A California Democrat is the first LGBTQ immigrant in Congress. Now he’s ready to work
Gaby O’Donnell raised her son to be a hard worker, to love the United States and to give back to the communities that welcomed them when she was a young mother who immigrated from Peru.
She made it look easy, even when it was not — like when they struggled to put food on the table, bounced from house to house or had to work long hours to make a better life for her son, future Congressman Robert Garcia. His love of public service comes from his mother, Garcia said in a January interview.
“My mom always wanted us to help neighbors out, be good neighbors, and so we always helped all the local folks in whatever neighborhood we lived in,” Garcia, 45, said. “My mom taught us really early to be grateful to be here in the United States and that it meant something for us to be here.”
They lived the typical immigrant experience, Garcia said. He grew up undocumented, earning his citizenship in his early 20s before running for public office.
“Living in this country undocumented as a teenager, it just creates a different psychological imprint on you,” said Angelica Salas, the executive director of CHIRLA: the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, based in Los Angeles. Salas, who worked with Garcia on immigrants’ rights when he was the mayor of Long Beach, said that because it is difficult to grow up undocumented, sometimes kids wonder whether their parents should have brought them here.
But Garcia, Salas said in a January interview, talks about his mom “as the heroine that she was.”
O’Donnell, who took Garcia’s stepfather’s last name, had worked at a health clinic for almost three decades before COVID-19 turned the world upside down and took many lives too early. O’Donnell, then 61, and her husband, Greg, passed away in the early months of the pandemic.
Garcia was mayor when he and his brother lost their mother. He held onto the values she instilled as he forged a path to become a progressive voice for health care, immigration reform, women’s rights and LGBTQ people in the U.S. House of Representatives. Sworn in last month, Garcia emerged as a congressional leader: His colleagues chose him to lead the first-term Democrats and he joined the influential House Oversight and Accountability Committee.
Garcia is the first LGBTQ immigrant in Congress. His intersectional upbringing as a Latino, gay and formerly-undocumented immigrant is powerful, said Irene Kao, the executive director of Courage California, a progressive accountability organization.
“Sometimes there can be a focus on isolating an issue from all other issues,” Kao said in a January interview. “So having somebody with his specific experience and with his specific identity is important. It’s about how do we push LGBTQ rights beyond what people think of strictly as LGBTQ rights; how we also care for LGBTQ immigrants, or undocumented LGBTQ people.”
Garcia before politics
Being only five-years-old when he left, Garcia doesn’t remember his life in Lima, Peru, before his family settled in the San Gabriel Valley. He remembers living with cousins and his aunt in shared spaces, his mom working in a thrift store and cleaning houses, his parents’ divorce shortly after coming to the U.S.
“I remember going to McDonald’s for the first time as a kid,” he said. “I have memories of playgrounds and family early on.”
Garcia credits comic books, like Superman, with helping him learn English.
“Superman was always the outsider, right?” Salas, who is also a naturalized citizen, said about the connection of young immigrants to the superhero. “The person who came from another planet, being received and welcomed by his adopted parents. Just the whole story of living in the shadows, but once released from the shadows, being able to be heroic.”
After going to Mother’s Beach in the summers, Garcia fell in love with Long Beach and decided to attend college at the California State University there. He was the first in his family to attend college, then went on to get a master’s degree from the University of Southern California and a doctorate in higher education from Cal State Long Beach. Garcia taught at his alma maters and Long Beach City College, and founded the Long Beach Post, a news site.
He started taking on leadership roles as an undergraduate. He served as class president and chairman of the board for the California State Student Association, where he met his longtime friend, future roommate and local chief of staff.
“He’s a very positive person,” said Susana Gonzalez-Edmond, who was his chief of staff when he served on the City Council and as vice mayor. “He’s always been someone that has values very much ensuring that no one gets left behind in the decision making process.”
When he first registered with a political party, he and his family were Republicans — like many immigrants who arrived in the United States before 1982 and were put on a path to citizenship as a result of an act signed by former President Ronald Reagan (the last time an immigration reform bill made it through Congress). But after learning more about politics, he found his legislative priorities did not fit with the party.
He became a Democrat before running for public office. His entire family did too.
“It’s sad to me that that party back then that welcomed immigrants and welcomed my family and me — and the president who is a reason that I’m actually in Congress — that doesn’t exist today,” Garcia said. “It’s really sad how far the Republican party has come.”
