HAPPY |
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TH ANNIVERSARY |
JULY 2026 |
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FROM AN IMMIGRANT FAMILY TO THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS
LORETTA AND LINDA SÁNCHEZ: THE SISTERS WHO CONQUERED CONGRESS. THEY ARE THE FIRST TO SERVE SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
›› PABLO SCARPELLINI | LA
Their parents came from Mexico without speaking English and without knowing quite where that journey would take them. Decades later, they raised seven children in a modest home in Anaheim, California, and two of them made it to the United States Congress. Together. At the same time. Something that had never happened before in the
Loretta Sánchez during a speech outside the U. S. Capitol in Washington.
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Linda Sánchez
history of the country, and that has not happened since.
It is not a minor record: it is a milestone that encapsulates the story of a generation of Latinos who transformed the North American political landscape from within, through work, without connections, and against all odds.
Loretta was the first to arrive in Congress. Born on January 7, 1960, in Lynwood, California, before politics she studied economics at Chapman University, worked as a financial analyst, a consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, and as financial director of the Orange County Transportation Authority. Nothing in that résumé pointed toward a political career, and yet in 1996 she entered a race that no one expected her to win. Loretta repeated her victory in the rematch two years later and held her seat for two decades. Her 1996 win was not only personal: it galvanized a series of successful
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Loretta Sánchez
campaigns that carried other Latinos to public office throughout California.
Her sister Linda, was born in Orange, California, on January 28, 1969. She studied Spanish Literature at Berkeley and paid for college working as a bilingual aide and ESL teacher. She then earned her law degree at UCLA and practiced as an attorney specializing in labor
“ I am very proud of my parents. They are the only ones in the history of the United States who have sent two daughters to Congress.”
— LORETTA SÁNCHEZ relations. In 2002 she ran for Congress in a new working-class district, and her victory on January 7, 2003, made history: for the first time, two sisters took the oath of office side by side in the House of Representatives.
Since then, Linda has not stopped breaking glass ceilings. She was the first Latina to serve on the House Judiciary Committee and the first to do so on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, one of the most powerful in Congress.
Reflecting on the 250th anniversary of the United States and how to reconcile that celebration with the current political climate around immigration, Linda told El Clasificado:“ As the daughter of Mexican immigrants, it means