Rodolfo Gutierrez, Executive Director of HACER (Hispanic Advocacy and Community Empowerment through Research), discusses MILLA, an alliance of Latino-led organizations that are advocating for their community with state legislators and creating pathways for leadership to enhance civic participation among Latino leaders in Minnesota.
Transcript
ANCHOR: You're listening to North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live, a daily newscast about what it means to live in Minnesota.
Rodolfo Gutierrez: We do have today over 15 cities and towns where the population is the majority of them Latinos. And just thinking about that and having a small projection if they leave, or they are pushed to leave, those towns by any reasons, the towns are going to disappear. And I am talking about towns as important as Wilmar or Saint James in southern Minnesota.
Reporter: Rodolfo Gutierrez is the executive director of HACER the Hispanic Advocacy and Community Empowered through Research organization, a fundamental part of the American experience is representation in Minnesota media, an alliance of organizations working with the Latino community is creating pathways for leadership to increase civic participation among Latino leaders.
Rodolfo Gutierrez: Well, first and foremost, media stands for the Minnesota Latino leadership alliance. This alliance initially was created the Minnesota Council on Latin affairs, Latino lead and Asser. So we are coming together with 11 other organizations in the state, and the purpose of this is just to bring some sort of work done by not just one organization based on political approaches, some ideas that are suggested to the legislator body, and also some new kind of approaches to better understand The communities from the political perspective.
Reporter: Media has promoted awareness and visibility for Latino issues to the state legislators, and now these 11 organizations are working to educate the next generation of Latino leaders in the North Star State.
Rodolfo Gutierrez: We are trying to reform what it is today, say the spectrum politically speaking in Minnesota, where we do have just 1.8 representation in many different elected positions of people who are with Latino sentence, while we represent almost 7% if not 7.2% of the entire population of the state of Minnesota. So we want to promote, also say, more participation from Latino citizens in running for electoral in Minnesota.
Reporter: Rodolfo points out that working with a community mark under the term Latino and Hispanic, terms used by the government to categorize individuals with backgrounds from Latin America and the Caribbean, is a broad classification that can tell the story of unity, but that's not always the case.
Rodolfo Gutierrez: So the plan is right now to really make that consciousness about how we are portrayed, because we are community that survives within a label that it is Latinos or Latinas or Latinx, but we don't act consequently. So we do have a lot of diversity within our group, and that diversity also explodes in dividing us, either because of places of origin or because level of education or income situation that we do have and we cannot get together.
Reporter: The 11 organizations that make up MILLA will all participate in community education to address these harmful generalizations.
Rodolfo Gutierrez: So the idea is to create some sort of workshops and materials for those organizations who want to join us and learn how we can overcome those obstacles we do have in working together so to promote more unity within the Latinos. Since we are Latinos, we didn't choose to be Latinos, but we are Latinos. Now let's work together as Latinos.
Reporter: The work focuses on civic education, helping Latinos in Minnesota understand the meaning of participation, the role of school boards and how to run for city council and other elected positions in their Vision for 2025 report presented to the legislators, media highlighted the economic impact o Latinos in the state. They are using these numbers to advocate for key issues such as housing, education and immigration.
Rodolfo Gutierrez: The support that Latinos are bringing to the economy of the state of Minnesota is not in millions, but billions of dollars yearly, and has to be considered.
Reporter: Ensuring full participation in civic life is essential for continued economic and cultural growth, alliances like media are working to make sure Minnesota legislators reflect the state diversity. For more information about media, visit HACER-mn.org/MILLA. For North Star stories, I'm Victor Palomino.
ANCHOR: North Star Stories is produced by AMPERS, diverse radio for Minnesota's communities, with support from the McKnight Foundation and the State of Minnesota. Online at ampers dot org.