[7][8] In 2010, Frank Sharry of America's Voice, an immigration reform advocacy group, said of Gutiérrez: "He's as close as the Latino community has to a Martin Luther King figure.

After his freshman year at St. Michael's High School, his parents moved the family to their hometown of San Sebastián, Puerto Rico.

[15] In 1976, while a senior at Northeastern Illinois, he began driving a cab in order to raise enough funds to visit his long-time girlfriend, Soraida, in Puerto Rico.

[16] Gutiérrez eventually found work as a Chicago Public School teacher and later a child abuse caseworker with the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services.

[17] In 1983, Gutiérrez left his job with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services to run against incumbent Dan Rostenkowski for 32nd ward Democratic committeeman in the March 1984 primary election.

Rostenkowski, then a twelve-term Congressman and Chair of the powerful House Ways & Means Committee soundly defeated Gutiérrez, with 76% of the vote.

Like the Cook County Coalition for New Politics, the organization aimed to bring together residents of all races in support of progressive reform in Chicago.

[19] The incumbent alderman of the 26th ward, Michael Nardulli, an Italian-American, chose not to seek re-election in the newly drawn majority Latino district.

Manuel Torres, then a member of the Democratic machine and Cook County Commissioner, also entered the race for 26th ward Alderman.

"[19] As a member of the city council, Gutiérrez was a key backer of the 1986 gay rights ordinance – which sought to ban discrimination based upon gender & sexual orientation.

[14] In 1990, a court order created a new "earmuff-shaped" majority Latino congressional district, with two main sections in Chicago connected by a thin corridor in the suburbs.

[22] Despite the district's majority Mexican-American population and Soliz's highly negative campaign, Gutiérrez won the Democratic primary 60%-40%.

In 1994, Gutierrez defeated Soliz in the primary by an even larger margin 64%-36%,[27] and won re-election to a second term in the general election with 75% of the vote.

[31] The next day Gutierrez held a press conference, he endorsed Cook County Commissioner Jesús "Chuy" García for the position.

[32] In 2009, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi appointed Gutiérrez Chair of the Democratic Caucus Immigration Task Force.

[17] Within his district, he ran workshops which helped more than 50,000 people begin the process of becoming US citizens, as well as programs to support education and English language learning among immigrants.

[34][35][36] Gutiérrez also introduced an amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill that created the United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau[17] changing the formula by which banks were assessed to support the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s bailout fund.

[38][39] In his continued efforts to reform immigration, Gutiérrez has participated in two acts of non-violent civil disobedience outside of the White House.

The first took place on May 1, 2010, where, following a speech delivered to hundreds at Lafayette Park, Gutiérrez marched with protesters to the White House and refused to leave until Presidential action was taken on immigration reform or he was arrested.

Many of the protesters who joined Gutiérrez had signs that called for a Presidential moratorium on deportation and criticized recent anti-immigrant legislation passed in Arizona – SB 1070.

Gutiérrez also joined the protesters in criticizing Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's decision to sign the measure allowing racial profiling in the state-level enforcement of immigration laws.

[42] Gutiérrez was the first elected official to sponsor a version of the DREAM Act – legislation to allow undocumented youth brought to the United States as minors a pathway to citizenship – in 2001.

So one of the tenets of our bill will be comprehensive immigration reform, has to mean—has to mean—to protecting all workers.Following CIR-ASAP's defeat in the Congress, Gutiérrez has been a main backer of the DREAM Act in the House.

[17] Gutiérrez called former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley a "champion" of immigration in 2014 when the two were working to oppose the White House's deportation policy.

[17] Gutiérrez also successfully expanded healthcare coverage to those exposed to Agent Orange and high levels of radiation during military service.

In the late 1990s and the 2000s, he was a leader in the Vieques movement, which sought to stop the United States military from using the inhabited island as a bomb testing ground.

In May 2000, Gutiérrez was one of nearly two hundred people arrested (including fellow congresswoman Nydia Velázquez) for refusing to leave the natural habitat the US military wished to continue using as a bombing range.

The workers had lost their jobs without advance notice, allegedly due to a refusal of credit from Bank of America after the bailout of the financial system.

[55] When the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) declared its plan to close down the Douglas Branch of the then Blue Line – which serves primarily working-class Latino communities – Gutiérrez successfully secured $320 million in federal funding to reconstruct Blue Line stops and pressed the CTA to re-instate full service.

[59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67] Upon arriving to the United States House of Representatives, Gutiérrez attempted to organize the 63 incoming Democratic freshmen to support a reform agenda.