California 99.84%
Texas 0.16%
Mrs. Leticia Vasquez Wilson is the proud daughter of Mexican immigrants. Her mother, Olga, and father, Luis, raised six children in Lynwood, all of which pursued higher education. Leticia is a home-grown candidate and was raised in Lynwood. Leticia’s roots in the 33rd Senate District run deep, and she attended Our Lady of Victory School in Compton, St. Pius X High School in Downey and graduated from Lynwood High School. She still lives in Lynwood and is married to attorney Ronald Wilson with two children.
Early on Leticia made a conscious decision to dedicate her life to public service. She entered the workforce at an early age and as a teenager participated in a Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) youth employment program working at St. Francis Hospital in Lynwood. Later, she was employed at the Tweedy Miles Miller’s Outpost in the city of South Gate. She worked her way through college as a teacher’s assistant for Los Angeles Unified School District. On weekends, Leticia worked at Su Casa Familia Crisis & Support Center in Lakewood where she assisted families victimized by domestic violence. She later earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Criminal Justice and a Master’s Degree in Public Policy & Administration from California State University, Long Beach. She earned a second Master’s Degree in Education from Pepperdine University. Leticia is a certified domestic violence and sexual assault counselor.
After graduating college, Leticia worked for the Young Women’s Christians Association – an organization dedicated to providing services aimed at empowering women and eliminating racism. Her work in the feminist movement took her to Long Beach’s Women’s Shelter. During her time there, she worked with both victims and perpetrators of domestic violence helping them complete 52-week programs aimed at ending the cycle of violence that plagued their lives. Mrs. Vasquez-Wilson is a lifelong educator and started her professional teaching career in 1999 in Lynwood Unified School District and completed her teacher service at South Gate’s Stanford Elementary School. She has taught undergraduate students in the California Community College system and graduate students at National University. She left teaching for several years after being recruited to work for former U.S. Congressman Mervyn M. Dymally in the California legislature.
Leticia Vasquez Wilson is a 2002 alumna of Hispanas Organized for Political Equality Leadership Institute (HLI). She is the former president of the Southeast Chapter of National Women’s Political Caucus. Leticia currently serves as president of Strong Women Healing Their Community – a women’s organization that hosts an annual women’s empowerment conference during women’s history month serving the communities in the 33rd Senate District. She has been a member of the South Gate Multicultural Women’s Club and Lynwood Women’s Club and has been recognized for her public service by numerous community organizations and elected officials, including the Young Women’s Christians Association.
She has been active with the Democratic Party and their organizations for the past fifteen years and has served eight years as delegate to the Los Angeles County Democratic Party Central Committee and California Democratic State Central Committee.
In 2007, she was named Democrat of the Year in Assembly District 63. She is a member of Democratic Women's Study Club of Long Beach, the San Pedro Democratic Club, the Yes We Can Democratic Club, and the Southeast Los Angeles Democrats. She has previously been a member of the Long Beach Young Democrats, the Hubert Humphrey Democratic Club, the Mexican American Democratic Club, and the New Frontier Democratic Club to name a few.
Leticia worked on the legislative staff of the late Assemblyman Mervyn M. Dymally from 2003 to 2009. Her duties as a staffer in the district office to his Sacramento office and across the state of California for public hearings and other business conducted by the legislature. During that time, she had an opportunity to learn more about the inner workings of the state capital. She has spent time in Sacramento for the past twenty years and her first visit was in 1996 when she met with a coalition of pro-women organizations from across the state of California, including the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault. In the following years, she returned to Sacramento in her role as a Lynwood Mayor and Councilmember advocating for funding for local parks projects and other legislation impacting local government. As a union representative for the Compton College Federation of Employees, she was in Sacramento advocating for funding and oversight for restoration of the accreditation of Compton College.
In 2003, Leticia Vasquez Wilson was elected to the Lynwood City Council and served to 2007. In 2005, she made history on the Lynwood City Council by being chosen by her fellow Council members as its first Latina mayor. At the time, she led one of the city's most aggressive lobbying efforts, bringing millions of dollars for new parks, schools, housing, shopping centers, streets, and a new state-of-the-art senior citizen center. Leticia is currently elected to the Central Basin Municipal Water District Board of Directors representing its fourth district. She was elected in 2013 and has brought numerous water conservation programs into our neighborhoods, including the popular ‘Turf it Out” that provided $450 million in rebates to residents to remove lawns replace them with drought tolerant plants.
In addition, Leticia was recently selected with the overwhelming support of her colleagues to serve as Secretary of the prestigious Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD). The MWD is our nation’s largest water wholesaler. Its Board of Directors manages over a 1.6-billion-dollar budget serving 19 million residents across 5,200 square miles in Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. It owns and operates the Colorado River Aqueduct and the entire system used to deliver water to its 26-member agencies. Vasquez currently serves as a Member of the Communications and Legislation Committee; Conservation and Local Resources Committee. She has served on the MWD Board of Directors since 2013.
