Name: Rebecca Lemos Otero 

Occupation: Executive Director, HumanitiesDC

Hometown: Washington, DC  

Tell me a little bit about yourself. How long have you lived in DC?

I am forty-seven years old and about ten of those years were spent outside of DC; the rest of the time, I’ve lived in the city. 

Why did you decide to move to DC?

The first time I was in New York, I was there for school. After I graduated, I thought I would stay for a while, and I was actually there for 9/11 in Midtown. Both New York and DC got hit at the same time — obviously New York significantly worse —  but it was kind of a moment of ‘well, when [things] hit the fan, where do you want to be?’ As much as I love New York, it was a defining moment for me — that I wanted to come back to DC.

Then I went to grad school in Baltimore, and ended up buying a house there and living there for a little while. I had started a nonprofit years [before] and it was starting to grow more in DC. And again, all my family is here and everything, so even though I was in Baltimore for a nice chunk of time, I never fully integrated. It was too close to DC and I was always pulled back home instead — and not in a bad way, in a good way. I’d rather just be in DC!  

What do you love most about living in DC?

I find it to be a really attractive city. It’s very neighborhood-based, it’s very tree-heavy. We’ve got quite a bit of nature, so I really like that, and the architectural layout and the thoughtfulness of the city. I say that because it’s really nice to move around in and it feels very cosmopolitan, while also feeling [like a] hometown. 

That’s a nice balance, but also on top of that, all of my family is here. I have a pretty big family — people have moved in and out at different times — but the majority of us are in or around DC and call it home base. I grew up in Adams Morgan and in the 90s, it was quirky and fun and you weren’t sure what to expect next, so I really had a great childhood there. 

Could you talk about your own experience being disenfranchised, or in other words, what it has been like to lose the rights you had when you were living in one of the 50 states?

I’ve never voted outside of DC, so I didn’t experience what it was like to vote [in New York or Maryland] versus here. Living in DC, I think one of the reasons we feel like we’re in two cities at one time — Washington and the District — is because we’re aware that there is a whole force that we can’t control that plays a large role in our city. A lot of times it can be rather harmonious or harmonious enough that it’s okay, but in the moments that it’s not, you really really feel it, like currently. It’s just interesting, because I feel like we are forever hosts — sometimes we’re really proud to be hosts like when there’s something amazing that comes to the city, but then when we are meant to be hosts but what’s happening doesn’t align with the city or pushes us out, then it’s not a great feeling. 

What does achieving statehood mean for you?

Being able to more clearly say yes or no to certain things happening — and not necessarily on the Mall or downtown. I think if we’re here, we are accepting to some degree that we are the country’s city — we are the capital, so I’m not saying that we would say ‘this can happen and that can’t happen,’ but just that our budget is our own — just because a certain administration comes into the federal government and has feelings about the city, we’re not impacted by those whims so easily. I think that’s what statehood mostly means to me, just that we have more autonomy. 

I think also, especially with this administration, maybe being able to be a little clearer that we are a city of people outside of what happens. Just having more of a national understanding that we are our own thing. And it is kind of funny, because we do have a population that’s the size of some states, so even though land-wise we’re not that big, we still represent a significant amount of people. 

What do you think needs to be done to get closer to achieving statehood?  

I’ll be honest, I don’t know. Growing up here, we’ve heard statehood all of our lives — in school, outside of school, at work, in social circles — and there’s always different people saying different things like ‘in order for DC to get statehood, Congress and the president have to be aligned’ and all that stuff. I feel like we’ve gotten close to that, yet statehood wasn’t necessarily a priority for them. Or then it’s ‘Puerto Rico needs to become a state and so and so needs to become a state as well.’ What would need to happen for those things to happen for us to get statehood? It almost feels like there’s different theories out there of what would need to happen, and I don’t know which one is the most [realistic]. It’s not that I’ve lost hope that statehood can happen — by all means I haven’t — it’s just that it seems like it’s so convoluted with the system sometimes that I can’t honestly point to a path and say this is the path forward. 

Is there anything else you would like to say? 

I would love to see it happen. I’m trying to think of other countries or what have you where they’re like ‘if only this thing happened, we would be so different’ and so I would love to see if that’s true — what would come out of us being able to have statehood? If that is not going to be a solution any time soon, is there another solution or set of solutions that could get us closer to what it is that we’re looking for and what would that look like? How could that be cemented? And I guess that’s what statehood would do, because we’re just at the whims of whoever comes in. 

[this interview was conducted in April 2026]