For Ruben Gallego, a Ride on Air Force One and a Presidential Aside

WASHINGTON — For Representative Ruben Gallego, a freshman Democrat from Arizona, joining the 114th Congress started with a heady ride.

Just two days after being sworn in, he flew on Air Force One with President Obama. Mr. Gallego, who grew up poor in Chicago, told the president that he had lived in the Illinois congressional district where Mr. Obama lost to Representative Bobby L. Rush in a Democratic primary in 2000 — and that he had voted for Mr. Obama.

"And he had a funny joke," Mr. Gallego said of the president. "He was like, ‘Oh. You're the one.' "

Mr. Gallego, 35, represents the Seventh District, which includes parts of Phoenix. In an interview, which has been edited and condensed below, he talked about life at Harvard (he was the first in his family to go to college), his tour in Iraq in the Marine Corps Reserve and how he met his wife at a fraternity date auction.

Tell me about your childhood.

We were poor. My mom and dad separated around 11. We started poor, then got to middle class and then went back to being poor.

My mom was a secretary, which actually was very beneficial because I got to go to work with her and see lawyers, male lawyers. Growing up in an immigrant community, you don't get to meet other professionals, so it was great to go to work with her and see some of these guys in suits. Because the only time I saw guys in suits growing up was at funerals, or weddings.

You ended up taking your mom's last name. Why?

It's fairly traumatizing for a young man to lose what you thought was a father figure. And my mom and my grandfather really were the ones who stepped up. He basically taught me what it was to be a good person, a good man, and same with my mom. So, especially as I was going through college, and then serving in the military, I realized that my name should be attached to the persons that molded me. And when I finished my contract with the Marines, I went to the court and changed it.

At Harvard, you worked on the "dorm crew," which is basically a work-study job where you clean the rooms of other students. What was that like?

It's a good job. I was getting paid $10 an hour, and if I timed it well, I could do about 20 hours per week. And, look, it's humbling. You've got to go into other people's rooms — students you see in your classes — and you're there cleaning their toilets.

Did your time in the Marines motivate you to get into politics?

It was a combination of growing up the way I did, and then actually a lot of things that went wrong when I was in the Marines. The first casualty we took was on May 10, 2005, when I lost my best friend to an I.E.D. attack because we didn't have proper armor and we knew it. Our radios weren't working. It was just a bad situation. And then in early August we lost another group of Marines from my company. And then I got back from the war and people's G.I. Bills were screwed up. Some of us couldn't get into the V.A. So, all these things kind of just compounded and then eventually into politics.

Minorities are a majority in your district. What would it take for Arizona to become a blue state?

I've always said we are the very, very cheap alternative to turning Texas blue. We have basically two media markets in two very dense metropolitan areas. I think it would take just a little, small investment of money. The Latino community is not going to naturally register itself and turn out itself. So if we wanted to be in play — and I think we can be in play — in 2016, we have to make the investment.

Did anything about Air Force One impress you?

Everything impressed me. A couple of days later, I was speaking at an M.L.K. event, and the one thing I thought was pretty cool was that on that plane there were two men from Chicago — two men of color from Chicago. And if 50 years ago you would have asked would an African-American and a Latino be on Air Force One, they would have said yes, but we would have probably been the valets.

Your wife, Kate, is a Phoenix City Council member. And I hear you first met when she bid on you at a fraternity date auction in college.

That's true! The guy who was supposed to get bid off that day didn't show up. So I got a call from my fraternity, like, "Hey, throw on a suit, get down there." So I rushed down.

My friend for some reason leans over and says: "You should bid on Ruben. I know him. He's a really fun guy." And so Kate throws up her hand and bids on me, and then it gets bid up, bid up, bid up. Then she stopped, and I leaned over and nudged the moderator, and I was like, "Ask one more time." So he said: "Kate, you bid earlier. Do you want to bid one more time?" And she's like, "I would, but I'm out of money." And then I said, "If she bids one more, I'll pay half." And she agreed. So that's how it started.

What was your final price?

Forty-four dollars. This is in 2000 — in inflation dollars. That's pretty good.