CALL TO ACTION – CREATING COMMUNITY-BASED CAPACITY BUILDING

The recent federal government shutdown has highlighted the imperative need for community activists to continue to work on capacity building and to create viable coalitions across the Nation and the global community. We build communities not Walls. Our hard work edifies communities across the Nation and throughout the world. Money wiring to Latin America and throughout the world to immigrant communities have and continue to create domestic growth and economic opportunity. We have built communities and endure being victims of violent crime, systemic racism and public institutional neglect.

There is an economic and banking crisis looming at our doorstep. A crisis fabricated and sustained by the erosion of regulatory protection of consumers, farmers and small businesses. The time is ripe, and we have standing to address the issues we are facing from the adverse impact of the shut down to the need of addressing true criminal justice reform.

The American Dream has left us and for many of us in our respective immigrant and Latino communities, the dream has never been obtainable as systemic failures in how elected officials and the federal government have neglected public institutions and public programs that seek to serve us.

This is a crucial and defining moment in our identity as Americans of Latino descent in the United States and as members of the global village.  The current social and political climate calls for organizing block by block and to demand action and accountability from our elected representatives. If our call to action are left unheard and dismissed, let us mobilize and register to vote, with the goal of getting the vote out.

The tide needs and must be turned around! Mere complaining and or making a reference to the systemic racism and backlash we have and continue to endure are not working.

Build yourself first and while in the process take a moment and encourage a neighbor and a fellow citizen to become part of the civic fabric. Our past defines us as people who come into neighborhoods and areas crime ridden and poor and with our vision and ingenuity, we develop boulevards of prosperity. The present is here, and it is ours and of our brothers and sisters who are also striving for better public institutions for their children and communities.

We are all connected and affected by the social, educational and political crisis our nation is facing. We are all impacted by it.  Sit with yourself and courageously take a step towards your self-edification, become an agent of social change. The future is now, Juntos Podemos!