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PROPOSED RESOLUTION
HONORING SONIA SILVA ON HER 70TH BIRTHDAY AND COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP AND SERVICE
WHEREAS, Sonia Silva has been a community leader and example of compassion and dedication to those on the margins for the past 50 years; and
WHEREAS, Sonia Silva was born on December 28th, 1950 and raised her 4 children and six grandchildren as a single-parent; and
WHEREAS, Sonia Silva co-founded El Hogar del Ni?o in 1972 to serve the families and youth in Pilsen; and
WHEREAS, Sonia Silva co-founded Latino Youth in 1974, an alternative high school for those pushed out of the educational system; and
WHEREAS, Sonia Silva availed herself of an education-as a first generation college student-in child development at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago State University, and the School Service Administration at the University of Chicago where she learned the importance of advocating for systemic change at the policy-level; and
WHEREAS, Sonia Silva felt an enormous gratitude for the education she received and decided to pay it forward by working for Designs for Change, an educational research and reform organization; and
WHEREAS, Sonia Silva went on to work in the administration of the late, and great, Mayor Harold Lee Washington; first, in support of the Department of Personnel's goals on Affirmative Action and, second, in support of the Department of Human Services' reform of Title XX social service programs; and
WHEREAS, Sonia Silva continued her neighborhood-level civic engagement by becoming the Chief of Staff to Jes?s G. "Chuy" Garc?a, then Alderman of Chicago's 22nd Ward, in 1989; and
WHEREAS, Sonia Silva became a national icon when she was elected in 1995 as the first Latina State Representative in Illinois; and
WHEREAS, Sonia Silva sponsored, co-sponsored and passed numerous legislative initiatives directed toward expanding educational funding; particularly the construction of 6 schools on the southwest side of Chicago, increasing acce...
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