Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is a politician and lobbyist from Miami, Florida, who represented Florida's 27th congressional district from 1989 to 2019. By the end of her tenure, she was the most senior U.S. Representative from Florida. She was Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee from 2011–2013. In 1989, Ros-Lehtinen won a special election and became the first Cuban American elected to Congress. She was also the first Republican woman elected to the House from Florida. Ros-Lehtinen gave the first Republican response to the State of the Union address in Spanish in 2011, and gave the third in 2014.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
Ros-Lehtinen (right) being sworn in as a member of Congress by Chief Judge Kevin Michael Moore (left), along with Florida colleagues Carlos Curbelo, Frederica Wilson and Mario Díaz-Balart in February 2015
Cuban Americans are Americans who immigrated from or are descended from immigrants from Cuba, regardless of racial or ethnic origin. As of 2022, Cuban Americans were the fourth largest Hispanic and Latino American group in the United States after Mexican Americans, Stateside Puerto Ricans and Salvadoran Americans.
Statue of Jose Martí at the Circulo Cubano (Cuban Club), Ybor City
The Bay of Pigs Memorial in Little Havana, Miami
A Cuban sandwich
Monument to the victims of Communism in Cuba in Miami