In recent times, the Hispanic population of the United States has become a powerful electoral force. Their vote has been historically oriented towards the Democratic Party of the incumbent U.S. President Barack H. Obama. Obviously, this growing electoral strength has been reflected in their political presence in the American life and it has been accomplished with their inclusion in the U.S. Congress. Although in the recent decades several studies on the status of the Hispanic community in the United States have arisen from both sides of the Atlantic, they have been primarily focused on casuistic, demographic, developmental or educational aspects. But only a few of them, if any, has exclusively focused on the numerical and symbolical representation of this community in the political field and, more specifically, on the main legislative body of the country, the Congress.

The purpose of this article is precisely to investigate not only the historical presence of Hispanic legislators in the Congress, but also, and especially, their political influence in the present U.S. Congress. After doing an overall analysis of the historical situation of the Hispanic population in the United States, we will focus on the Hispanic presence in the U.S. Congress both along its history, and the current 113th Congress (2013-2015).