Nevada seats first Fil-Am in State Legislature

Erica Mosca is the first Filipino American elected to the Nevada Legislature. WEBSITE

An education advocate is first person of Filipino descent in the Nevada Legislature.

Assemblywoman Erica Mosca, 36, represents the heavily Democratic east Las Vegas Assembly District 14. She will serve on the Assembly Committees on Education, Judiciary and Revenue.

Mosca won 65 percent of over 11,000 votes in her district in November, to defeat her Republican Shawn Stamper. She replaced Democratic AssemblywomanMaggie Carlton, who was termed out, according to the Review Journal.

She was born in San Diego, California in 1986. Her Filipino immigrant father, Eric, came to the US at 17, taught himself English and earned his GED (high school equivalency).

Mosca’s family moved around California to seek better opportunities, her father and U.S.-born mother working several jobs at a time to make a living.

“We’re a very loving family, very culturally Filipino … [Growing up] they always said education will be the way that makes things easier in the future,” Mosca told The Nevada Independent.

The first in her family to go to college, she earned a B.A. in journalism on a full scholarship from Boston University in 2008. She also graduated from Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Erica, husband Nick Smith (a US Air Force serviceman) and her parents Eric and Carol Mosca. WEBSITE

Mosca moved to Nevada to teach with Teach For America, a nonprofit that places recruits to teach in low-income communities, where her firsthand experience led her to focus on improving education and working people’s access to it.

“One of my bills is going to propose that young people, even if they owe a fee, are able to get their transcript,” she told the Review Journal.

“It’s not a fee waiver, but we just find another way to make sure they pay for that debt so that they can do things like transfer, apply for teacher licensure, which requires a transcript.”