Aurea Ortiz

Aurea Ortiz is a 47-year old counselor for at-risk youth in Bethlehem, where she runs the Alcohol and Drug Abuse youth program. Bethlehem, known worldwide for the now closed Bethlehem Steel Works, is located in the Lehigh Valley northeast of Allentown. Although part of the area has a high Democratic performance, the region is highly swing and routinely votes for whomever wins the statewide elections, and the county board has a narrow 5-4 Democratic majority. Bethlehem is an area that is becoming highly Latino/a, yet like most areas the elected officials haven't kept up with that diversity - there were no Latino/a representatives on the board. She ran for the Bethlehem Area School Board to unite all sections of the community, regardless of race, gender or religion, to come together to help all of the community achieve a quality education. She won election in one of three new district seats created as the result of a federal voting rights act lawsuit in 2008. The lawsuit produced a total of six new at-large seats and three district seats. We recruited Aurea to run for office with the assistance of several Latino organizations. The election of Aurea has established a Latino presence on board in this city with a 30% population of people of color.