Jayapal, Pramila, 1965-

<p>Pramila Jayapal (/prəˈmɪlə ˈdʒaɪəpɑːl/ prə-MILL-ə JY-ə-pahl; born September 21, 1965) is an American activist and politician serving as the U.S. Representative for Washington's 7th congressional district since 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, she represents most of Seattle, as well as suburban areas of King County. Jayapal represented the 37th legislative district in the Washington State Senate from 2015 to 2017. She is the first Indian-American woman to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. The district's first female member of Congress, she is also the first Asian American to represent Washington at the federal level.</p>

<p>Before entering electoral politics, Jayapal was a Seattle-based civil rights activist, serving until 2012 as the executive director of OneAmerica, a pro-immigrant advocacy group. She founded the organization, originally called Hate Free Zone, after the September 11 attacks. The organization successfully sued the Bush administration's Immigration and Naturalization Services to prevent the deportation of over 4,000 Somalis. Described by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as "a rising star in the Democratic caucus", Jayapal co-chaired the Congressional Progressive Caucus from 2019 to 2021, henceforth serving as chair. She serves on both the Judiciary Committee and Budget Committee.</p>

<p>The Jayapals spent 24 years abroad — 11 years in Jakarta and 13 years in Singapore. Their girls studied in the Jakarta international school, before they both went to America to pursue their higher studies at 16.</p>

<p>"I was lucky, as both my sisters were in the US and my sister in Washington DC is a doctor and was their local guardian. But, you know, now when I look back, I think, we pushed them to be independent probably a couple of years earlier. Maybe they were too young, but they have turned out all right. But I do feel sorry that we didn’t keep up speaking Malayalam at home... Pramila understands Malayalam but can’t speak it. However, Pramila has an ear for languages. She picked up Thai — it’s a tonal language like Chinese — when she worked in Bangkok for a brief while. When she came back to India for two years on a fellowship, she and her husband went to Mussoorie and she picked up Hindi and speaks it fairly fluent Hindi now," says Maya.</p>

<p>Elected in 2016, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal is now serving her third term in Congress representing Washington’s 7th District, which encompasses most of Seattle and its surrounding areas including Shoreline, Vashon Island, Lake Forest Park, Edmonds, and parts of Burien and Normandy Park. She is the first South Asian American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and one of only two dozen naturalized citizens currently serving in the United States Congress.</p>

<p>Congresswoman Jayapal is a member of the House Judiciary Committee, where she serves as Vice Chair of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law. She also serves on the House Education & Labor and Budget Committees. She is also the Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which represents approximately 40% of the entire Democratic caucus; the Immigration Task Force for the Congressional Asian Pacific Asian Caucus; and a Vice Chair of the Congressional LGBTQ Equality Caucus where she is the co-chair of the Transgender Equality Task Force.</p>

<p>In Congress, Representative Jayapal has been a leader on immigration, including fighting the Trump Administration’s inhumane policies of separating children from their parents and crafting legislation to create a fair and humane immigration system. She has also championed legislation to address income inequality, such as the $15 minimum wage and expanded collective bargaining rights for workers. She has worked extensively on health care issues as the lead sponsor of the Medicare for All bill in the House, and she is the author of the College for All Act, which would ensure every American has access to higher education. She has authored other landmark pieces of progressive legislation including the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Ad, Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, the Housing is a Human Right Act, and the National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. She has also helped to introduce the THRIVE Act and other legislation to transition our economy to 100% clean energy and address the crisis of climate justice.</p>

JAYAPAL, Pramila, a Representative from Washington; born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, September 21, 1965; A.B., Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 1986; M.B.A., Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., 1990; financial analyst; member of the Washington state senate, 2015-2016; elected as a Democrat to the One Hundred Fifteenth and to the two succeeding Congresses (January 3, 2017-present).