Hyderabad-born Aruna Miller made history by becoming the first Indian-American politician to be elected as the Lieutenant Governor of the US state of Maryland. Miller was sworn in as the 10th lieutenant governor of the state. She is a transportation engineer. In her inauguration speech, she credited her father, a mechanical engineer was the first to arrive in the US in the late 1960s. He brought the rest of his family and she arrived in the country in 1972 as a seven-year-old.
She was part of a historic moment in November 2022 and also gives Maryland its first Black governor, its first Black attorney general and its first female comptroller. Miller served two terms in the Maryland House of Delegates from 2010 to 2018. She also ran for the Congress but lost. Miller spent 25 years working at the local Department of Transportation in Montgomery County, Maryland, to improve the safety of the public and create equitable transportation access.
During her oath-taking ceremony, Miller shared the story of her arrival from India and mentioned her unforgettable first day of school. “None of the looked like me. I could not speak a work of English, but I wanted to fit in. So, when we went to cafeteria, I had a plan. I was going to do exactly what everyone else were doing,” recalled Miller. “So, I ate American food for the first time. I drank cold milk for the first time in my life. I was feeling pretty good. I though okay I think I went over all these classmates of mine. They are my friends now. I walked back to the classroom and proceeded to vomit all over the desk. My teacher called my mom to come and pick me up. I told her, I want to go back to grandma who raised me in India,” said Miller.
