The replacement in the United States Senate for Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was unveiled Tuesday, December 22: it will be Alex Padilla, who will become the first Hispanic to represent California in the upper house of the United States.
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The son of Mexican immigrant Alex Padilla, 47, was named by California Governor Gavin Newsom, who calls him "a
warrior for the franchise and the American dream
" in a statement.
Her appointment comes after months of intense lobbying among Democrats in California, a state where the Hispanic minority represents 40% of the population, to nominate the replacement for the future vice president of the United States.
Raised by a cook father and a housemaid mother, Alex Padilla grew up in a neighborhood of Los Angeles affected by gang violence.
He worked for a time as a computer engineer on software for satellites before entering politics in the late 1990s, at a time when anti-immigration rhetoric was flourishing in California.