Resiliency and the desire for the American Dream are what contribute to the success of an entrepreneur in our country. Thank you to the Fort Worth Star Telegram for featuring our director of program development, Julian Martinez, and his entrepreneurial family lineage breaking barriers for Latino entrepreneurs in last Sunday’s edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Click here to view the full story.
Ignacio Salazar, President, and CEO of SER Jobs for Progress National, Inc., issued the following statement to celebrate Juneteenth, 2022. This day is the first anniversary of this historical event as an official federal observance authorized by President Biden last year. The origin of Juneteenth dates back 156 years to June 19, 1865, when enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, were finally freed, two months after the end of the U.S. Civil War. Federal troops were sent to free the enslaved people from those who vowed to keep them until armed Union troops arrived. Only then did the former owners comply with the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln.
“SER National is proud and honored to join with millions of people across the United States and Puerto Rico in reflecting on the true meaning of this day. Juneteenth holds a special place in our hearts because it reminds us of the inherent yearning for freedom within each of us. This freedom is rooted deep in our human spirit and enables us to be uplifted, strengthened, and capable of enduring even the most challenging events in our lives. More than a century later, we can learn from the moving accounts of men, women, and children who held together after the end of the costliest war our nation has ever faced. They continued even after learning they were free while their owners kept them in shackles. Rather than rebel and be killed, these formerly enslaved people drew from the spiritual freedom within their hearts. They resisted through the resilience of their unwavering faith, knowing that release was near.
At SER National and throughout our SER Network of Affiliates, we sincerely believe that every individual has the inherent capacity to achieve, given opportunity, training, and effort. Like those courageous black Americans tasting freedom officially for the first time in their lives, the more than a million people we serve yearly experience the rewards of their resilience and perseverance. Many are free economically for the first time in their lives with new skills and purpose. They can begin to plan their futures for themselves and their families with nothing and no one to hold them back. Today, as in 1865, we stand at the edge of unlimited possibilities with the opportunity to break free from fear of the pandemic and work together to confront historical challenges. Also, our labor pool of willing workers is growing steadily, and our elected leaders are reckoning with issues that affect all of us, including public safety, economic stability, racial justice, and gender equity and equality.
Juneteenth, 1865 did not cure all our nation’s ills overnight. It would take time before formerly enslaved people broke through economic and social repression to achieve notable outcomes, like five who became elected leaders. Today, America is blessed to have advanced much farther, and we can celebrate and protect our freedoms for all.”
President Biden is naming Julie Chavez Rodriguez to serve as a White House senior adviser, putting her on par with some of his most senior and longest-serving aides and making her the first Latina to ever hold a top West Wing staffing role.
Rodriguez currently serves as director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and the White House is set to announce Wednesday that she will retain that position and become a senior adviser and special assistant to the president, serving alongside other longtime Biden aides Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti and Anita Dunn, who recently returned to the White House.
Rodriguez will now be part of a wider clutch of aides, including chief of staff Ron Klain, deputy chief of staff Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and communications director Kate Bedingfield, who consult with the president daily on a wide range of domestic, foreign, communications and political issues.
When the president consults his senior team in the Oval Office, there’s a 22-inch-tall bronze bust of Cesar Chavez peering at them. Chavez is the late civil rights and farm worker leader who founded the union that eventually became known as the United Farm Workers — and Julie Chavez Rodriguez is his granddaughter.
That she’ll be sitting in on big meetings with the likeness of her grandfather watching “is pretty remarkable and speaks to both what I see as the important opportunities in this country but also that this administration continues to create,” Rodriguez told CBS News on Tuesday night. “That in two generations we can go from a farmworker to a senior adviser in the Oval Office sitting together.”
Her new role comes amid other staff changes set to be formally announced Wednesday, including the addition of Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, who will lead the White House Office of Public Engagement, a job recently vacated by Cedric Richmond, who is now serving as an outside political adviser to the president.
The changes come as the White House is staffing up again for what is poised to be a rocky season for an increasingly unpopular president trying to stave off widespread Democratic Party losses in the midterm elections. Several senior staffers, many of whom worked on Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign or with him during the Obama administration, have departed for the private sector in recent weeks, others are expected to continue shifting into new roles and others may eventually move to the president’s 2024 anticipated reelection campaign.
