Indian-origin Pia Dandia has created history by winning from Florida’s 22nd Congressional District in the US midterm election. Democratic Party candidate Pia defeated Republican nominee Casey Askar to secure a place in the US House of Representatives. With this victory, she has become the first Indian-American from Florida to reach the US Congress and the country’s second Indian-American woman to do so. Pramila Jayapal had achieved this distinction before her.
Pia, 39, has family links with Jaipur in Rajasthan. Her parents moved from Jaipur to the United States in the 1980s and settled there. Pia was born and raised in Palm Beach County, Florida. Her father, Dr Rohit Dandia, is a physician, while her mother Bharti founded a Montessori school in the United States.
Pia graduated from Harvard University in Government and earned a master’s degree in education from Boston University. While studying at Harvard, she taught English to children in Delhi’s slum settlements. She later worked as a teacher in schools serving underprivileged communities under the Teach For America programme.
At the age of just 28, she became the founding principal of Democracy Prep Endurance High School in Harlem, New York. She later received a White House Fellowship, under which she worked with the Domestic Policy Council and the US Department of Education. After that, she joined Apple and worked on projects related to the use of technology in education, health and government services.
During the election campaign, Pia made education, inflation, the cost of health services and economic opportunities her key issues. In Florida’s 22nd district, she defeated the Republican candidate and established another new Indian-origin identity in American politics.
