Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez
Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez was born in Chicago and later moved to Puerto Rico, his parent’s birthplace, before returning to Chicago to attend college. He graduated from Northeastern Illinois University with a degree in English and worked as a teacher, social worker, cab driver, community activist, and city official until his election in 1986 as Alderman from the city’s 26th ward. In the Chicago City Council, he led the fight for affordable housing, tougher ethics rules, and a law to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and was a key lieutenant in Mayor Harold Washington’s progressive multi-ethnic coalition. He has been representing his district for ten terms. Rep. Gutierrez and his wife Soraida have two daughters, Omaira and Jessica, and a grandson, Luisito.
Doug Scofield is the Senior Partner at the Scofield Company, a public relations and political consulting firm in Chicago. Prior to founding the Scofield Company, he managed several successful political campaigns and was Congressman Gutierrez’ Chief of Staff for ten years.
STILL DREAMING: MY PUERTO-RICAN JOURNEY FROM THE STREETS OF CHICAGO TO THE HALLS OF CONGRESS
Congressman Gutierrez is widely recognized as the nation’s foremost advocate for immigrant’s rights. In an era when we’ve seen wholesale deportations of immigrants and watched conservative legislatures from Alabama to Arizona pass the most restrictive immigration legislation America has experienced since the McCarthy era, when hate crimes against Latinos have increased dramatically and anti-immigrant rhetoric fills the airwaves, Gutierrez has been a beacon for immigrants. He has traveled the country talking to immigrant groups, has authored comprehensive immigration reform in Congress, has sparred with right-wing immigration opponents on the O’Reilly Factor and has been arrested in protests in front of the White House in his quest to protect the rights of immigrants and to hold the President to his campaign promises. Gutierrez has been called ‘the Moses of the Latinos’ and his influence among immigrants in this country cannot be underestimated.
In STILL DREAMING: My Puerto-Rican Journey from the Streets of Chicago to the Halls of Congress, co-authored with Doug Scofield, to be published by W.W. Norton in 2013, Gutierrez chronicles the journey that took him from a cot in the hallway of a cramped apartment in Chicago to the rural hills of Puerto Rico and ultimately to the halls of the U.S. Congress, a journey that has led him to the center of a historic debate about the future of immigrants in America. Along with recounting his behind-the-scenes relationships with leaders from Rich Daley to Rahm Emanuel, from Bill Clinton to President Obama, in STILL DREAMING he will present his ideas for a sensible immigration policy that would allow immigrants a path to citizenship.
