Political Career
In 1988, Merced became the first Latino to serve in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the first Hispanic to hold statewide office in the commonwealth. He held this position until 1992, running a successful re-election campaign in 1990. During his time in the House, Merced was active in the campaign to promote and protect bilingual education in Massachusetts as well as working for immigrants’ rights and the reform of the Boston Public Schools. He also wrote legislation creating an Urban Initiative Fund, and was a key legislative leader for the first bill that sought to establish community reinvestment mandates for the insurance industry.
In 1994, Merced took a position as the CEO of Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción just prior to the organization’s proposed merger with the Escuelita Agueybana Day Care Center. The merger never took place and, in 1996, Merced left the organization. In 2005, Merced took a position as the Director of National Initiatives and Applied Research with NeighborWorks America, a nonprofit sponsored by the US Congress.
Merced was also a member of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, appointed by the US Senate and sometimes known as the Jordan Commission after its chair, Barbara Jordan. The Commission was formed in 1990 to propose reforms to United States immigration policies, which it did in a series of reports issued between 1994 and 1997.
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