Lorena González is president of the Seattle City Council. In her arms is Nadia Luciana, born in January.Courtesy of Lorena González
Good morning. It's Friday, April 24, and a month into stay-at-home, we wanted to hear from one of the city's political leaders.
Lorena González is the president of the Seattle City Council. She's also the mother of a newborn. She cut short her maternity leave by two weeks because of the coronavirus crisis.
"When I think about the period of time that we're going through, it's hard for me to imagine that on January 10, just three short months ago, I was—along with my husband, Cameron—welcoming the arrival of our very healthy baby girl, Nadia Luciana. And now we are living in a very different world."
"When González was elected to the Seattle City Council in 2015, she became the first Latina lawmaker in Seattle history," as Lester Black has noted. "She was raised in the lower Yakima Valley, first came to the 'magical, mythical city' of Seattle on a fifth-grade field trip, and holds an undergraduate degree from Washington State University and a law degree from Seattle University."
González said in July 2019: "There's thousands and thousands of working moms in this city and I think that it's going to be really refreshing to them to know that there are going to be two elected officials who are going through that process," referring to fellow council member Teresa Mosqueda, who was also about to go on maternity leave.
Of course, there's no way González could have predicted to be going through the process of having a baby while going through the process of responding to a pandemic.
Lorena González at work in 2019.Seattle City Council Official Flickr Photostream
Thank you, Lorena, for this glimpse into the life of a city council president who also happens to be a mom.
Thank you for returning to work early to attend to matters that affect all of us, and doing it with a baby on your hip, and making it look easy.
