an incredible impact on me. . . . I spoke my first words in Head Start. I believe that a preschool education program is important for all children, but particularly low-income and immigrant kids. In Orange County, 7,500 children qualify for Head Start, but we only have funding for 3,500. And while the Republicans might have tried to make it a requirement, the fact is in 1995 they tried to cut the entire program and have since continued to cut funding.”³² Linda Sánchez, Loretta Sánchez’s sister and thus also the daughter of immigrants, focuses legislatively on issues of labor, trade, and families. And like her Latina contemporaries, Linda Sánchez has been an outspoken opponent of Arizona-style anti-immigrant legislation. As is true for the sisters profiled here, the Sánchezes’ backgrounds as children of Mexican immigrants have greatly influenced their policy goals.

We learn from this discussion that intersecting identities, including the country of origin of Latina congresswomen and their families, play a significant role in the policy agendas of these political leaders. But how do these women experience and think about their intersectional identities as women and Latinx, now that they are in Congress? Does their intersectionality matter now that they are members of Congress and face complex decision making in policy choices and everyday interactions? I turn to this question in the next section.

Navigating the Complexities of Multiple Marginalities and Making Difficult Decisions

The intersectionality of Latinas in Congress and the multiple marginalities they face can make their political roles highly complex and require difficult decisions by the lawmakers. An instructive case is that of Loretta Sánchez, whose political career includes highlights such as her involvement in the Congressional Hispanic (p.142) Caucus (CHC) and her powerful committee appointments. In 2006 Sánchez withdrew from the CHC’s Political Action Committee because the caucus chairman, Joe Baca, authorized political contributions to members of his family who were running for election (Hearn 2007). There were also claims that he was improperly elected chairman of the caucus because the vote failed to use secret ballots, as bylaws required. Sánchez claimed that the chairman repeatedly treated the CHC’s female members, including her, with disrespect (Hearn 2007). She rejoined once the CHC chairman was replaced. Her response shows how managing multiple marginalities can require her to make difficult choices in her allegiances—in this case, calling into question the behavior of a male colleague with whom she shared an ethnic identity in part because of his actions against women. Sánchez’s decision to make public her objections about a coethnic colleague caused many to question her sense of ethnic solidarity (Hearn 2007).

When asked how she has managed such complexities, Sánchez responded,

As hard as it is to be a Latina some days, it’s even harder to be a woman in politics. Okay? So my congressional friends that are black and women say, it’s the double whammy. First, we get it because we are women, and then we get it because we are a minority—and I have seen that play out over and over, even within the Congress, as we try to get our work done.³³

This tension for Sánchez reveals circumstances that may compel political leaders to have to choose between their identities—as in this case, when Sánchez decided to stand with women when a coethnic male colleague treated females unfairly.

Latina congressional leaders have to make other choices in difficult situations, deciding, for instance, how to portray their identity. Sánchez reveals another case in point:

When Nancy Pelosi became the first woman Speaker of the House . . . we saw one of those barriers being broken down. . . . I was rushing to vote, and I jumped into an elevator as the doors were closing, and there were two southern gentlemen there who were trying to be polite and make conversation with me. And one turned to me and he said, “So, whose office do you work in?” And I’m wearing a suit, I’m wearing my member pin—and I was angry and just about to blast this guy. Then I remember my mom always telling me, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar,” right, so I turned to him, and I said very sweetly, “I don’t work for somebody in this building, I have my own office in the building.” And he turned and looked at his friend and they looked at each other like deer in the headlights, and the elevator doors opened and they scurried out because even though we had a female Speaker of the House, the assumption was that if I’m in the elevator in the Capitol, I must be the secretary or the staffer or the intern. I think there are huge perception problems that women have to overcome. I think we’re judged by far harsher standards. . . . We still have many, many double standards or harder standards and hurdles that we have to overcome in order to be taken seriously.

(p.143) Sánchez decided how to respond in this situation, simply emphasizing her identity as a member of Congress, and not highlighting her feminism overtly. She added, “I definitely see it as part of my charge as a member of Congress to challenge people when they have assumptions about whom or what I am or who or what I can accomplish . . . but it’s very tough.”³⁴

We can see other instances in which intersecting identities call upon Latina congresswomen to make difficult choices. Ros-Lehtinen’s public policy stances and her private life intersected in such ways. In 2010 the Miami Herald first reported that Ros-Lehtinen’s daughter Amanda was living openly as Rodrigo, a transgender man and lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) rights activist. Shortly thereafter, Ros-Lehtinen in a complex choice became the first Republican member of the US Congress to cosponsor the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.³⁵ In July 2012 Ros-Lehtinen also became the first Republican in the House to support same-sex marriage.³⁶ Here her family ties trumped her political party identity.

Finally, Gloria Negrete McLeod also made a difficult decision. She has written about the need for women, and Latinas, in particular, to run for elected office, as well as the barriers they may face. Like Ros-Lehtinen and Velázquez before her, Negrete McLeod entered politics from the field of education. She is Los Angeles–born but has a relatively close connection to her family’s immigrant roots. Like many of the Latinas I examine, she is a mother and began her journey to Congress through local-level political positions. Her multiple identities influenced her political work in Congress. For instance, her role as a mother drew her to volunteer to serve on the Committee on Agriculture because she was concerned with issues of children’s nutrition. But these issues were also what pushed her to make the decision to return to local politics.³⁷ She said, “My desire to represent this community locally, where I have lived for more than 40 years, and where I have long served as an elected official, won out.”³⁸ She described her decision to run for Congress as an extension of the public service career she had been building over the previous two decades. In February 2014 she announced her intention not to run for reelection for her congressional seat and instead to run for the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors. “My heart is here in the district,” Negrete McLeod said in a written statement.³⁹ Her campaign for the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors was unsuccessful, as she lost the November 2014 election to Republican state assemblyman Curt Hagman.

One can easily see that the intersecting identities of Latinas in Congress can result in situations where difficult decisions must be made, often where one identity will take precedent in guiding the decision making. Earlier work on women of color who were elected officials serving at the state and local levels shows that “their political ambition to achieve higher office may be influenced by factors such as their current level of office, prior socialization, initial political motivation, perceptions of biases or fairness in the political structure, and sociodemographic and political characteristics” (Lien et al. 2008: 10). According to Hardy-Fanta, “Women focus on participation rather than on power, on connecting people to other people to achieve change” (Hardy-Fanta 1993: 13). The intersectional lens through which (p.144) office seeking is viewed by women of color is reaffirmed by the example of Negrete McLeod, where her commitment to serving Latino communities’ interests rather than climbing the ladder of political power drove her decision not to run for congressional reelection.