Nydia Velázquez

Nydia Velázquez was born on 28 March 1953 in Limones, in the municipality of Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, one of nine children of a sugarcane worker who became a self-taught political activist. She skipped three grades, was the first in her family to finish high school, entered the University of Puerto Rico at 16 and graduated magna cum laude in political science in 1974. She took a master's degree at New York University in 1976, taught at the University of Puerto Rico at Humacao and was an adjunct professor of Puerto Rican studies at Hunter College.

In 1984 she was appointed to a vacant seat on the New York City Council, the first Hispanic woman to serve there. She later directed the Migration Division of Puerto Rico's Department of Labor and, from 1989, the Department of Puerto Rican Community Affairs in the United States. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1992, she became the first Puerto Rican woman in Congress, representing New York's 12th district from 1993 and its 7th district from 2013.

A Democrat, she chaired the Congressional Hispanic Caucus from 2009 to 2011. In November 2025 she announced that she would not seek re-election in 2026.

Sources

Facts in this profile are drawn from the Wikipedia article(s) linked below, consulted on 21 September 2026; the text is original. Wikipedia (English) · Wikipedia (Spanish)

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