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| Affiliation | Democratic |
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| Name | Sonia Chang-Díaz |
| Address | 3 Bremen Ter
Boston, Massachusetts , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
March 31, 1978
(46 years)
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| Contributor | RBH |
| Last Modifed | RBH
Jun 14, 2022 07:04pm |
| Tags |
Chinese - Hispanic -
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| Info | Sonia Rosa Chang-Díaz is an American politician who represents the 2nd Suffolk District in the Massachusetts Senate. She is the first Latina elected to the Massachusetts Senate.
Chang-Díaz has both Chinese and Spanish heritage through her father Franklin Chang-Díaz, a Costa Rican-American physicist and former NASA astronaut. Sonia Chang-Díaz was born shortly after her father earned his Doctor of Science degree from MIT. Chang-Díaz grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, where her mother was a social worker, and both her parents were active volunteers in the community.
Before seeking election Chang-Díaz was a teacher in the Lynn school system, a teacher in the Boston Public Schools system, and an outreach director for the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center. She lives in Jamaica Plain. She is married.
In 2006, incumbent state senator Dianne Wilkerson failed to submit nomination papers with enough signatures for certification on the Democratic primary election, requiring her to run a write-in campaign for the party's nomination. Chang-Díaz entered the race as write-in as well, challenging Wilkerson in a minority-majority district covering a number of the inner-city neighborhoods of Boston. Wilkerson won the nomination and was re-elected.
In 2008, Chang-Díaz challenged Wilkerson again for the party's nomination, with both candidates appearing on the ballot. In the September 2008 primary election, Chang-Díaz won the Democratic nomination. Chang-Díaz won the general election on November 4, 2008 and was sworn into office in January 2009.
Senator Chang-Diaz has advocated for several tax increases to the citizens of Massachusetts, to include increasing the income tax from 5.3% to 5.9. She was also a strong advocate against the three strikes bill, in which a person who had been convicted of three violent felonies would no longer be granted any type of parole. Chang-Diaz also fought strongly against any reform to the abuses in the EBT system.
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