By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
Louisiana’s Anh “Joseph” Quang Cao, a 41-year-old Republican and ex-Jesuit seminarian, has become the first Vietnamese-American to serve in Congress.
According to a report by CathNewsUSA, Mr. Cao, pronounced “Gow”, defeated Democratic Rep. William J. Jefferson in a Dec. 6 runoff election to represent Louisiana’s 2nd District. Jefferson had held the seat since 1991, and no Republican has represented the congressional district that includes New Orleans since 1890.
Cao, a member of Mary Queen of Vietnam Parish in New Orleans, told The Associated Press that his run for political office was motivated by his Catholic faith.
“It was something that I was called to do, literally, in the religion sense,” he said.
According to a biography on his campaign Web site, Cao was born in Saigon, Vietnam, the fifth of eight children. He came to the United States in 1975 at the age of eight and settled in the Houston area where he eventually graduated from Jersey Village High School. In 1990, he earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
The next six year of his life were spent as a Jesuit seminarian in Louisiana where he began his studies for the priesthood. He eventually earned a master’s degree in philosophy from Fordham University in New York in 1995. A year later, after returning to New Orleans to teach philosophy and ethics at Loyola University, he left the Society of Jesus and took a teaching position at a parochial school in Virginia.
While living in Virginia, Cao became involved as a volunteer with Boat People SOS, a national community-based organization working to help Vietnamese immigrants around the country.
In 1997, he returned to New Orleans to study law at Loyola School of Law. After earning his degree in 2000, he joined Waltzer & Associates, a law firm working primarily with Vietnamese-American homeowners and fishermen in eastern Louisiana. He left the firm to become in-house counsel for Boat People SOS and to open a New Orleans affiliate office.
In January, 2003, Cao was named to a four-year term on the National Advisory Council to the U.S. bishops, a 63-member group of laymen and laywomen, religious men and women, diocesan priests and bishops that meets twice a year to review documentation and offer recommendations on matters before the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Married to Hieu “Kate” Hoang, they have two daughters, Sophia and Betsy. The Cao family lost every thing in Hurricane Katrina in 2005 including their home and Joseph’s law offices. Once again, he was forced to rebuild his life from scratch. In October of 2005, he moved his family to Westwego, Louisiana and began rebuilding his New Orleans home and law offices, which took more than a year.
In 2007 Joseph ran as an independent for the State House of Representatives and carried Orleans Parish. Last year he was appointed by Governor Bobby Jindal to the Board of Elections for Orleans Parish. He was also elected to the Republican Parish Executive Committee and the State Republican Executive Committee where he continues to serve. In 2008 Joseph was elected as an at-large delegate to the Republican National Convention.
He ran a successful campaign against incumbent William Jefferson for U.S. Congress, saying he was running to “Rebuild his adopted, renew the spirit of hope, and restore integrity and honesty in Congress.”
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