Gay California Congressman Will Swear-In with Superman #1 Comic Book

Although California Representative-elect Robert Garcia has not yet been sworn in due to the current ongoing stalemate over electing a Speaker of the House, he's ready to make his swearing-in ceremony memorable and unique nonetheless.

On January 3, Garcia tweeted that he'd be proudly sworn in to Congress on the U.S. Constitution. Underneath the Constitution will be three items Garcia says mean a lot to him: a photo of his parents that he lost to COVID, his citizenship certificate, and the original 1939 Superman #1 comic on loan from the Library of Congress.

The Congressman is an avid comic book fan, previously sharing in November that with access to the largest public comic collection in the country, he simply had a hard time deciding which to check out first.

"I came to America at the age of 5 as a Spanish speaker," Garcia told People. "As a kid, I would pick up comics at old thrift shops and pharmacies and that's how I learned to read and write in English."

Garcia also cited his proudest moment as becoming a U.S. citizen with his mother, Gaby O'Donnell, in 2001. He walked his mother down the aisle when she met his stepfather, Greg. During his time as mayor of Long Beach, Calif. in 2020, he announced that both his mother and his stepfather had both died from the COVID-19 virus within days of each other less than a month after receiving their diagnosis.

"I'm forever grateful to Greg for being a good man and husband to her," he tweeted at the time. "I'll miss them both greatly."

Garcia also told People not having his parents around at this pivotal time was very difficult.

"We grew up very, very poor and [my mother] worked as a health care worker at the same clinic for more than 25 years," he said. "To go from immigrant to seeing her son sworn in to Congress would be a huge deal."

As to his reasoning for choosing the Superman comic, he said, "Superman is the first comic I read as a kid. He was an immigrant from another planet who was raised to believe in truth and justice -- and those are things I value. So, definitely, there's a personal connection there."

Garcia's election into the U.S. House of Representatives makes him the first openly gay immigrant in Congress.

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