Hispanic Heritage Month: Idaho’s only Latina lawmaker is ‘keenly aware’ of her roots

Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of stories highlighting Latino Idahoans as part of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

State Rep. Soñia Galaviz knew education was her key.

Her dad, a migrant worker, would tell her, “You’ll learn to work with your head or you’ll work with your back.”

Galaviz shouldered her father’s hopes on her back, carrying the pressure so many children of immigrants face, and earned both a bachelor’s and two advanced degrees in college. Now she works in Title 1 schools (which receive federal funding) in the Boise School District to show her students the path they can take.

“We have a growing Latino population in Idaho and representation is important,” Galaviz said, standing in front of the Idaho Capitol. “As a schoolteacher, I want my students to see that they can become and do anything that they want.”

Galaviz’s father’s family came to the United States from Jalisco, Mexico, and her mother is white. Her family maintained strong cultural ties for her.

For example, uncles and aunts (tíos y tías) often came by her home in North Idaho growing up. And Galaviz remembers fresh tamales for Christmas, with a chain of family members spreading the masa and passing it to others to finish the dish.

She did not, however, have a quinceañera — because no one would have known what that was where she grew up, Galaviz explained. It would have been a “fish out of water situation,” she said, so instead Galaviz simply had a big birthday party. A quinceañera is a rite of passage celebrated at a girl’s 15th birthday.

Before she went to her university, the first on either side of her family to do so, her father took her on a three-week pilgrimage to Mexico to “anchor in” her roots.

Galaviz is not the first Hispanic legislator in Idaho but she is the only one now, something she keeps in mind when she sees legislation that targets some in the Latino and immigrant communities. For example, lawmakers in 2024 tried to remove “non-emergency health care benefits ” from undocumented immigrants.

“I am keenly aware of where the roots of my family come from,” Galaviz said. “I take it personally, because it is personal. Instead of getting upset about it, though, you work hard to help people understand who folks are and what they do, and how they contribute to the state of Idaho.”

Galaviz also provides Latino representation in school. She has held a big Día de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration in her classroom, for instance.

Galaviz said she’d like to work on getting more Latino Idahoans into education jobs, to better represent the portion of Idaho’s growing Hispanic population. Latino Idahoans make up 13% of the state’s population but around 17% of all births in 2021 were Latino, according to a report from the Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs.

“We’re going to celebrate each other and where we come from,” Galaviz said. “And recognize differences as strengths.”