Once Coalición came together, I found myself meeting often with a group of Hispanic leaders in that space to talk about our lives here in Rhode Island, reflecting on what we had accomplished but still feeling that something was missing. It was then that we began realize that in order to have a voice and make change, we had to be able to vote. We were all working at non-profits and, in our eyes, making a difference and directly helping our community as a whole. However, when we came in contact with the politicians and we asked for their help or began to put pressure on them to listen to our concerns, instead of offering to work with us they would instead make us feel bad, to oppress us I thought, by saying something along the lines of: “Yeah well you don’t even vote. Why are you coming here and pushing demands on me? You’re not going to make a difference to me come the election time. This [other] group votes, and your people don’t vote.” That was their answer, that’s what they did, they pitted one group against the other, and we knew that it was an attempt to minimize our worth in the community and we felt it was not right to do that.
So, I then began to promote the importance of voter registration in the Hispanic community, and a small group of Hispanic individuals soon joined me. We began to speak up and demand change, and that made the politicians sit up and pay attention. Very soon, we began to gain recognition in the Rhode Island political scene, and that gave us a bit of political influence. This influence slowly began to empower a small group of individuals within the Hispanic community to step up to run for office.
So, I then began to promote the importance of voter registration in the Hispanic community, and a small group of Hispanic individuals soon joined me. We began to speak up and demand change, and that made the politicians sit up and pay attention. Very soon, we began to gain recognition in the Rhode Island political scene, and that gave us a bit of political influence. This influence slowly began to empower a small group of individuals within the Hispanic community to step up to run for office.
Advocacy turns into Political Muscle
We began to get organized and put together a list of issues that needed attention by looking at the work we were doing within our nonprofit work, how we were helping Hispanics through direct services. Immigration, cultural barriers were at the top. Police brutality was next, and then housing. There were too many people who were living in very substandard conditions and who were being exploited by individuals who were living here at one time and later moved to the suburbs – it was difficult not to feel that we were being exploited so those that owned our tenements could pay their mortgages in their bigger homes. The things they said about Hispanics were racist, very racist. They simply didn’t care about us. We began to feel strongly that we had to band together to seek protection and at that point, we began to work with agencies that would promote better housing conditions for all, not just for our Hispanic community – we saw broad discrimination for everyone in our neighborhood, and what we all had in common was that we were all minorities, people of color.
Education, was at the top of my list, it was the most important issue to me. I shared this with the others and together we agreed that the educational system was leaving us behind and was simply not providing adequate education to our community. At that time, bilingual education was non-existent, there were no English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) services for those of us who struggled with the English language. We decided to expose the inconsistency of the educational system towards all minorities, but particularly in this case, for our Latino people.
Everything pointed to how important it is to have a strong educational foundation, and the only way for Hispanics to attain this is through a comprehensive bilingual program in our schools. Our group of Hispanic activists began to meet regularly and we began to conceive the idea of providing ESL services right in the community. Organizations like Proyecto Persona were born out of this advocacy work. We banded together with other groups and felt that having access to a good education would be better attainable by learning English. And that, in turn, learning English would open doors for us in different ways, such as job training, business ownership, etc.
All of this work was a strategic move on our part, and it was based on our observations as we came to the realization that working only through our individual community organizations was like being a turtle without a shell, without protection. We felt we would never grow as a community if we did not encourage political empowerment and involvement.
What we began to recognize is that, on the one hand, what I will refer to as “the system,” was encouraging us to support our own community by the fact that this system was willing to provide us with grants to do the work through our non-profit organizations. However, that support was offered to us with the understanding that we were not to get involved in politics. We also had some encounters with a number of elected officials who told us that all our work, our community activism would be in danger of losing power if we did not find a way to become involved in the political arena.
With that all of this in mind and after many nights of discussion and debate, a decision was made through a majority consensus to form an organization specifically separate and apart from our community work – that is when the Hispanic Political Action Committee (HPAC) was born. The formation of the HPAC was intentional, it was planned, it was not something that happened by accident. Our plan was to organize and develop an organization that strictly focused on developing a Hispanic political strategy, an agenda that would give us political muscle.
Education, was at the top of my list, it was the most important issue to me. I shared this with the others and together we agreed that the educational system was leaving us behind and was simply not providing adequate education to our community. At that time, bilingual education was non-existent, there were no English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) services for those of us who struggled with the English language. We decided to expose the inconsistency of the educational system towards all minorities, but particularly in this case, for our Latino people.
Everything pointed to how important it is to have a strong educational foundation, and the only way for Hispanics to attain this is through a comprehensive bilingual program in our schools. Our group of Hispanic activists began to meet regularly and we began to conceive the idea of providing ESL services right in the community. Organizations like Proyecto Persona were born out of this advocacy work. We banded together with other groups and felt that having access to a good education would be better attainable by learning English. And that, in turn, learning English would open doors for us in different ways, such as job training, business ownership, etc.
All of this work was a strategic move on our part, and it was based on our observations as we came to the realization that working only through our individual community organizations was like being a turtle without a shell, without protection. We felt we would never grow as a community if we did not encourage political empowerment and involvement.
What we began to recognize is that, on the one hand, what I will refer to as “the system,” was encouraging us to support our own community by the fact that this system was willing to provide us with grants to do the work through our non-profit organizations. However, that support was offered to us with the understanding that we were not to get involved in politics. We also had some encounters with a number of elected officials who told us that all our work, our community activism would be in danger of losing power if we did not find a way to become involved in the political arena.
With that all of this in mind and after many nights of discussion and debate, a decision was made through a majority consensus to form an organization specifically separate and apart from our community work – that is when the Hispanic Political Action Committee (HPAC) was born. The formation of the HPAC was intentional, it was planned, it was not something that happened by accident. Our plan was to organize and develop an organization that strictly focused on developing a Hispanic political strategy, an agenda that would give us political muscle.
