Rep. Cooper's chief of staff Lisa Quigley has Mexico experience

Also: Hispanic identity through the eyes of congressional interns

The Nashville Post reported here in January that U.S. Congressman Jim Cooper (D-Nashville) hired Lisa Quigley as his chief of staff. Quigley's family spent the last three years in Mexico, according to the story:

For the past three years, Quigley has been living in Mexico City with her family, and has worked as Director of the U.S.-Mexico Congressional Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. ... Quigley will live in Nashville, splitting time between Cooper's Nashville and Washington offices. ... Larry Harrington, Quigley's husband, a Tennessee native and Vanderbilt Law School grad, is well known in Nashville political circles and is concluding an assignment with the Inter-American Development Bank. Harrington, brother of former Nashville General Sessions Judge Penny Harrington, served in the office of then Vice President Al Gore before being appointed US Executive Director of IADB by President Bill Clinton. At the conclusion of his presidential appointment, he stayed on to work for the bank in Mexico.

Speaking of Washington, this Washington Post article from last July provides a unique insight into U.S. Hispanic identity through the eyes of congressional interns. Here is an excerpt:

Washington makes them mad. And it inspires them.

It also has made them think deeply about who they are, and where they fit into this turbulent feat of political imagination and plain winging-it called America.

Such existential ruminations spark other considerations: Whom do you date? How good (or bad) is your Spanish? How comfortable are you with your skin tone? (Too dark? Too light?) Are you American enough? Is the reputation of la Raza riding on your every move -- or is that perpetual feeling of being watched just an illusion?

Photo by David Porter. Licensed under Creative Commons.