Throughout her political ascent, Sylvia Garcia has been followed by the word “first.”
In 1987, she became the first woman and first Hispanic to preside over Houston’s municipal courts. Fifteen years later, after a stint as city controller, she broke those same barriers upon her election to the Harris County Commissioners Court. And yet again, in 2018—following five years in the state Senate—she became one of the first two Latinas ever elected by Texans to the U.S. House.
It’s a path she had to pave herself. A native of Palito Blanco (a speck of a South Texas farming community somewhat near Alice) and the eighth of 10 children of parents without high school educations, the 74-year-old grew up working the fields. Yet she made her way through both Texas Woman’s University and Texas Southern University’s law school, working as a social worker and legal aid attorney before becoming a Houston city judge.
