BY JOE ARCE
In depth exclusive report
With the kickoff of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s national conference in Kansas City, the organization’s president, Ramiro A. Cavazos, spoke with KC Hispanic News in an exclusive interview to discuss the future of Latino-owned businesses as the Latino population continues its steady rise across the country.
“We’re so proud of the economic development and the growth that we’re seeing,” Cavazos said, “as well as the prosperity that is being developed in Kansas City for the Latino community through the overall economy.”
He described the United States as “the country that everybody wants to come to,” adding that he’s happy to see the number of jobs available to those who wish to live and work in America.
“We need that workforce for the future. There are 14 million unfilled jobs in America, where average age is 29 of the 65 million Latinos compared to 45 for non-Latinos. So where we go is where the U.S. economy will go in the future, and a language like Spanish is an economic tool and an asset,” Cavazos said. “We’re very proud of the work we do to represent the future. And so in the next five to 10 years, I see us continuing to grow at 14 percent on an annual basis, fueling the population, the demographics, the economy, with the fastest-growing consumer. So Fortune 500 companies need our business.”
As the number of Hispanic consumers and the number of Hispanic-owned businesses grow, so too does the number of chambers of commerce, established to supply those businesses with resources so they can better serve the community.
“When we were founded in 1979, we had just a couple of chambers. San Antonio, where I used to work, was founded in 1929. It was founded by the Mexican Consulate to really get people, an organization to call their own, because there was a lot of discrimination and prejudice,” Cavazos said. “At the time in the 1920s and ‘30s, nobody was considered an undocumented or an illegal citizen living here or non-citizen. That didn’t happen until the Great Depression, because that’s when they ended up sending American Latinos back to Mexico, a country that (Latinos in the U.S.) didn’t even know.”
Now, nearly a century later, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber represents more than 5 million Latino-owned businesses, from small stores to Fortune 500 companies. And as that growth continues, everyone involved, from Chamber officials to business owners to employees, must embrace the power in their own voices, Cavazos advised.
“We need to have a strong self-esteem, and we need to recognize our own power,” he said. “I paint a picture that is rosier than most, but that’s the picture that we should paint. We can only limit ourselves if we end up believing what other people say about us or don’t say about us.”
It’s a lesson learned, he said, from his own family so many years ago.
“I grew up in South Texas, and my family has been there forever on both sides of the border, and (Latinos) were 90% of the population,” Cavazos said. “My dad was an elected official. He was a businessperson, my mother, and my grandparents on both sides of the family, they were either fishermen or owned little grocery stores in our local communities. And so while I was not an immigrant, 80% of the 65 million Latinos living in this country were born in the U.S.”
Those Latinos, of course, aren’t just Mexicans, but an entire population represented by many other Central and South American countries. Together, with help from immigrants from all across the globe, the U.S. economy has flourished. “The economy of this nation has been built by immigrants of all kinds, not just Latino immigrants from South America or Mexico or Central America, but from people around the world. And so I need to be the person communicating the assets and the pluses of our community -- because if nobody else is going to do it, I’m going to do it. And I’m going to do it because it’s based on not my opinion, but it’s on facts,” Cavazos said. “I believe that when there’s a glass ceiling or something limiting us, it’s us. We need to make sure as Latinos and Latinas that we don’t incorporate those views that other people have about us that are false and start to believe them ourselves. We need to believe in ourselves, we need to recognize our own power, and we need to be outspoken and vocal about it.”
On the national stage, as the country prepares to elect a new president this November, the issue of immigration cannot be ignored, Cavazos said, adding that it looms over Hispanic voters and business owners. And while Cavazos said the chamber’s individual members will vote for a new U.S. president, the organization itself is non-partisan, and it made the decision not to invite either presidential candidate to speak at the national conference.
“We felt that we needed to stick to business, although politics and policy is a big part of what we do. We wanted our conference to be focused on things that pertain to how we add more capital to our members who underinvested in capacity building and contracts, so I love to tell people I’ll say that we’re not red or blue. We’re red, white, and blue, and our favorite color is green, which (represents) money and commerce,” he said.
Cavazos continued, “I know other folks really use the election as a way of marketing to get more people to come to their conference, but it would really distract more than help our conference. … Our conference is only two and a half days. And by having either candidate, it involves Secret Service, it involves FBI, it involves waiting in lines and a lot of security. And we felt that that would probably distract people from the focus of what we call the three C’s -- capital capacity building, and contracts, which is what our members want.”
Meanwhile, Carlos Gomez, president and CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City, said the national conference is a prime opportunity to show corporate America the power of Hispanic businesses and their effect on the American economy.
“What’s sad is, some major companies still don’t get it. They still don’t see the numbers and the growth. It’s not a matter of ‘if,’ it’s ‘when,’ and we’re going to focus on helping those companies that do see this opportunity,” Gomez said. “If we were a country, we would be the fifth largest economy in the world, surpassing France and India. That’s how powerful the Latino buying dollar is in the United States. And it’s just going to continue to grow. I always tell corporate America, ‘If you do not have us as a customer, your competitor does.’ We again have a lot of work to do.”
That work can begin, Gomez said, by registering for the conference if you have not yet done so. “It’ll probably be selling out soon, so this is a conference you don’t want to miss,” Gomez said. “It’s right in our backyard. Otherwise, you’re going to have to fly to L.A., Phoenix, Miami. Go see it and experience it and grow your network.”
To register, visit USHCC.com. For more information, visit www.hccgkc.com or call (816) 472-6767.
Contribute to the article Corey Crable, editor.
