Latino Enterprise Center (LEC)

The Latino Enterprise Center was developed with the purpose of tackling rural economic development issues as a way to improve the capacity of rural Latino communities to integrate into the wider society.  We do this by encouraging, supporting and developing leadership.  The entrepreneurship wealth within our Latino communities is an effective path to leadership development while dealing with poverty issues from within the communities.

As described in the "about the LEC" page, the process of supporting entrepreneurs requires engaging the following areas:

1. Outreach to entrepreneurs
2. Business ideas exploration and evaluation
3. Business management training and new business/start-up planning assistance
4. Supporting access to start-up and working capital
5. Technical business management assistance
6. Support integration as a business growth and development strategy through public relations, communications, and the development of broad support networks

Here is a quick update on item 4 of the above.  On November 9th, I met with Mihailo Temali, the director of the Neighborhood Development Center and Julie Causey, board chair of Western Bank in St. Paul.  With me was Jim Blaha, director of the Northfield Area Communitiy Action Center and our main regional partner organization for the LEC work in Northfield.

The meeting was focused on exploring the mechanics behind starting, managing and growing small business lending programs. Western Bank and especially Mihailo (Mike) are what we consider pioneers and champions of this sector in the Twin Cities area.

Yesterday, I met again with bankers, except this time it was with Mark Mulke, Pesident of the Northfield’s Wells Fargo branch, Rick Estenson, VP of Business Development at First National Bank and Julie Cochlin, Commercial Banker at Community Resource Bank in Northfield.

The meeting was intended to sound out the idea of launching a regional small business lending program, and exploring the possibilities that existing infrastructure such as the bank’s and the Community Investment Fund LLC, (a joint venture formed by Carleton and St. Olaf colleges and local banks) among others, would take an initial interest in this idea.  Specifically, we are gathering the support needed to justify the development of a business proposal to support small business lending for the "non-bankable" enterprises as we as developing "alternative funding sources" such as micro-lending to address the financing gaps that currently exist for small entrepreneurs but with a focus on the Latino-led enterprises.  Though the links provided above don’t point to the whole spectrum of factors and needs that we are dealing with in our region, they provide some background for those of you who are wondering about the value and the meaning of investing in businesses for social responsibility.

We still have a lot of work to do to build the organizational infrastructure to deliver the economic development services needed in rural Minnesota, but things are moving at a very good speed.  As we move along this path, we keep supporting entrepreneurs that are ready to explore business ideas, need help with their existing businesses or simply want to play a role in helping their communities. In between all of these activities, other organizations have become engaged with us, they include the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation, and Southwest Initiative Foundation, plus a network of twin cities based organizations and rural partners.

The details of all of this will keep coming for now, this is all and I thank you for staying tuned to our work.

If you are looking for headlines on Latino/Hispanic issues, one place you can go to find this information is our blogante entrepreneur Tomás. I came accross his blog last year and linked his “Hispanic Tips” site to our Latino Enterprise Center blog. I benefit from his information and would like to make sure that those who subscribe to my blog and visit it, can also benefit from this incredible resource.

Here is the information for Tomás, enjoy.

Hola, my name is Tomás (bio). Almost daily, I bring you comprehensive relevant news for, from and about Hispanics - Blogante News: 32,056 posts .

• Mission: To make it easy for you to stay informed. About HispanicTips
• Readers: “love it,” “addictive,” “informative,” “helpful,” “useful,” “great” and “invaluable.” more readers’ quotes and testimonials
• Voicemail: 310-439-9150 | E-mail

I went to Prairie Creek Elementary School’s “Plaza” or “Mercado” last Thursday the 15th organized by two classrooms and led by Michelle Martin and Simon Tyler, both classroom teachers and very involved in improving cultural understanding of the Latin American culture at the school. The approach to the project, using it as a tool to teach business management and the depth at which the students were involved is proof that nobody is too young to get involved in understanding business management, what they learned in this project are real lifetime skills.

