Teresa Alonso Leon has been chosen to be this year’s Fiesta Mexicana parade grand marshal at the Woodburn Fiesta Mexicana!

Former Woodburn City Councilor and current House District 22 Rep. Teresa Alonso Leon has been chosen to be this year’s Fiesta Mexicana parade grand marshal at the Woodburn Fiesta Mexicana. The Woodburn Fiesta Mexicana runs Aug. 4-6 at Legion Park. The parade will be Aug. 5 beginning at 11 a.m. at the Woodburn Aquatic Center.

Rep. Teresa Alonso Leon is the daughter of migrant farmworkers and an immigrant to the U.S. She comes from the Purepecha indigenous people in San Jeronimo, Michoacan. She grew up in the district and attended schools in Gervais and Woodburn. Rep. Alonso Leon became  a U.S. citizen in 2012, she is the first in her family to attend college, she  holds a master’s degree in public administration from PSU, and she's the first immigrant Latina lawmaker in the Legislature. She previously worked for the Higher Education Coordinating Commission as the high school equivalency and GED administrator. She was appointed to the Woodburn City Council in 2013.

Rep. Alonso Leon was recently quoted in The Statesman Journal as saying, "When I think about the folks in my community who wake up so early to go to work, and now they wake up in the morning to go to work and hope and pray that they don't get pulled over by ICE, to me that's just unacceptable,"

Best, or most important of all, when Rep. Alonso Leon speaks, she speaks as a real daughter of the people. Her campaign materials were in English, Spanish and Russian. When she speaks, we all see the better parts of ourselves in her story. She's honest, caring, focused, on top of things and she brings her story to the table. She's making history every day. She represents Woodburn and she represents Latino aspirations, but she also represents the heart and soul of what progressive politics should be.

For more information on the Fiesta Parade, click here.