Garcia elected
Garcia was first elected to office in 2009, becoming a member of the Long Beach City Council. Three years later, his colleagues chose him to serve as vice mayor of Long Beach, making him the first Latino and the youngest person to hold that position.
Just two years after, in 2014, he became Long Beach’s first Latino, LGBTQ and youngest-ever mayor. He held that role until he ran for Congress.
When he was mayor, among other things, Long Beach legalized and taxed cannabis. Garcia pushed successful ballot initiatives for term limits, ethics and redistricting commissions, and a large-scale infrastructure repair program. The latter, 2016’s Measure A, created a 10-year sales tax for infrastructure and public safety services. The measure, which Garcia also touted for backing union jobs, was extended indefinitely by voters in 2020.
Ideas Garcia touted there and in Congress include access to education — such as Long Beach’s program for tuition-free years at community college — and Medicare for all, things Kao praised as ones “that families need in order to be safe and secure and have opportunities to really be successful.”
“It’s really significant to have a progressive champion like Robert Garcia coming out of a place that’s not LA, the city, or the Bay Area, specifically like San Francisco,” said Kao of Courage California.
Kao noted the importance of Long Beach becoming a sanctuary city when Garcia was mayor.
Salas recalled during the Trump administration after people criticized family separation through its 2018 “zero tolerance” policy at the border, Garcia called her to ask for support in helping unaccompanied children in Long Beach. She said, to avoid children going to states where they would not get support, Garcia wanted to “represent a different model of treating children” when quickly trying to reunite them with their families.
“I walked into the convention center and saw a child-centered space, something that kids deserved,” Salas said. “It really moved me.”
When the pandemic came, Garcia drew from his mother’s experience in health care to guide the city’s policies for lockdowns, testing and vaccines. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and others hailed the city as a model for the vaccine rollout and general pandemic response.
Knowing that his mother “would have been first in line” for the vaccine, had they been available before she passed away, Garcia said that “it drives me crazy that there’s so many vaccine deniers out there.”
“Robert’s healing was to do something that was going to protect others from not losing loved ones anymore,” Gonzalez-Edmond said.
Garcia in Congress
While California underwent redistricting, the once-a-decade redrawing of legislative boundaries, Southern California Democratic Reps. Alan Lowenthal and Lucille Roybal-Allard announced their retirements.
Garcia decided to run for a seat that took part of both of their old districts. With the support of his husband, Dr. Matthew Mendez Garcia, and their cat, Tommy, of course.
CHIRLA’s Salas reminded that this area elected former Rep. Edward Roybal, California’s first Latino congressman since the 1800s, and his daughter, Roybal-Allard, who was one of the original authors of the DREAM Act for immigrants who are brought to the U.S. as children. (The DREAM Act has never passed through Congress despite mounting efforts. Former President Barack Obama’s administration prevented undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children from deportation with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, as an executive order.)
“Now he follows in those footsteps,” Salas said. “It’s how he really embraces that legacy and builds on it.”
Quickly, Garcia became a popular voice among his peers and was elected “freshman class president” for the Democrats, which is often a stepping stone to other congressional leadership roles later on. Garcia is already celebrated for his Twitter savvy (which he posts for himself on his personal account and often on his congressional one).
In January, he joined the high-profile House Oversight and Accountability Committee, which is charged with investigations. Republicans have sworn to use their newfound House majority and leadership on this committee to investigate President Joe Biden, cabinet secretaries and pandemic funding. Democrats like Garcia have sworn to keep Republicans in check.
Broadly, Garcia said that he hopes to focus on immigration reform, climate policies, pandemic prevention and supporting low-income and working-class families.
Garcia is a “first.” But LGBTQ people and immigrants remain underrepresented in Congress compared to the general population despite recent historic growth.
Of his election, Garcia said, “I hope it means that this country is a place where anyone could get elected to Congress, to achieve their dreams and their goals.”
He carries his identity with him both in his policies and in more overt ways. At his ceremonial swearing in, Garcia had a copy of the Constitution, his citizenship papers, a Library of Congress copy of a Superman comic book, and a photo of his late mother and stepfather.
Gonzalez-Edmond recalled how Garcia’s mother wanted him to achieve all of his goals; how O’Donnell would have given anything to help him get everything he dreamed of.
“Everything that Gaby said she wanted to make sure her son accomplished,” Gonzalez-Edmond said, “he’s doing it.”
This story was originally published February 1, 2023 at 6:30 AM.
