Learn about the history of Dominican Guillermo Linares

Guillermo Linares Born in 1951 in Cabrera, Dominican Republic, he came to the United States at the age of 14 and a few years later became the first Dominican immigrant to serve on the New York City Council.

According to Linares, he arrived in the United States without knowing a word in English and after living in a house without a floor in the Dominican Republic and, once in New York, he drove a taxi to pay for his university education.

He obtained undergraduate and graduate degrees from City College and a professional diploma in administration and supervision of the Fordham University. He also earned a doctorate in education from Teachers College in the Columbia University.

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It was in 1991, when Linares marked its first milestone by becoming the first immigrant Dominican to be elected to the New York City Council, a mark that led him to proclaim himself the first Dominican to be elected to public office in the United States.

However, the 2010 study titled Dominicans of New Jersey: a decade of achievementsauthored by María Teresa Feliciano of the Institute of Latino Studies and Néstor Montilla of the Common Roots Project, identified the discrepancy in Linares’ self-naming, noting that a woman named Kay Palacios she was elected in the same year to the City Council of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

In this role he advocated for education, health services, and affordable housing. He left in 2001 because of term limits.

In 1995, Linares was appointed to the White House Initiative for Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americansand four years later President Bill Clinton appointed him to chair this initiative.

From 2004 to 2009 he was commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs under the mandate of Democrat Michael Bloomberg. In this position where his mission was to connect immigrants with the government and city services.

Linares also represented district 72 (Washington Heights, Inwood and Marble Hill) in the New York State Assembly, a position he held from 2011 to 2016.

In 2011 he was awarded the prize Great Immigrants by Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Linares, the eldest of nine children of a marriage made up of a tailor and a seamstress.

The family entered the United States with tourist visasstaying longer than allowed in the North American country and later applied for a green or residence card.

Linares became a US citizen during his second year at the City CollegeAfter receiving his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, he accepted a job as a teacher.