Esmeralda Soria
Office Seeking: CA Assembly (AD-27)
General Election: November 8th, 2022
Provided Biography
Esmeralda Soria serves as a Councilmember for District 1 in Fresno, California. She is the only woman currently serving the City of Fresno council.
Esmeralda was born and raised by Mexican immigrant farmworkers in California’s rural Central Valley. She attended UC Berkeley and earned her Juris Doctorate from UC Davis School of Law focusing on immigration law. In 2018, Esmeralda was one of sixty people throughout the world selected to attend Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Executive Leadership Program.
Esmeralda’s passion has always been to give back and serve her community. She interned at the White House under President Obama, worked for the California State Legislature, and California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation. She has championed water quality and affordability issues along with other environmental justice issues impacting disadvantaged communities.
She continues to work tirelessly to address issues of public safety, unemployment, workforce development, youth engagement and access to education. In her time on the City Council, she has led efforts to hire more firefighters and police officers, build new parks and fire stations, build hundreds of affordable housing units and support small businesses.
In addition, Esmeralda is a community college professor, teaching Judicial Reasoning and Latino Politics. She serves on the board of Fresno County’s Transportation Authority and is the President of the Cal Cities Latino Caucus. She has served as the chair of the Redevelopment Agency and the Fresno Revitalization Corporation and board members on the Fresno Joint Powers Financing Authority, Access Plus Capital, California Latino Economic Institute, Fresno AreaWorkforce Investment Corporation Board and Fresno Regional Workforce Development Board & Executive Committee. She has also served as Trustee to the Dailey Elementary Fresno Innovative Charter Schools Board, in 2018 was appointed to serve on California Governor Gavin Newsom’s transition team and in 2019 as a regional advisor on homelessness.