JoAnna Mendoza, Arizona Democratic congressional candidate: ‘Undocumented people deserve a pathway to citizenship’
As a queer single mother who worked in the fields and grew up near the southern border, the veteran is seeking to win a key swing seat that could help Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives
The smell of tortillas cooking on a comal used to wake JoAnna Mendoza every morning. It was 4 a.m., and her mother was already preparing breakfast for the family: burritos. Soon afterward, they would all board a bus bound for Arizona’s agricultural fields. Mendoza was only nine years old at the time, but she, too, took part in the grueling workdays.
The family survived with the help of a government food assistance program, though even that was sometimes not enough. “I remember one month when we didn’t have gas for heating. So the water for our showers was cold,” she recalls.
Enlisting in the armed forces was her only escape from poverty. She later worked in a congressman’s office, an experience that drew her toward politics.
Today, Mendoza has a distinctive profile: she is a single…