People ask who I am, and the honest answer starts way before any of the political stuff.

I'm the youngest of three, with a brother and sister seven and eight years older than me. My parents emigrated from Germany, so I'm first-generation American. English wasn't my first language. We grew up in a tight-knit German community right here in the northwest suburbs, and I spent a lot of my childhood going back and forth to see grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins.

What that actually meant day to day is that my siblings and I taught our parents how things worked here. Not the other way around. We didn't have a safety net of family nearby, and because my dad ran a small business, we didn't have much of a financial one either. There were plenty of paycheck-to-paycheck stretches. My parents were good at not showing us. Looking back now, I see it clearly.

I was a first-generation college student.

When my applications asked for something called FAFSA, I brought it to my parents and they didn't know what it was — so I said okay, I think I need your tax returns, and I'll figure out the rest myself. I didn't know that wasn't normal until I got to college and my roommates asked, “wait, you do your own FAFSA? Your parents don't handle that?”

I went to the University of Tampa, started as a marine biology major, and switched to psychology and criminology once I realized what actually pulled at me was understanding what people need. I started volunteering. That set the direction for everything since.

My first job out of school was at Little City Foundation, as a direct service professional working in homes with young people who had autism and other developmental disabilities. I made $10 an hour with a bachelor's degree, doing the hardest work I have ever done. That taught me two things at once: how badly we undervalue the people doing direct care, and how much of what I thought mattered didn't.

That took me to Dominican University for my master's in social work, into child welfare, and into policy — we spent time in Springfield advocating, and it stuck in my bones. Policy work matters, and social workers should be at that table.

There's one more piece I think about often.

My eighth-grade teacher, at a private Lutheran school, was the first self-proclaimed feminist I ever met.

We were in religion class and she asked: how do you know God is a man? Why do we call him he? Why isn't it a she? That one question rearranged how I see everything — why we assume a politician should be a man, why we assume working moms can't do this. She came to my swearing-in as village trustee. She's also the teacher who gave us our Illinois Constitution test, which I think about every time I walk into a government building.

So that's who I am. First-gen kid, social worker, mom of two, married to a first-generation guy of my own — his family's from Mexico, Spanish was his first language, and we bond over all the things only first-gen kids understand.

None of it was a plan. All of it was preparation.

Thank you to everyone who continues to show up, speak up, and invest in the work of shaping our shared future. I’m deeply grateful to be on this journey with you.

Let’s keep going—because together, we’re stronger.