Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

“No matter where you are from, no matter what your background is, no matter what your socioeconomic status is, every person can achieve his or her dreams,” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) told the Heritage Foundation in 2011. Ros-Lehtinen won a special election in 1989 to become the first Cuban American and Latina elected to Congress. “It says a lot about the United States of America that a refugee child could have come here at the age of eight not knowing a word of English and rise to become not only a member of Congress but the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee,” she said. Ros-Lehtinen, who fled the Castro regime with her parents in 1960, began her career as a teacher before entering politics. Updated 2018