PERSON: Pramila Jayapal

U.S. House of Representatives

Member of Congress

Pramila Jayapal (/prəˈmɪlə ˈdʒaɪəpɑːl/ prə-MILL-ə JY-ə-pahl; born September 21, 1965) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative from Washington’s 7th congressional district since 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, she represents most of Seattle, as well as some suburban areas of King County. Jayapal represented the 37th legislative district in the Washington State Senate from 2015 to 2017. She is the first Indian-American woman to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. The district’s first female member of Congress, she is also the first Asian American to represent Washington at the federal level.

Before entering electoral politics, Jayapal was a Seattle-based civil rights activist, serving until 2012 as the executive director of OneAmerica, a pro-immigrant advocacy group. She founded the organization, originally called Hate Free Zone, after the September 11 attacks. Jayapal co-chaired the Congressional Progressive Caucus from 2019 to 2021, henceforth serving as chair. She serves on both the Judiciary Committee and Budget Committee.

Jayapal was born into a Tamil family in Chennai, India, to Maya Jayapal, a writer, and Jayapal Menon, a marketing professional. She spent most of her childhood in Indonesia and Singapore. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1982, at age 16, to attend college. She earned a BA from Georgetown University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Jayapal worked for PaineWebber as a financial analyst after graduating from college. At PaineWebber, she began to work on development projects from Chicago to Thailand. Later, she briefly worked in sales and marketing for a medical company before moving into the public sector in 1991.

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