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GOP Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida’s 13th congressional district recently came under scrutiny. Luna came under fire after The Washington Post reported that she allegedly misrepresented her heritage and religious background.
In November 2022, Luna spoke to the Jewish Insider about defending Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene after the latter was accused of making anti-Semitic remarks. At the time, the former said that Greene would not endorse her if she was anti-Semitic:
“I was raised as a Messianic Jew by my father. I am also a small fraction Ashkenazi. If she were anti-Semitic, why did she endorse me?”
However, at least three of Luna’s relatives spoke to The Washington Post and alleged that her father, George Mayerhofer, was Catholic.
Anna Paulina Luna's mother says her daughter never identified as Hispanic
Anna Paulina Luna's mother, Monica, told the publication that her husband was a “Christian that embraced the Messianic faith.” She added that Luna “buried him to Jewish customs”:
“He eventually got clean and started attending a messianic Jewish church in Orange County. He brought Anna to the services and she buried him to Jewish customs.”
Monica also shared that her daughter has “never not identified as being Hispanic” as far as she is aware. However, she did mention that her husband often spoke Spanish around Luna when she was a child. The former stated:
“Anna can check both boxes. She's bicultural and biracial. It's not easy to figure out what box to choose.”
According to immigration records obtained by The Washington Post, Anna Paulina Luna’s paternal grandfather, Heinrich Mayerhofer, was also identified as a Roman Catholic when he immigrated to Canada from Germany in 1954.
As per several other family members, Heinrich even served in the armed forces of Nazi Germany in the 1940s while he was a teenager. A relative named Jolanta Mayerhofer shared that it hurt Heinrich to speak about that phase of his life:
“It hurt for him to talk about it. He said, ‘You getting the letter, you need to show up, otherwise your life is over.’ He did not like it, but that's what life was.”
Reports suggest that Anna Paulina Luna has had the last name “Mayerhofer” since birth and has only opened up about her Hispanic heritage in recent years. She was reportedly identified as “White, not of Hispanic origin” when she first registered to vote in Florida in 2015.
However, Luna updated her ethnicity to “Hispanic” when she re-registered to vote in Washington State in 2019. That same year, the Congresswoman also reportedly filed a petition to change her last name from “Mayerhofer” to “Luna”:
“I would like to represent my Hispanic heritage and have the same last name as my mother.”
The latest controversy surrounding Luna immediately prompted netizens to compare the Congresswoman to New York GOP Rep. George Santos.
Santos has been making headlines for his fraudulent CV scandal and admitting to fabricating key details about his life in his resume. This included his educational background, professional history, and financial assets, among other things.
Similar to Luna, Santos’ heritage also came under scrutiny after he told the New York Post that he “never claimed to be Jewish” even though his official website mentioned that his that his mother was Jewish and that his grandparents escaped the Nazi regime during World War II.
Everything to know about Anna Paulina Luna
Anna Paulina Luna is an American politician and U.S. Air Force veteran who was elected the U.S. representative for Florida's 13th Congressional District this year. She made local history by becoming the first Mexican-American woman elected to Congress from Florida.
Luna was born on May 6, 1989, in Santa Ana, California. She reportedly attended six different high schools before graduating and eventually earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from the University of West Florida in 2017.
The Congresswoman said that she was raised by her mother in Los Angeles and that his father was imprisoned several times for failing to pay child support.
However, The Washington Post recently contacted the California Department of Corrections, the Orange County Corrections Department, and the Santa Ana jail but could not find any reports of her father’s incarceration.
Meanwhile, Fox News shared that Luna’s office showed reports that proved her father was incarcerated. The politician said during an interview that “the Washington Post's profile of her contained several mischaracterizations and factual errors.”
Anna Paulina Luna enlisted in the U.S. Air Force at the age of 19 and served as an airfield manager at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and then in Florida. She earned an Air Force Achievement Medal and was honorably discharged in 2014.
During her time in the U.S. Air Force and as a college student, Luna also ventured into modeling and appeared in magazines such as Maxim and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. At the time, she also briefly worked as a waitress at a gentleman's club in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.
Luna also met her husband, Air Force Special Operations veteran Andrew Gamberzky, during her six years in the military. The Congressman first earned recognition on the political scene in 2018 after she made some online statements on human trafficking and the Second Amendment.
She caught the attention of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, and eventually started working as the Director of Hispanic Engagement at the organization. Anna Paulina Luna was also a producer for PragerU and a reporter for the El American media house.
Netizens draw comparisons between Anna Paulina Luna and George Santos
As The Washington Post’s report about Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s heritage circulated online, several social media users immediately started comparing her to George Santos.
Santos’s fraud CV controversy revealed that he mentioned that his mother was Jewish and that his grandparents fled the Nazi regime. However, he later claimed that he was raised Catholic, but often joked about being “Jew-ish.”
Similarly, Luna’s Jewish heritage came under the scanner after The Washington Post revealed that her father was a Catholic and that her grandfather even served in the Nazi armed forces during his teenage years.
Luna’s discovery immediately sparked George Santos comparisons, and netizens took to Twitter to share their reactions to the situation:
As reactions continued to pour in online, Anna Paulina Luna called out The Washington Post through a series of tweets. She also shared that her attorney has sent letters to the publication to “issue corrections” for avoiding a lawsuit.
Luna mentioned that she would also send letters to Vanity Fair, Business Insider, Yahoo News, The Independent, and any other outlet that “reports false info.”
