Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Jan 19: Hyderabad-born Aruna Miller, 58, a career transportation engineer, has created history by becoming the first Indian-American politician to be elected as the Lieutenant Governor of Maryland. She was sworn in as the 10th lieutenant governor on Wednesday.
At the inauguration ceremony, Miller credited her success to her family who had immigrated to the United States from India. Her father, a mechanical engineer was the first to arrive in the US as a student in the late 1960s, then he took the entire family and she arrived in the country in 1972 when she was seven years old.
As per information, Miller was part of a historic Democratic ticket that won in November last year and also gave Maryland its first Black governor, its first Black attorney general and its first female comptroller. She has served two terms in the Maryland House of Delegates from 2010 to 2018. She also ran for Congress but lost.
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During her oath-taking ceremony, Miller shared the story of her arrival from India, making a special mention of her unforgettable first day of school.
“None of them looked like me. And I couldn’t speak a word of English, but I wanted to fit in. So when we went to the cafeteria, I had a plan. I was going to do exactly what everyone else was doing,” said Miller.
The newly sworn-in Lt Governor took her oath on the Bhagwat Gita and said that as a woman of colour, she has spent most of her life trying to fit into a space that didn’t have her in mind as an immigrant or a woman of colour.
Miller’s victory is also due to her popularity among Indian Americans in Maryland where several Republican, pro-Trump supporters came out to support her.