Guest Editorial:
By Angela C. Trudell Vasquez

   We’re in the middle of National Hispanic Heritage Month, and the values I’d like to honor during this month are hard work and community.

   At a recent family wedding in Chicago, several Hispanic families came together from Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin and Puerto Rico. These were working-class families, people who came here and got good-paying union jobs or jobs in the public sector to support their families.

   They worked for Maytag and John Deere. They were public school teachers, nurses or social workers. Others were bankers, auditors or worked for the insurance industry. These were all well-paying jobs with benefits, and the entire family benefited from their success.

   For National Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, it’s important to remember that they did not start off successful. Many of them were from poor families. They may have taken aid from various agencies or churches, but the parents stressed getting a good education and saving money and being frugal.

   They relied on each other. Often, many households lived together under one roof, sharing expenses, income, child care, and adult care when the grandparents got old and needed additional assistance.

   Maybe they were hungry now and then but they welcomed others to their table and shared what they had to eat. They grew their own food, canned or gathered fruit that grew freely, raised bees and chickens or designed shoes from old tires during World War II.

   They availed themselves of public libraries, public education and public transportation. And their children took on jobs as soon as they could to contribute to the household.

   This is the family I was born into.

   Some of us have fulfilled the American dream and have risen from working class to middle class by following the law, obeying the rules, jumping through the hoops and saving money for rainy days.

   Some of us have become activists and work for social justice, whether it’s in AIDS prevention, lobbying for better immigration laws, fighting for the right for unions to exist or protecting the programs we know our family members relied on to feed and take care of their families. Some of us are earning doctorates, some are policemen, and some are just returning from the battlefield in Afghanistan.

   But we are all giving back to the communities that nourished us.

   We are not just Hispanic. We are Americans. And we embody the American dream.

   We want others to have the same opportunities we had.

   That means decent public services, such as libraries, schools and mass transit. That means decent-paying jobs with good benefits and union protections. That means a community that takes care of everyone in it.

   This is not just the Hispanic community. This is the entire American community.

Angela C. Trudell Vasquez works with the Wisconsin Civil Liberties Union and is a poet. She can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org. Reprinted from “The Progressive” (www.progressive.org).