Latino Enterprise Center (LEC)

“This week we celebrate Small Business Week. It would do us good to shake the hand of an American entrepreneur and say, “Gracias.” We could all learn something about the ganas that fuels our economy.”

That was a quote from an article linked by Hispanic Tips, one of our website links. The integration of the growing Latino population in Northfield has been identified as a key to the long term success in the comprehensive economic development plan. After desiging an long term (20 year) strategy to achieve this integration, we decided that we needed to concentrate on the Latino entrepreneur as the fuel for economic and leadership development.

Before deciding to start working on the structure of the Latino Enterprise Center, I had checked with many local leaders and experts about the conditions and resources available here. As in almost all of the cases I have worked with, entrepreneurs showed to be the logical path to growing leaders and capturing the amazing positive energy here in this city. What makes this strategy so valid is the fact that it creates an environment where others start to feel that they can take risk and come forward, weather it is on civic leadership or in business.

As an entrepreneur, I know that many more Latinos will start taking leadership roles as we create the conditions for them to feel confortable. The climate that generates participation is the result of a large network of institutions and leaders from accross the city. As I have said at many presentations, moving to Northfield is probably the best decision I have made in a long time, but this is only because of all of you out there who have made me feel welcome.

Paying it forward, I see the importance in investing time and resources so that others who are less “entrepreneurial” can take a first step toward leadership. As more people come forward, I se us Latinos increasing our participation in events, at our schools, learning English and teaching Spanish so that we can communicate better, and getting involved in other significant aspects of integration through leadership wherever it is that we are called to act. I was told once by Rigoberta Menchu, the 1993 Nobel Peace price winner (from Guatemala), that “our ability to be leaders come from the spirit of entrepreneurship within us, once we find it and feed it, it pulls us forward, it makes us look into adversity and challenges as an opportunity to grow, not a reason to retreat”.

Entrepreneurs have been revitailizing Lake Street in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and other cities accross the country, this week, let’s take a hard look at who really holds the bread basket in this country, the small business and the entrepreneurs deserve the credit, and have shown that we can grow our own local success. Shake a hand this week, visit your locally owned store.

The linked article will help paint this picture better. Enjoy week dedicated to the Small Business and please thank one of those hardworking souls that sustain this country’s economy.

When I met with local business leaders last month to conduct strategic planning for the development of the Latino Enterprise Center, we agreed that focusing our attention on economic development in Northfield through the support of entrepreneurship was a sound strategy. I was aware that immigration raids have a negative impact in the business environment and a high cost to our businesses, employees, suppliers, consumers, and the local and regional economies.

As a person who immigrated to the U.S. legally, and have worked hard to be a valuable citizen, I never thought that my Latino heritage would ever become a liability, I always believed that this country would figure out ways to separate those of us decent people and the criminals when picking the bad guys out. There seem to be a very delicate situation going on in this area as we watch how immigration raids are being carried out around the country, there is an article at the end that will illustrate this scenario better than I can.

I have known that immigration officials search within the Latino communities with a goal of picking up a list of criminals for whom they carry arrest orders with them. I did not see myself disagreeing with that logic and figured that preparing a local plan to deal with the disturbance, would ensure that we actually help ICE (Immigration and Custom Enforcement) officials carry out their job in a quick, efficient and clean manner and consequently minimize the distress to the local community. This logic would work if ICE stayed on track in picking up convicted criminals living among us. We can all probably agree that we don’t want criminals in our communities, specially us Latinos, we already have enough troubles as it is.

Last year in December, immigration raids in Worthington and Marshalltown were also measured on their economic impact. One thing to remember is that the economic impact is felt after the events, logically, the economic, psychological and social environment impact is a collateral damage to non-targets, a price paid by regular folks just living in the target communities. When the current governor of California filmed his christmas movie in Saint Paul in 1996, the disturbance that they created was compensated in some cases at the levels of $100,000 for lost income to local businesses that needed to be temporarily closed. Immigration raids not only surpass this cost locally, they are part of a large chain that also drains tax payers resources in excess of $4 billion.