Rodriguez’s current role keeps her in constant touch with lawmakers and the nation’s mayors, county executives and governors regarding Biden administration policies and in the aftermath of natural disasters or other emergencies.
Much of her work has focused on selling and explaining the bipartisan infrastructure plan and the American Rescue Plan, and how local and state leaders can apply for or reap the benefits of the record levels of federal funding established by the laws. But colleagues also noted that she relaunched the White House Working Group on Puerto Rico and ensured that her office’s director for Puerto Rican affairs was someone born and raised in Puerto Rico.
In the new role, Rodriguez said she expects to focus on those same issues, plus immigration reform and “the important impact that we’re having in the Latino community and making sure that that impact is understood and felt in communities across the country.”
Rodriguez served as deputy of the intergovernmental affairs office during the Obama administration after working on the Obama-Biden 2008 campaign. She credited the office’s then-director, Cecilia Munoz, who “served as a mentor and adviser to so many people like me that are continuing to impact and influence both government inside and outside in remarkable ways.”
As the Obama administration ended, Rodriguez was hired by then-Sen. Kamala Harris to serve as the new senator’s state director. She later worked on the Harris presidential campaign as a traveling chief of staff, a connection that eventually brought her back to Biden.
While there are four Latinos in the Biden Cabinet — the most to ever serve a president concurrently — Rodriguez will be the first Latina to hold such a senior role on a president’s West Wing staff.
It’s a decision likely to help assuage at least some concern among Latino lawmakers and civil rights organizations — usually expressed only privately but often directly to the president’s top aides — that Mr. Biden is missing valuable and important real-world and political perspective by not placing more Latinos in senior roles.
Luisana Pérez Fernández
Director of Hispanic Media
The White House
Nation’s Service-Employment-Redevelopment Network Says Diversity in Our Society and Workforce Is Fueling Innovation and Imagination in the USA
SER National today issued the following statement to celebrate National Gay Pride Month. The White House proclaimed June as a time for Americans to learn the history and significance of the movement for “justice, inclusion, and equality while reaffirming our commitment to do more to support LGBTQI+ rights.”
“SER National believes deeply in our nation’s power through the tapestry of our society’s diversity,” says Ignacio Salazar, SER National Chief Executive Officer. “Across America and Puerto Rico, our affiliates open their doors every day and embrace all those who enter with heartfelt respect and appreciation, be they staff, students, or community allies. The greatest reward for us is to witness how we are a beautiful human sea of talent, dedication, and caring individuals striving to serve. I am so proud of our LGBTQI+ team members and program participants because they are all of us in common purpose, goals, and aspirations. They belong because they teach us true strength, resilience, and perseverance,” adds Salazar.
Gay Pride Month has its roots in remembering the Stonewall Riots that happened on June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village. The gay community in Lower Manhattan in New York City began spontaneous demonstrations when they were confronted violently by police who had carried out an early-morning raid on the business, a popular gay nightclub. The riots marked a turning point for gay rights in the United States, and the event is credited as the start of the gay liberation movement that continues today.
“Today, America has more than 1-million same-sex married and unmarried households, and these couples are raising nearly 200,000 children,” says Salazar. “Also, it is clear that in virtually every state, county, and city, millions more members of the LGBTQI+ community are contributing to our country’s economic strength as business owners, professionals, and employees. Collectively, they enrich our nation’s brain trust through their creativity, skills, and desire to be included and acknowledged as we all wish. They are our siblings, children, parents, friends, and colleagues. They are all of us. We can each try to learn more about one another because this is the best way to dispel myths and find what we have in common rather than fear of the unknown that drives us apart. I know with all my heart that America and Americans are better today when we unite, and National Gay Pride Month invites all of us to bask in the colors of its rainbow and be proud of who we are.”
Nation’s Service-Employment-Redevelopment Network Pays Tribute to the Men and Women Whose Sacrifice Protects our Freedoms and Our Future
SER National today issued the following statement to remember our nation’s fallen troops whose valor is remembered with respect and gratitude on Memorial Day throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.
“Memorial Day is a bittersweet moment for millions of Americans when we honor with fondness and sadness our loved ones and all brave American warriors who have given their lives in sacrifice during combat,” says Ignacio Salazar, SER National Chief Executive Officer. “It is fitting that this solemn tribute happens on the last Monday in May when most flowers across America are in their glorious bloom. Their bright assorted colors remind us that our democracy flourishes and this republic is replenished, in large measure, because of the spirit of those selfless individuals in military uniform who stepped up and said, ‘Here I am, send me.’
