The October 20th US Rotary speaker will be Senator Pramila Jayapal. An Indian-American activist and politician. A Democrat, she has represented the 37th legislative district in the Washington State Senate since 2015. Before her election she was a Seattle-based civil rights activist, serving until 2012 as the founder and executive director of OneAmerica, a pro-immigration advocacy group.
In January 2016, Jayapal declared her candidacy for Congress in Washington’s 7th congressional district, after Congressman Jim McDermott announced his retirement. She finished with 40% in the August 2 primary and advanced to the general election in November.
She was born in India and raised in Indonesia and Singapore. She came to the United States in 1982, at the age of 16, to attend college. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and an MBA from Northwestern University in Chicago.