I know the places where many of the people being deported come from or at least the conditions that make them come to this country without documents. I know for a fact that the house-to-house raids and intimidation of employers is a flawed strategy as a way to enforce or fix undocumented immigration of hardworking decent people. ICE (Immigration and Custom Enforcement) don’t even have the physical infrastructure or resources to carry the plan to completion as stated in their Strategic Plan.
ICE has embarked on a war against human survival, though history has shown thousands of times that nobody can win a war against poverty by expelling people from the places where they have tasted the flavor of opportunity to feed their family. So why are our towns, and our economies put through this painfull process and left behind without compensation for the losses when the show is over.? The answer will come many years from now, as the 10 year ICE strategic plan leaves no doubt that they are not about to slow down. Unfortunatelly, as in other failed war strategies, there is no public accountability to tax payers for such a loss of resources, to businesses for loss income, and to society for the tremendous human suffering, the consequences of a broken immigration policy and senseless intimadation of decent people.

I know a very large group of people around the country and back in Mexico and Guatemala who would revert immigration if given $ 4 billion to work with. In fact, we would only take 20% of overhead and invest the rest in low interest loans to entrepreneurs in the towns where people are coming from. Then we would take a percentage of the interest earned to influence a fair global trading system to multiply the effect of each dollar. We would not even need to be allocatd a budget year after year. I hope you get my point, if ICE were a business who had to show real long-term sustainable results for that investment, I can guarantee, it would not qualify for a bank loan.

A recent article by the Star Tribune in Willmar illustrates the human case very well, read on to learn more.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Most of us know this town would have a heck of a time trying to run itself these days without the immigrants. They’re working at the grocery stores, the fast-food places, they’re opening businesses and keeping this town alive and young. We’re just being practical by telling them, ‘Look, we want you in our community, and we want you to feel like you belong.’”

- Republican Mayor Robert Patten of Highstown, New Jersey, whose town council unanimously approved measures allowing undocumented residents to interact with police and city services without fear of being reported to federal authorities - making it one of an increasing number of “sanctuary cities” with no-questions-asked policies on immigration status. (Source: The Washington Post)

El Centro Empresarial Latino le invita a “El Mercado”, un evento patrocinado por la Escuela secundaria Artech. El evento se llevará a cabo el 22 de Abril de las 2:30 hasta las 5:30 pm en el parque central de Northfield al lado de las cataratas del Río Canon. Junto a El Mercado se llevará a cabo la celebración del Dia de la Tierra. El mercado consistirá de varias mesas con vendedores en representación del espíritu emprendedor Latino, se venderá el Café de la Paz (Peace Coffee), tamales y otras golosinas. Todos los ingresos colectados serán invertidos en el programa de Español de Artech y serán utilizados para una gira de estudiantes a Guatemala en Mayo de este año.

En caso de que este lloviendo, el evento será llevado a cabo adentro de la Iglesia UCC, a una cuadra arriba de la biblioteca pública. LOS ESPERAMOS.

The Latino Enterprise Center invites you to “El Mercado”, an event sponsored by Artech Charter School to be held on Sunday April 22nd from 2:30pm-5:30pm at Bridge Square in Northfield joining the EARTH DAY CELEBRATION at the same place. El Mercado, will consist of several tables honoring the entrepreneurial Latino spirit by selling Peace Coffee, tamales and other treats. All of the proceeds from the sales at this event will be invested in Artech’s Spanish program to finance a student trip to Guatemala in May this year.

The event will be held inside the UCC church in case of rain

For more information on El Mercado, contact: Amy at 507 645 9097. Come join us at El Mercado.

I received a call last week from Ben Goessling, a business and sport reporter for the Star Tribune South, he had heard about the Latino Enteprise Center and wanted to meet and learn more about it. We set up a time and met at the Bitterweet Cafe by the Archer House in downtown Northfield. We had a nice conversation and it was not only a pleasure to talk with him, but he also wrote a nice article “A Latino Leader’s next step: make more leaders” based on our conversation.

You can read the article on the businesss section of the Star Tribune South or just read it below.

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