In the West Wing of the White House, Leah Katz-Hernandez communicates with the first couple in a way that few others, even the president’s most trusted advisers, ever do.

Katz-Hernandez, who is deaf, is the new receptionist of the United States, or what those in Washington like to abbreviate as ROTUS (a play on POTUS – president of the United States). She grew bicoastal, raised by a Jewish mother and a Mexican-American father in Connecticut, frequently visiting her father’s family in California.

After working in the Chicago headquarters of Obama’s re-election campaign, she moved to Washington, D.C., and was hired as an assistant in the first lady’s office.

“It was my first week on the job,” Katz-Hernandez, 27, told Fox News Latino. “I was having lunch at my desk when a staffer from the West Wing came by and said, ‘I want to introduce you to the First Lady.’ The next thing I know the First Lady is standing in front of me. She said, ‘Hi, my name is…’ and then she finger-spelled her name. It was really a wonderful moment. I knew I’d arrived in a great place and felt really motivated to work hard for her.”