Hilda Solis-----BA in PS---Advanced degree in Public Adm.

[edit]Early life and education

Solis was born Los Angeles, California[1] as the daughter of immigrant parents who had met in citizenship class and married in 1953: Juana Sequeira (b. 1926, from Nicaragua) and Raul Solis (from Mexico).[2][3] Her father was a Teamsters shop steward in Mexico[4] and after coming to the U.S. worked at the Quemetco battery recycling plant in the City of Industry in the San Gabriel Valley.[5] There he again organized for the Teamsters, to gain better health care benefits for workers,[6] but also contracted lead poisoning.[7] Her mother worked for over 20 years on the assembly line of Mattel once her children were all of school age,[3] belonged to the United Rubber Workers,[8] and was outspoken about working conditions.[7] She stressed the importance of education and was a devout Roman Catholic.[2][6]
Hilda Solis is the third oldest of seven siblings (four sisters, two brothers) and grew up in a tract home in La Puente, California.[9] She had to help raise her youngest siblings, and later said of her childhood: "It wasn't what you would call the all-American life for a young girl growing up. We had to mature very quickly."[6] She graduated from La Puente High School,[10] where she saw a lack of support for those wishing to continue their education,[5] including a guidance counselor who told her mother that “Your daughter is not college material. Maybe she should follow the career of her older sister and become a secretary.”[7] However, another counselor did encourage her to attend college, and even went to her house to help her fill out an application. [6] She took her younger sisters to the library to get them to follow her lead.[9]
She was the first of her family to go to college,[2] being accepted into the Educational Opportunity Program at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (a program that assists low-income, first-generation college students)[11] and paying for it with the help of government grants and part-time jobs.[2] She graduated in 1979 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science.[2][12] She then earned a Master of Public Administration degree at the University of Southern California in 1981.[1]
[edit]Early career