Northfield News reporter Megan Proft wrote a detailed account of the night’s event so I will let her and Dan Iverson, the photographer, tell the story. Here is the direct link where you can read it at their website and leave comments as well. Below is a quick reference to the article.
11/17/2007
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Karsten Singh, left, and Hannah Singh, center, talk prices with Alex Battiste at the “Forget Me Not O Mexico” souvenir shop during the Prairie Creek Community School mercado Thursday night. Profits from the event will be donated to the Rojas Donation Fund. The Rojas family lost their home in a fire last month.

Students’ learning benefits victims of a home fire
By MEGAN PROFT
Staff Writer

Latino/a Leaders held a regular meeting last Friday November 9th at Just Food Cooperative’s community room in Northfield to discuss their current role within Northfield and the wider south central Minnesota region.  The first meeting was conducted on August 31st when 11 representatives participated.  The network has grown to 15 with around 8 to 10 attending regular meetings at a given time, interest in also growing in towns east, west and south of Northfield, stay tuned for updates.

Since the first meeting, four focus work areas where identified and they include:

1 - Economic development with a short term focus on supporting established or start-up entrepreneurs, exploration of their ideas, planning, and execution.  This work will be led by the Latino Enterprise Center in partnership with the rest of the leadership network and partner organizations.

2 - Health and social services.  This involves education around healthy food choices, preventive health, access to treatment and family and children services.  This work will be led by Health Finders, which covers the Rice county region.

3 - Community safety through a direct engagement of the public safety department.  This work will be coordinated by a group that still needs to be defined.

4 - Children’s education through school connectedness.  We recognize that our children’s success at school is directly connected to the level of parent involvement. Our group will be exploring strategies for engaging the network of parents with school age children in a sustained system of involvement with the schools.

To start the implementation process, a short term plan was put in place so that we can get into action on service items that are ready for public consumption.  To make these services available and promote them, two community-wide 4 hour service fairs have been scheduled for January 19th, from 11:00 am to 3 pm in Northfield (location to be announced), and January 26th in Faribault from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm (location to be announced).

Both events will start with 15 minutes presentations from representatives of the following service areas:

- Health services provided by Health Finders in Rice county.
- Legal labor and immigrant rights
- Business support systems offered by the Latino Enterprise Center, and
- Community safety through emergency preparedness, and existing community infrastructure to respond in case of emergencies.

After these introductions, representatives from each service sector will tend booths so that individuals can select the services they need and get full attention from the experts right there, or schedule appointments for more in depth consultations at a later date.

Looking past this first event and beginning in February 2008, the leadership network will start the process of undergoing a training program.  This training program will start by inviting city, school and public safety officials to train the Latino/a leadership group on practical cooperation strategies that may lead to a healthier community for all.

This plan will last up to 14 months and will include participation of leaders from different city, county and state programs.  The goal is to increase the ability of the emerging leaders to bridge a diverse number of already existing services for our communities.

The Latino Leadership network is also currently working on a brochure in Spanish to profile established service providers with competent Spanish speaking personnel in the region.  If you are one of those institutions, please send e-mail by clicking on the contact form on the upper right hand side of this page.

Our introductory brochure will go out in English to state, county and city organizations and the business and non-profit sectors. The brochure will introduce the leadership network and its highlight its unique position to bridge and facilitate integration for the Latino/a communities in the south central region of Minnesota through improved delivery of existing services through the region.

Our strategy is first, to bridge existing services and make them more accessible to our communities by establishing the links and providing the expertise needed to improve marketing, delivery and expansion.  Second, to establish the organizational and physical infrastructure so that needed services currently not offered are made available.  We will explore new services first through existing institutions, and then, by creating the institutions that may be missing from the equation.  All of this within the context of the work areas outlined above plus new areas that may be identified, and in cooperation with other agencies whenever possible.

Over the last three weeks I have been running a marathon of meetings, conferences, presentations, and catching up on e-mails and office work.

One of the highlights was an invitation I received by Jaci Smith at the Northfield News to present on October 29th, on the issues of the growing Latino/a population in Northfield and the context (economic, social, political) affecting its ability to integrate into the wider community.  The presentation was their way to kick-off their United Way fund drive for 2007.

