TX-24: Candace Valenzuela Could be the First Afro-Latina Elected to Congress
Running for Texas’s 24th Congressional District, the suburban area between Fort Worth and Dallas, Valenzuela is no stranger to the power of having people and legislation in her corner. In fact, she attributes much of her own success to the three things that formed life-changing support systems for her family: a strong public school system, food stamps, and housing assistance through HUD (Housing Urban Development).
“Almost all of us are going to fall on very hard times, not all of us are going to have the support network to float us,” she told HipLatina. It’s one thing to talk about what it feels like to sink and another when you experience it first hand. At age 3, Valenzuela was homeless sleeping in a blow-up kiddie pool outside of a convenience store. Her mother, a recently discharged military vet had nowhere to go and no one to turn to when the family members they were staying with dropped them off at a gas station.
A Mormon family kindly took them in until her mother was able to get on her feet. But even then they bounced around from homeless shelters and living with her grandparents. Through it all, school remained a constant that kept Valenzuela going and provided much-needed structure. She says it’s what allowed her to get all the way to Claremont Mckenna College on a full-ride scholarship.
“[School] was a source of stability, there was a routine there and when my Mom realized that it was a place where I did get some stability where my little brother got some stability she kept us in the same cohort of schools even as we bounced around from place to place. So I didn’t have to change friends or change teachers or environment and I think that really helped me the first in my family to go to college,” she said.
https://hiplatina.com/candace-valenzuela-afro-latina-for-elected-congress/
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