“The best social program is a job”; This phrase said by President Ronald Reagan over 30 years ago still inspires me.
Every week, I attend many meetings and forums. One of my biggest worries is that most Hispanic organizations have no real interest in developing the productive capacities of their communities.
I always emphasize that Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (IHCC) has two goals: generating opportunities to guarantee more and better jobs, as well as helping small businesses and young entrepreneurs.
The recklessness and selfishness of some “pro-Latino” organizations, each of which with very different objectives within them, generate negative expectations and end up not achieving anything –except for their dark interests.
With great respect to all organizations and many leaders, I think they have focused more on fighting the system than generating development.
Politicians will not solve the problems in our communities, only the companies can do that.
If we focus together more on fostering education and driving companies to receive the incentives to hire more Latinos, our communities will undergo real changes in a shorter period of time.
I see that many of Illinois infrastructure projects, which represent millions and millions of dollars in investments, are headed toward cities and neighborhoods where our communities do not have so much presence. That should be our joint fight here in Chicago and the rest of the state.
While essential in the short term, it will needed more than coordination and communication between nonprofit organizations to address the needs of a fifth of the Illinois state’s population. We need to understand that our community’s well-being is linked, first of all, to economic development.
If the intention is to serve the Latino community, we have to change the paradigm of service delivery. The fleeting aids, stopgaps, rallies, clashes of egos, and many other problems only make us more dependent on assistentialism. We need to focus on boosting the economic power that our communities represent today.
The obsession with fighting against racism makes us forget that creating prosperity is the solution to many of our problems.
I believe in an organization that encourages a more inclusive and sustainable economic growth and at the same time helps generating jobs.
That is why my commitment, from IHCC, is to continue opening development opportunities for the most vulnerable segments in our communities. As Reagan said, the best possible aid is to help someone to get a new job.