San Gabriel Valley Tribune: Immigrant Sisters Rise to Legislature
They spent their childhood on both sides of the Mexican border, on both sides of U.S. immigration laws. Dad was a factory worker, mom a housekeeper. The family spoke little English. They overcame discrimination, poverty and violence to become legislators.
In high school, in the 1980s, when Blanca and Susan Rubio expressed interest in college, a high school counselor suggested they look instead at home-economics classes to get ready for marriage and children.
The Rubio sisters did not grow up imagining careers in elected office.
“I used to believe you could only be in politics if you were related to a Kennedy,” Susan Rubio said recently.
What a difference education, persistence and a lot of teamwork can make.
When Susan Rubio, a Democrat, defeated a more established Democrat in last November’s election for a state Senate seat representing the San Gabriel Valley, she and second-term Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio, also a Democrat, became the first sisters to serve together in the California Legislature.
It might take a while before the Rubios are thought of as a political family on the level of the Kennedys, or the Bushes, Browns, Hahns or Sánchezes. But one political analyst is already calling the Rubio sisters two of the 25 most powerful political figures in the region — emphasis on two.
“Those are two of the new power brokers in L.A. County,” said Alan Clayton, a Democratic redistricting expert who has worked to elect Latino candidates but wasn’t involved in the Rubios’ campaigns. “Because they’re a duo.”