House of Representatives, U.S.

Historically, the demographics of elected federal officials have lagged behind that of the rest of the country when it comes to diversity, though the legislative branch does not lag as far behind as the executive branch. Today, the 113th Congress is the most diverse in history, consisting of 43 blacks (8 percent), 32 Latinos (6 percent), 30 Asians (5.6 percent), four Arab Americans, and one Caribbean American, as well as the first Buddhist senator (Mazie Hirondo), the first Hindu representative (Tulsi Gabbard), the first professed atheist (Congresswoman Krysten Sinema), and the first Unitarian Universalist (Congresswoman Ami Bera).

Various European immigrant groups became integrated into the congressional makeup over time. The first Polish American congressman, for instance, was John Casimir Kleczka, elected in 1918 to represent the 4th District of Wisconsin, a state with a significant Polish population. The first Italian American congressman was Foster Furcolo, the son of an Italian immigrant father and an Irish immigrant mother, who moved to Massachusetts from Connecticut after law school in 1937 and was elected to represent the 2nd District in 1948. In 1957, he became the state's first Italian American governor.

Jewish participation in the legislature dates to the colonial period, when Francis Salvador (who was later killed in the Revolutionary War) served in the legislature of the colony of South Carolina. The first Jewish American elected to the U.S. Congress was Lewis Charles Levin, who served Pennsylvania's 1st District from 1845 to 1851. Levin was a prominent Know-Nothing, a mid-19th-century political movement that was principally concerned with limiting immigration and limiting the influence of immigrants already in the country. Levin's own objections were less to immigration itself and more to the increasing presence of Catholicism in the United States. Anti-Catholic concerns, and fears that loyalty to the Catholic pope would override loyalty to the American republic (a fear revived by the second Ku Klux Klan in the early 20th century and the opponents of presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in 1960), were at the heart of this anti-immigration platform. A lawyer who lectured on temperance, Levin began his anti-Catholic crusade in 1843 in response to a local school excusing Catholic students from Bible study class because the Protestant King James Bible was used by the district. He soon became the leader of a Pennsylvania-based nativist movement and was elected on an anti-Catholic platform, serving three terms.

Most states have been slower to elect female officials. The first female Jewish American elected to Congress was Florence Prag Kahn, only the fifth female congressional representative, serving California's 4th District from 1925 to 1937. Kahn originally ran in a special election to fill the vacancy left by her husband Julius Kahn, who had served from 1899 to 1903 and again from 1905 until 1924; she, too, was reelected numerous times. Both Kahns were Republicans. Julius had been concerned with military matters and national security, and Florence became the first woman to serve on the House Military Affairs Committee. After she left Congress in 1937, she continued for the next decade to encourage women to become more involved with politics.

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