Rosa Chiquichano


Rosa Laudelina Chiquichano is a Tehuelche Argentine lawyer and politician who served as Deputy for the province of Chubut between 2007 and 2011. When assuming the position, she was the first person from original Argentine people to be member of the peoples from Argentina to be a member of the National Congress.

Biography

Her great-great-grandfather was a Tehuelce cacique Juan Chiquichano and his great-grandfather, also cacique Adolfo Nahuelquir Chiquichano.
She completed her education in Trelew, and became teacher. She later studied law at the Esquel headquarters of the National University of Patagonia San Juan Bosco, graduating in 1999. Thus she became the first lawyer of Tehuelche origin.
She was alternate councilor in Trelew and served as provincial legislator from 2003 until the 2007 legislative elections, she was elected national deputy to occupy second place in the Front for Victory list. She was sworn in on 5 December of that year, wearing a quillango and giving a speech in Tehuelche language.
In the Chamber of Deputies of the Nation, she was second vice president of the commission of cooperative, mutual and non-governmental organizations, and member of the commissions of constitutional affairs, vocal culture, human rights and guarantees, population and human development, and natural resources and conservation of the human environment. In the position she was also a deputy to the Latin American Parliament.