This and many other opportunities are well appreciated as I find myself engaged in education of the public, engaging leaders in discussions of issues that affect our community (affordable housing, jobs, etc.), and other aspects of building the stepping stones and public relations so that our emerging Latino/a entrepreneurs can thrive in rural Minnesota.  Though we are a long way from succeeding at this job, our impact is now visible and measurable.

On October 22nd, and 23rd, I had an opportunity to participate at an "after NAFTA" conference organized by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and sponsored by our own Main Street Project.  Just to be clear, at the Latino Enterprise Center and Main Street Project, we are all about supporting international trade and business development.  But we do this with the society in mind, with the rural communities engaged, and with consideration for the social, environmental, and economic consequences of what we do.  In short, we think of this trade issues under a set of principles considered under the international movement for fair trade and the environment.  These systems do not pursue enriching the top minority of the already wealthiest people in this country or in developing nations, but a system with a reasonably equitable distribution of the benefits of trading goods and services among people and nations.

Under the fair trade measuring stick, NAFTA is by far one of the largest social economic model failures according to a diversity of experts.  I was surprised to see such high level of governmental representation from Canada and Mexico, and the general agreement on NAFTA’s connection to the migration of more than 6 million people who cross the border undocumented and come from rural areas of Mexico in the last 12 years.

In the picture above is Congressman Miguel Luna Hernández (right), President of the House of Representatives of Mexico. On the podium, is Peter Julian, who addressed the conference at the start, he is a member of the Canadian Parliament.  Following the keynote, there was a panel of experts which include Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and Jose Antonio Almazan - Federal Deputy (PRD), Mexican Parliament, among other national leaders.

At another event, the Rural Summit at Iowa State University in Ames, IA, I heard a similar story from economists, social scientists and even our aspiring presidential candidates   that came for the second day of the conference to address the participants on their plans, specially on fixing NAFTA.

Since all of these events happened, I have been trying to make sense of them in terms of the immigration debate, our own local rural issues related to integration of the Latino communities, and the economic, social and political environment in which we are trying to do the work.  These local issues have a way of rising to the larger national and international context with the same sense of urgency that I find in Northfield, Crookston, Fargo/Moorhead, Faribault, Austin, Worthington, etc..

This deeper awareness and understanding has made me rethink many issues in regards to our strategy, building support networks and the way us at the LEC approach our work, specially because our business is not measured only through the bottom line. Though we have to do well on the profit side just as any other business, the "external" factors such as the social, economic and political conditions of our communities directly affects our effectiveness and defines our strategy.  This strategy has now come to be base solidly in the concept of promoting profitable businesses for social and environmental responsibility.

One outcome of these last three weeks work is that I have started to become less responsive to arguments of anti-immigrant groups and individuals working against so called "illegal" immigrants and their rights to be in this country.  I may agree that coming to this country undocumented is a problem, but I understand poverty myself and will never blame anyone for trying to find a way to feed their family.

To make sense of this, I like to look at the whole picture first and then brake it down into different levels, until I reach the level at which I can do something.  This brings me back to our rural Minnesota communities where we evaluate our strategies for building diverse communities within this larger reality.  One thing more people need to understand better is that we are living in a time of incredible migration movements worldwide.  Most of this movement are the consequences of conflicts over natural resources, and power structures.  Global and transnational corporations are at the center of the debate over gaining control of these resources, the political systems that enforce the laws that control them, the markets that consume them, and the structures that make them extractable and deliverable to the end users.

NAFTA is one of the tools that allows these structures to work without public accountability or input.  Back to the connection with immigration as a result of economic displacement, this happens without much of a chance of actually achieving much of an "economic dream" but purely pursuing the basic human instinct to survive.  In this country it is legal to act in self-defense, and the attacker needs to compensate the victim if proven guilty.  It should also be legal to act in "self-survival" especially if one comes from a rural village under the attack of global faceless trade policies. The problem here is that the ones making the laws are the ones who judge them, this posses a question about the fundamental concept of building a democratic system.

I know I went a little far on this, but the truth is that I actually did not say much new, most of the arguments I am presenting here were widely discussed at the NAFTA conference I mentioned, at the Rural Summit in Ames, Iowa and at the Latino Leadership Conference in Marshalltown, Iowa last weekend, which I also attended.