Xochitl Hinojosa, former press secretary for Labor Secretary Tom Perez, has begun work with the Hillary Clinton campaign to oversee a division of her media operation.
Hinojosa, 30, was hired as director of Coalitions Press, further building the presence of Latinos in the Clinton camp. The coalition media division of the campaign will house media operations for Latino, African American and other media.
Her hiring creates a second front in the family in the effort to have a Democrat succeed President Barack Obama in he White House. Hinojosa's father, Gilberto Hinojosa, is chairman of the Texas Democratic Party.
Although Republicans control every office in the state, about a third of voters in the state are Latino. However, more than a third of that Latino electorate has been a reliable vote for Republican candidates. Clinton won 66 percent of the Latino vote in Texas in the 2008 primary, according to Pew Research Center.
Hinojosa, originally from Brownsville, left the Labor Department for the job. She last was the senior managing director handling press operations and crisis communications at the Cabinet agency. She also handled media at the Department of Justice and for Perez while he oversaw the civil Rights Division at DOJ.
Her hiring follows the campaign's hiring of Lorella Praeli, a legal resident who was in the country illegally for years and has been a vocal activist on immigration reform, as her Latino outreach director and Amanda Renteria to be her national political director.
Other Latinos in the campaign are Matt Ortega, digital communications director; Rebecca Leal, deputy national finance director, operations; Emmy Ruiz, Nevada State director and Jorge Neri, Nevada Organizing director.
_ Suzanne Gamboa