Concern Grows That Hamilton Euphoria Will Push Woman to Back of the $10 Bill

Related Link Jack Lew nears decision to keep Hamilton on front of $10 bill, put a woman on the $20 (CNN)

A 9-year-old girl from Massachusetts made national news in 2014 with a hand-written letter to President Obama asking him to consider putting a woman on the face of American money. He announced that her plea was a “pretty good idea,” setting off a national conversation that eventually settled on putting a woman on the $10 bill.

Two years later, Sofia, whose last name has been withheld at the request of her family, says she is worried. Her mother recently told her that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had been dropping public hints that he was looking to keep Alexander Hamilton in the center portrait on the front of the bill, and finding another place to put a woman. Sofia told her mother she thought that was unfair.

“I think that putting a woman on the back of the bill would make women seem less important,” Sofia told TIME on Tuesday. “You don’t pay a lot of attention to the back of the bill.”

Secretary Lew, who could announce his intentions any day now, has been signaling for months that he did not want to focus the discussion on “one square inch of space” on the front of just one bill. “We are looking at how do we take these buildings that are the back of our bills and bring them to life,” Lew said in an interview with Charlie Rose on March 30, in which he noted other bills like the $5 and the $20 will also be redesigned. “It is easy to come up with ideas about the Lincoln Memorial.”