BY ED FELIEN
If Keith Ellison gets elected chair of the Democratic National Committee in February, the DFL will endorse a candidate to replace him.
Five and a half years ago we ran the above photo and caption of Senator Patricia Torres Ray on the cover of Southside Pride. In 25 years of publishing we have published a full-page photo on our cover only that one time—when a brave Latina first-term legislator stood in front of the Cub Store on Lake Street supporting the cleaning staff on strike. She was the only elected official there.
I was at a community meeting at a local restaurant two years ago. All the local politicians were giving short talks about the great things they were doing. Senator Torres Ray went out into the kitchen and brought back the staff of 15 or 20 Latinos. “These are the people who cook and serve your food. They clean up after you. They want to be able to get a driver’s license. That’s my bill in the legislature.”
In the Minnesota Senate she was the chief author: Genetically engineered food labeling requirement; Voluntary full-day kindergarten funding establishment; Minneapolis summer youth employment program appropriation.On March 31, 2010, state senator and 2010 Minnesota gubernatorial candidate John Marty announced that Torres Ray would be his running mate for lieutenant governor. The team subsequently withdrew from the race at the 2010 DFL State Convention.
Patricia Torres Ray (born March 1964, in Pasto, Colombia) represents SD 63 in South Minneapolis.
Torres Ray succeeded the retiring Wes Skoglund in 2007. She is the first Hispanic American to be elected to the Minnesota Senate and the first minority woman to run as lieutenant governor in Minnesota. She currently serves as the chair for the Education Policy Committee; she is a member of the Senate’s Education Finance, Higher Education and Work- force Development Division Committee; and a member of the State and Local Government Committee.
She married in 1987, and immigrated to Minnesota with her husband, learned English, and became a U.S. citizen. She studied at the University of Minnesota, earning a B.A. in urban studies and an M.P.Aff. from the Humphrey Institute. She and Jack have two sons, Tomás and Carlos.
PHOTO CAPTION: State Senator Patricia Torres Ray stood with striking Cub workers Tuesday, May 24, at their camp-in and hunger strike on the public sidewalk outside Cub Foods on Lake and Minnehaha. She told the crowd of about 40 supporters, “You are not here for them. You are here to protect our democracy. Our country is under attack by corporations. We have forgotten where the struggles for freedom in America come from. The strength of our democracy is in our workers. Workers need to come together and we are here today to start this unity.” And then she turned to the striking workers standing beside her and said in English and in Spanish, “Thank you for reminding us what a true democracy is all about.”
