2025 PathMakers to Peace Recipient: Congresswoman Nydia M. Velázquez

Congresswoman Nydia M. Velázquez is serving her seventeenth term as Representative for New York’s 7th Congressional District in the 119th Congress. She is the Ranking Member of the House Small Business Committee, a senior member of the Financial Services Committee, and serves on the Committee on Natural Resources.

Velázquez has broken barriers throughout her career. In 1992, she became the first Puerto Rican woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She later became the first Hispanic woman to serve as Ranking Member of a full House committee and, in 2006, the first Latina to chair one.

Born in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, Velázquez was the first in her family to graduate college, later earning her master’s from NYU and teaching at CUNY. Since her election to Congress, she has been a steadfast advocate for working families, small businesses, affordable housing, education, and health care across New York City.