WASHINGTON, DC–Last week Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) celebrated her re-election to US House of Representatives and was sworn into session. She took her oath of office on the Bhagavad Gita once again.
After the ceremony, family, friends, and supporters gathered together and visited Rep. Gabbard and congratulated her.
“Tulsi shared how the Bhagavad Gita continues to serve as an inspiration in her life, and how grateful she is to the people of Hawaii for allowing her to continue to serve in Congress,” said a statement from her office.
Separately, sealing a historic breakthrough for Indian-Americans, five were sworn-in on earlier this month as members of the US Congress — one of them, Kamala Harris, becoming the first to become a Senator.
Ami Bera, who was the only Indian-American in the 435-member House of Representatives and re-elected in the November elections, was joined by the four others, increasing the Indian-American contingent to five members in the Congress.
All five are Democrats and three of them — Harris, Bera and Representative Ro Khanna — are from California. The other two Representatives are Raja Krishnamoorthi from Illinois and Pramila Jayapal from Washington state.
Rep. Gabbard spent her life growing up in Hawai‘i. As a teenager, she co-founded an environmental non-profit called Healthy Hawai’i Coalition, focused on educating children about protecting Hawaii’s environment, according to her official biography.
An advocate for environmental policy, Rep. Gabbard was elected to the Hawai‘i State Legislature in 2002 when she was just 21 years old, becoming the youngest person ever elected in the state. A year later, she joined the Hawai‘i Army National Guard to serve Hawai‘i and our country. In 2004, Tulsi volunteered to deploy with her fellow soldiers, becoming the first state official to voluntarily step down from public office to serve in a war zone.
In 2012, she was elected to the United States House of Representatives, serving Hawaii’s 2nd District. She is one of the first two female combat veterans to ever serve in the U.S. Congress, and also its first Hindu member.
