Harlingen, Texas – South Texas native Beatriz Reynoso has known for years that she wanted to run for office. She shared with TAG24 NEWS what made her decide to campaign for Congress in 2022 and what she hopes to accomplish if elected.

Reynoso's dreams of entering politics began during an elementary school Career Day. After one of her classmates announced his intention to become president, Reynoso thought, "That's a good idea. I want to be president too."

Her teacher responded that there had never been a female president and that reality was unlikely to change.

"I was like, 'I'll show you, lady,'" Reynoso recalled to TAG24.

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When incumbent Rep. Filemón Vela announced he would not run for reelection in Texas' 34th congressional district, he opened up an opportunity for new challengers to take his spot.

That's when Reynoso decided the time was right to run for Congress, especially after Texas' winter storm and electric grid failure in February 2020. Living in poverty as a child, Reynoso said she was used to going without water and heat.

"I grew up like this," she remembered, adding, "I always knew that these were political policies that were barriers to people moving up in the ladder of society."

"Struggling throughout childhood, that was a really important experience for me because it just gave me so much empathy – and mostly rage – to want to stop it."

Reynoso sees entering the TX-34 congressional race as the way she can have the greatest impact in addressing the needs of her community, including poverty, inadequate worker protections, and lack of access to healthcare.

Vicente Gonzalez, who currently represents the neighboring 15th congressional district, has since announced he will run in the TX-34 Democratic primary because it's considered a safer blue district than his own.

Reynoso has remained undaunted by Gonzalez's switch: "That made some people drop out, but I'm still trucking along. I'm not going to be intimidated by the power that they want, especially because I knew that they don't care."

"I know that some of the people who are running are Republicans, but they're running as Democrats because they can't win as a Republican here," she added. "I can't let people who don't care about the district win because they just feel like it, because they're entitled."

One of the foundational experiences in Reynoso's life was her time spent in the US Air Force from 2007 to 2015.

"I knew that joining the military was going to be my path out of poverty and breaking those generational curses," she said.

Serving in the military allowed her to purchase a home, buy a car, and get a college degree – something she never thought she would be able to do.

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"I didn't know what SATs were, ACTs were, why you were supposed to take them, when you were supposed to take them. But they made sure that I knew that the [Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery] would get me out of class and I better take the ASVAB because you might want to join the military," she said of her schooldays.

She held various roles in the Air Force, working at different points as a corrections specialist, a security manager for the largest non-nuclear squadron, and a public health technician.

Being a veteran plays well with older voters in the Rio Grande Valley, she said, but it also leads to tensions among younger progressive voters.

"The more progressive people really don't like veterans," she said. "They think I'm pro-military-industrial complex, and I'm not. I'm pro-peace."

"I joined the military to survive, and I guess they just don't care. That's kind of a place where there's a weird divide in the progressive movement," she continued.

"I don't regret my decisions because I was just trying to survive."

Reynoso is taking what she has learned through her own experience to fight on behalf of veterans and everyday people in South Texas.

One of her top priorities is increasing access to healthcare. Despite the large number of veterans in the Rio Grande Valley, there is no VA hospital in the region.

Reynoso herself must sometimes wait months or drive hours for appointments to treat chronic pain issues, something she says is not possible for many veterans who have to work or cannot drive.

But even for civilians, affordable healthcare is not easy to access. Many people are uninsured or underinsured. Most wait until their medical conditions become critical before they seek care.

Additionally, Reynoso is a big proponent of marijuana legalization: "Marijuana is really important to me because all of the painkillers and opioids I've been prescribed could kill me. I have a really high tolerance because I've been taking them so long. A normal dose won't help me anymore. Marijuana does."

Apart from the health benefits, she believes investing in the billion-dollar industry would bring good-wage jobs to her rural district.

Reynoso is also calling for a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients, TPS holders, and essential workers and rejects the idea of increasing electronic border surveillance. "It creates unsafe environments for communities that aren't harming anybody otherwise," she explained.

Her vision for change extends beyond national borders. After being deployed to Afghanistan, Reynoso said she "saw the harm that our foreign policy has on the entire world." In Congress, she would focus on addressing the damage caused by interventionist policy and making sure US aid money is used effectively to help people on the ground.

Growing labor unions, strengthening worker protections, and raising the minimum wage are other key priorities in her campaign, especially as she says most people in her area work minimum-wage jobs.

From the start of her campaign, Reynoso knew she would keep fundraising at a minimum.

"This is one of the poorest area's in all of the US, and it's just so painful to ask people who don't have money for money."

That lack of fundraising has led to particular challenges: "I want to be able to pay people for their work, and if I don't have money, I can't do that. So, I knew I was going to have to roll up my sleeves and do a lot of the work for myself."

That's why she enrolled in digital classes to learn how to build a website, make graphics and logos, and create videos – all for her campaign.

Reynoso has also received support from fellow progressive congressional candidate Claudia Zapata and her campaign manager, Sema Hernandez. Reynoso and Zapata, who is running in the TX-21 race, developed a friendship after announcing their candidacy in the 2022 primaries.

Female progressives like Reynoso and Zapata have joined in solidarity after years of politicians not doing enough to make substantive changes in their communities, they say.

"My community just wants to be heard. They think they don't matter, and that's absolutely not true," Reynoso insisted.

"They think that the representatives don't care, so I want to make sure they know that, yes, you matter. We want to make sure you get everything that you need, and it's not the profits of companies that are more important than the lives of our community," she continued.

"I think I'm the best candidate because I have lived this struggle, and I don't want anybody else to."

The Texas primaries are set for March 1, 2022, with a voter registration deadline of January 31.