WASHINGTON — The first time I went to a CHCI gala, I wore a suit my mother bought me at Sears when I was in high school. I didn’t own a tuxedo, and I didn’t need one. I was a nobody in Washington, and ‘Latino Prom’ was one of the best parties in town.
I came to this city in 2009. Some of the first friends I made here were CHCI fellows: young people, many from humble backgrounds, doing entry-level work in congressional offices.
Over the years I’ve had more CHCI friends, sources, and contacts than I can count, from every background you can imagine. Some went on to impressive careers. Some left town because the nasty business of politics and policy turned out not to be for them. Either way, CHCI was part of their origin story in this town that we all shared.
I went to the gala nearly every year for the better part of a decade. Once, when President Obama spoke, I heckled and turned my back on him in protest of the mass deportations carried out on his watch. Nobody threw me out. That was the room back then. You could love the institution and still stand against what power was doing to our people.