WOMEN IN POLITICS
;SHAPING POLICY;
Rep.
Loretta
Sanchez
On Defense, Homeland
Security & Doing Business
With the Feds
There have been a number
of brother acts in the 220-year
history of Congress, but
never sisters—that is, until the
Sanchez sisters swept into
Washington, D.C., and took their
rightful place at the table.
Democrat Loretta Sanchez,
who has been serving her Orange
County, Calif., congressional
district since 1996, and her
sister Linda, who was sworn in
in 2003, are the first and only
pair of sisters to ever serve
simultaneously in the
U.S. House of Representatives.
BY SAM ALI
Loretta Sanchez, who discussed being a Latina in Congress, was one
of the featured speakers at DiversityInc’s diversity-management
conference on March 10 at the Park Hyatt in Washington, D.C. She
talked about the many challenges and opportunities small businesses
and minority-owned and women-owned businesses face when working with the federal government.
Here are some highlights of Sanchez’s talk:
On the importance of diversity:
Diversity no longer just means the African-American commu- nity or the Mexican-American community. There is so much diversity going on in our nation and it is imperative for
America to have leadership that includes all of these new communities at the decision-making table. We are what actually makes
America strong, and in order for America to compete and to hold its
economic place in the world—more importantly, its way of life, its
value system—it’s important for all of us to participate and for these
communities to be at the table, politically, economically, socially and
spiritually.
It’s also important we ask for that place at the table because …
no one ever sets the table for you. But if we demand a place, we
also have to step up to the responsibility that we have to be there.
We must seek that place and we must get there. We owe it to a
great America.
Photos by Jamie Watts
DiversityInc’s next event in Washington, D.C., will be on Nov. 8–9 and will offer federal agencies tips on
evolving their diversity-management strategies. For information, go to www.DiversityInc.com/events
