Pennsylvania. Dr. Eduardo J. Sanchez was the Commissioner of Health for the state of Texas from 2001 to 2006, and Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent, held her post as New York Secretary of State from 2007 to 2010. In November 2016, Adriano Espaillat became the first Dominican-American to be elected to the United States Congress, he represents New York's 13th Congressional District which is predominantly Dominican-American. He also became the first formerly undocumented American to be elected to Congress. The electoral participation of Dominicans in the United States may improve as a result of the 1994 approval of dual citizenship by the Dominican legislature, which makes it easier for migrants to become U.S. citizens without relinquishing their Dominican nationality. A 1997 Dominican law, which took effect in 2004, allows Dominicans living abroad to retain their Dominican citizenship and voting rights even if they become citizens of another country. Traditionally, Dominicans living in the United States are passionately involved in politics "back home", but unlike other Latino national groups, such as Cuban Americans and Mexican Americans, they are not as inclined to take an active part in U.S. politics, but recent research has shown an increasing involvement in this area. Dominican-Americans tend to vote for the Democratic Party. In 2020, Joe Biden carried Dominican-American voters with 64% support to Trump's 33%, according to voter surveys conducted by the Associated Press. Biden won Dominican-American neighborhoods of New York City 85%-15%, according to a post-election New York Times analysis of precincts. Culture and notable people Arts and literature Junot Diaz drew on his life and the Dominican American experience generally in authoring Drown and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the latter of which won him the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2008 and made him the first Dominican American and the second Latino American in history to win the Pulitzer Prize. Julia Alvarez is the nationally recognized author of In the Time of the Butterflies, a fictional book based on the lives of the Mirabal sisters, and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents. Nelly Rosario, born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New York City, also won critical acclaim for her debut novel Song of the Water Saints. Héctor Rivera was a Dominican poet who lived in New York. He was born in Yamasá, República Dominicana in 1957 and died from cancer in July 2005. He