Women pt 7~Politicians

Educators, entertainers, writers, and inventors, supermodels and sports stars. They are definitely slices of life ...... now we are contemplating the most boring of them.

Who hasn’t heard of Shirley Chisholm? Wow, I thought most would have heard of her in some context.

She was born to Charles St. Hill, a factory worker from Guyana, and Ruby Seale St. Hill, a seamstress from Barbados on November 30, 1924 as the oldest of four girls. Graduating from Brooklyn Girls’ High in 1942 and then from Brooklyn College Cum Laude in 1946, where she had won prizes on the debate team. Upon graduation, she worked as a nursery school teacher before marrying Conrad Q. Chisholm, a private investigator in 1949. Two years later in 1951, she would earn her master’s degree from Columbia University in early childhood education.

. By 1960, she became a consultant to the New York City Division of Daycare… whatever that is? She would join the local chapters of the League of Women Voters, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Urban League, as well as the Democratic Party club in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn in awareness of the racial and gender inequality that she and others faced at the time and that we still face. In 1964, Shirley would become the second African American to run for the New York State Legislature.

After redistricting, which created a new heavily democratic district in her neighborhood, in 1968 she ran for a seat in Congress. There, she was nicknamed “Fighting Shirley” and introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation that championed racial and gender equality, the plight of the poor, as well as ending the Vietnam War. In 1970, she would write her autobiographical book called "Unbought and Unbothered" which would later become a documentary in 2004. She would also author another book in 1973, called "The Good Fight". She became a co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus in 1971.

Shirley’s quest for the 1972 Democratic Party presidential nomination was marked with discrimination. She was often blocked from participating in televised primary debates but after taking legal action, was only permitted to make just one speech. Still, many students, women, and minorities followed the “Chisholm Trail.” Despite an under-financed campaign and contentiousness from the predominantly male Congressional Black Caucus, she entered 12 primaries and garnered 152 of the delegates’ votes which was only 10% of the total needed.

In 1977, she would become the first Black woman and second woman to serve on the powerful House Rules Committee as well as divorcing her first husband and marrying Arthur Hardwick Jr., a New York State legislator.

Shirley retired in 1983 after serving seven terms in Congress. She would also teach at Mount Holyoke College. In 1983, she would become a widow after her husband, Arthur, passed away. Then in 1991 she would move to Florida, and some time later declined the nomination to become U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica due to ill health. She died at the age of 80 at her home following a series of small strokes suffered the previous summer, January 1, 2005 in Ormond Beach, Florida.

Shirley Anita Chisholm Hardwhick (nee St. Hill ) once stated “I want to be remembered as a woman … who dared to be a catalyst of change.”

Now this next lady, I bet you have never heard of her unless you follow politics. She is well respected by many but there are some that do not care for her for example ……..ex leader Fidel Castro.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was born in Havana, Cuba, on July 15, 1952, to Enrique Ros and Amanda Adato Ros. In 1959 eight year old lleana and her family moved to the United States when Castro became the leader of Cuba. They would join a growing number of exile families who would settle in Miami and make the States their home. Her mother worked in a local hotel on Miami Beach, and her father found employment at a local laundry shop. Lleana was a member of the graduating class of 1970 from Southwest Miami High School before attending Miami-Dade Community College, where she earned her associate degree in 1972. After that she then earned a bachelor’s in higher education from Florida International University (FIU) in 1975, and finally earning her master’s in educational leadership from FIU ten years later in 1985. Later in 2004 she would receive her PhD in higher education from the University of Miami.

At some point in her life this over-achieving smart lady also founded a private elementary school with her parents, where she would work as a teacher and as its chief administrator. While serving as an educator, she routinely worked as a liaison for immigrant parents who needed assistance translating forms and navigating the complexities of the U.S. government. After sometime this convinced her to expand her level of assistance beyond individual cases by running for public office.

In 1982, IIeana would make headlines as the first Hispanic woman to serve in the state legislature when she won a seat in the Florida house of representatives,. Then four years later, she won a seat in the Florida senate where she would meet her future husband, Dexter Lehtinen. IIeana entered the race to fill the late Congressman Claude Denson Pepper South Florida seat in the House when the veteran died in May of 1989.

Using the strong community ties she had developed in the state legislature to run an effective grassroots campaign she easily defeated three opponents for the Republican nomination before facing Gerald Richman in the August 29, 1989, special election. She would win with 63 percent of the vote but the road was long, hard and bitter with Richman making it more difficult and contentious when Lee Atwater suggested the vacant seat should go to a Cuban American and Richman responded with “ it's an American seat.. Her victory would make her the first Hispanic woman and the first Cuban American elected to Congress.

She would serve in congress for over thirty years from that first election to her final one in 2016. During that time, she would represent the diverse Hispanic population and areas such as the Keys, Little Havana, Coral Gables and Miami Beach as well as adding new areas in Miami with a high concentration of Hispanic voters. She received assignments on the Foreign Affairs(her entire career)and Government Reform Committees( just until 2007). She also would serve on the following for just one term each: Budget (109th Congress, 2005–2007), Rules (113th Congress, 2013–2015), and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (115th Congress, 2017–2019).

Remember five-year-old Elián Gonzáles? The kid who fled Cuba for the United States with his mother. Well, IIeana was one of the politicians that argued that he should be allowed to stay in the United States after his mother had drowned. Her direct involvement, including visits with Elián and his American family, led her to be called a “ferocious wolf disguised as a woman” by the Cuban newspaper Granma which she readily embraced. She expanded her legislative interests and drew attention to genocides in Rwanda and Burundi, as well as flagrant human rights abuses in countries like China, Belarus, Iran, and Sudan while serving on the Foreign Affairs committee as a chairperson. There is so much more that IIeana did during that 30 years…. This was just a snapshot.

Currently IIeana Ros-Lehtnen writes a column for the Miami Herald and works for a senior advisor for a major lobbying firm in Florida where she lives with her husband. She is a mom of four( 2 are from her husband’s first marriage) and is possibly enjoying her best life.