摘要
The Hispanic population of the United States has become, in recent times, into a powerful electoral force whose vote is historically oriented towards the Democratic Party of the incumbent US President Barack H. Obama. Obviously, this growing electoral strength is reflected into its political presence in the American life that has been accomplished with their numeric inclusion in the US Congress. Although in the recent decades several studies have arisen on the status of the Hispanic community in the United States from both sides of the Atlantic, these have been primarily focused on casuistic, demographic, developmental or educational aspects. But only a few of them, if any, has focused exclusively on the numerical and symbolical representation of the community in the political arena, and more specifically into the main legislative body of the country, the US Congress. And therein it lays the purpose of this article. We intend to investigate not only the historical presence of Hispanic legislators in Congress but also and especially their political influence in the current U.S. Congress. Finally, and prior to the conclusions drawn throughout the paper, we will analyze the political influence of the Hispanic congresswomen in the current 114th Congress. As we will be breaking down, this group has been changing gradually from a poor oppressed minority into one of the most dynamic groups of the country, introduced at all levels of government.
