Mayra Macias

Mayra Macias is a Chicago native from the Back of the Yards neighborhood running as an Independent for U.S. House in Illinois' 4th Congressional District. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, she was born at Cook County Hospital as the oldest of three children. Her father worked as a city garbage collector with a union job after holding various manual labor positions, and her mother is a home health care worker. Macias is a Yale graduate and former Teach for America educator who became a nationally recognized political strategist, serving as Executive Director of both the Latino Victory Project and Building Back Together, the advocacy group advancing the Biden-Harris policy agenda.

First-generation Mexican-American, first in her family to attend a four-year college. Her parents immigrated from Mexico - her father had an elementary school education and worked manual labor jobs including waste collector for Chicago's Department of Streets and Sanitation, factory work, and lamp making. Her mother attended college in Mexico and stayed home to raise Mayra and her two siblings. The family initially lived with extended relatives before establishing their own home. Growing up in Back of the Yards, they faced neighborhood violence - once finding a bullet hole in their kitchen window.