Members of Congress are always looking for people who have proven that they can present themselves well to the public, so it's probably no surprise that they hire their fair share of beauty queens.
One of the latest beauty pageant winners to grace a congressional office is Alexis Hermosillo, who recently joined the Avondale office of Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) as staff assistant. In 2014, she was crowned Miss Belleza Latina International.
The Arizona native was vice president of a non-profit focused on empowering Latina women personally and professionally and has long been active in the pageant scene, which she used as a platform to mentor and empower Latina girls.
"My whole point in getting into pageants is to knock down those stereotypes and encourage girls," Hermosillo said in a 2013 interview with AZLatinos.com. "I try to take all the values that my parents instilled in me to really show that there are Latinas [who] are really successful and going for what they want."
She studied interdisciplinary arts and performance and Spanish at Arizona State University. She also attended the Walker Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication where she focused on broadcast journalism. Hermosillo is also pursuing her doctoral degree in organizational leadership at Grand Canyon University.