In America, Memorial Day is a time we spend with our families, often visiting and adorning with flags and flowers the graves of our soldiers lost in war and whose portraits of them in uniform we proudly and prominently display as a treasured keepsake in our homes. We remember our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, moms and dads who left for battlefields in faraway places and did not return. Similarly, we can only hope and pray that the people in those foreign lands, where many of our brave were laid to rest during WWI and WWII among a sea of hallowed graves, continue to honor the price America paid to help defend their right to live free of tyranny.
Important too is appreciating the history of Memorial Day, which was initially known as Decoration Day. This was a reference to the acknowledgment and honor, often with medals, placed on a fallen comrade for exceptional bravery during combat. The origin of the annual Memorial Day tribute has its roots in the years shortly after the American Civil War, which remains, until the present, the single costliest conflict in our history. More than 620,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were killed, more than in all other wars American soldiers have fought combined. This unfathomable casualty count remains a sober reminder of the heavy toll paid by our country when divided among ourselves.
May we also pay special tribute on this Memorial Day to the women soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice. Nearly 700 females have been killed in combat-related incidents since WWII. Almost 200 of those have died due to enemy gunfire or weapons, the majority in Iraq and Afghanistan. Women have performed in battle to the absolute highest level of patriotism and selflessness alongside their male counterparts. They, too, deserve our enduring and heartfelt gratitude. May we celebrate Memorial Day with our families and pause to thank all those who made it possible for our nation to continue being the land of the free and the home of the brave!”
Nation’s Service-Employment-Redevelopment Network Says Latest Data Reflects Latinos Are America’s Economic Engine Now and for the Future
SER National today issued the following statement in observance of Cinco de Mayo, which commemorates the battle at Puebla in 1861. The historic confrontation was between highly trained and abundantly equipped elite French soldiers and a far smaller ragtag Mexican army formed from civilians-turned-defenders who had old, creaky muskets and hand tools as their only weapons. Yet, in what historians describe as one of the most courageous battles of a hugely outnumbered force, the Mexicans endured a brutal series of assaults over an entire day of heavy casualties. Yet, as evening fell, the flag of the eagle perched atop cactus, a serpent captured in its beak, fluttered high atop La Fortaleza de Guadalupe, the Fort of Guadalupe, while their foe lay far below defeated and in tatters. Mexico had been victorious in a battle that forever defined the resilience of its people to confront and overcome seemingly insurmountable odds and prevail. This is the lesson of Puebla.
“Cinco de Mayo affords America a wonderful opportunity to revisit the lessons taught through historical accounts about the strength of the human spirit to survive and achieve the impossible,” says Ignacio Salazar, SER National Chief Executive Officer. “Today, our nation is confronting unprecedented economic and trade challenges in modern times, and a new dynamic is emerging. The intersectionality of business, politics, and social frameworks demand more imaginative use of all our resources, and among these, Latinos play a critical role. Latinos represent nearly 20-percent of the nation’s population and the U.S. labor force. By 2060, that share will grow to almost one-third of the entire United States landscape in sheer numbers and workforce output. The trend is irreversible, and the outcome is inevitable. Latinos are the fastest growing and most resilient economic group now and into the future of our country.
Yet, that glowing forecast can only be realized through higher education and skills training opportunities in the United States. For the vast majority, college and university pathways remain elusive, as evidenced by the last data from the Postsecondary National Policy Institute (PNPI), which shows that ‘the Latino share of attained degrees decreased at every level, from associate degrees to doctoral degrees. Latinos earned 23.8% of associate degrees compared to 51.2% of white students’. We can and must do better if Latinos are to achieve the pinnacle of the American dream, whose gateway is education and high-wage, high-demand skills training opportunities.
Further, as with the battle of Puebla, Latinos’ most significant opportunity for victory today is in how we marshal our resources, in this case, continuing historic voter registration first seen in 2020. Indeed, increased participation in the civic processes of our country provides a bright ray of hope as America defines public policy, laws, and the allocation of funds for programs and initiatives vital to our training and development. May we continue to learn from history’s lessons, including the Battle of Puebla. Our enduring resilience is our ability to adapt, innovate and prepare our communities for whatever challenges the future may bring.”