As a boy, Ruben Gallego slept on the floor of a suburban Chicago apartment. Today, his goal is the floor of the US Senate
EVERGREEN PARK, Ill. -- As Ruben Gallego retraced the daily walk he made a quarter century ago from the small first-floor Pulaski Road apartment he shared with his mother and three sisters to Evergreen Park Community High School, the memories of a sometimes difficult childhood came back quickly.
There were the taunts and bullying he endured as a kid from one of the first Latino families to move into the community. There was the juggling act of taking his younger siblings to school and back while his mother, Elisa, worked as a secretary, and the odd jobs he held to help the family make ends meet.
And there were the times he recalled “hearing my mom crying just because of the stress that she was dealing with.”
Sleeping on the floor because there was no money for bedding, “I just remember it being the middle of the night and I just started crying, not because I was angry or mad. I felt I had to succeed to get everybody out.”
For much of his 44 years, Gallego has struggled to fit in. He successfully competed for a coveted scholarship to an elite college, but found himself unable to relate to his Ivy League classmates. He joined the Marine Corps Reserve and watched his best friend die in combat in Iraq, and subsequently suffered from post traumatic stress syndrome. He eventually made his home in Arizona, where he channeled his business marketing acumen toward a career in politics.
Now Gallego, Evergreen Park Community High School class of 1998, Harvard class of 2004, corporal in Lima Company 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment 2005-2006, and a member of Congress since 2015, thinks he knows where he might next fit best: The United States Senate.
Gallego is the only major Democratic candidate in one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate races. He’s looking to replaceDemocrat-turned-independent U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who has disappointed Democrats with her supportKari Lake, a former TV news anchor and acolyte of former President Donald Trump, is running in the Republican primary for the seat.
