Let’s Make The 2020s The Decade of The Hispanic Promise-Fulfilled
For three decades, GPHCC has been the leading voice developing, promoting and advocating for Hispanic businesses in the Greater Philadelphia Region, while encouraging the advancement and economic growth of the Hispanic community. This year we celebrate our 30th anniversary at a pivotal moment in the history of Hispanics in the United States.
As the Latinx population continues to grow, it is also maturing, acquiring higher levels of education and wealth, increasing our capacity to influence the future. Still, far too many of our communities continue to be besieged by poverty, gun violence, and the opioid crisis. And yet, as we enter the 2020s, we now see opportunities to overcome these issues at every turn. Our potential for transformation has never been greater. This latent power is the Hispanic Promise.
This year, we can make our voices count in two major ways: the presidential election and the decennial census. After doubling voter turnout in key states (Pennsylvania among them) during the midterm elections, Hispanics, nationally, have the potential to be the tiebreakers in the run for president. At the same time, our participation in the Census will help ensure that our communities receive their fair share of resources for essential needs such as housing, health services, and economic development, not to mention our fair representation in City Council, the General Assembly, and Congress. The key here, too, is to participate in large scale, en masa, because the Hispanic Promise without collective action is just an unfulfilled dream.
We believe that intractable, intergenerational poverty is the greatest threat that the Hispanic community faces. The fact is, that at 38%, Hispanics observe the highest poverty rate in Philadelphia and are among the most impoverished in the nation. It is also a fact that small businesses continue to be the greatest source of employment growth and that most new jobs are created by small businesses with fewer than 250 employees. In other words, Philadelphia’s job creators are the construction firms, coffee roasters, auto repair shops, restaurants and grocers located in our neighborhoods, and increasingly, those creating the jobs are Latinx entrepreneurs who are starting businesses at three times the rate of the general population. There are over 23,000 Hispanic businesses in the region that, with the support of organizations the GPHCC, could attain incremental, sustainable growth, thus adding thousands of new jobs in the neighborhoods that need them most. This is GPHCC’s Hispanic Promise.
At GPHCC we are committed to Latinx entrepreneurship as a key means of fighting the structural poverty that hampers the growth and development of our City and our community. We invite you to join us in this crucial mission, because it requires a shared voice and collective action. As business leaders, as community leaders, and as residents, we should not be satisfied until every neighborhood, every family, every resident and every child, feels they have equal opportunity to share in Philadelphia’s and in the region’s prosperity.
The key to shaping our future is to participate in the present. Let’s make this year count and let this decade be transformative. May the 2020s be the time in which the Hispanic Promise became unleashed.
Sincerely,
Jennifer I. Rodríguez, MCP
President & CEO
As the Latinx population continues to grow, it is also maturing, acquiring higher levels of education and wealth, increasing our capacity to influence the future. Still, far too many of our communities continue to be besieged by poverty, gun violence, and the opioid crisis. And yet, as we enter the 2020s, we now see opportunities to overcome these issues at every turn. Our potential for transformation has never been greater. This latent power is the Hispanic Promise.
This year, we can make our voices count in two major ways: the presidential election and the decennial census. After doubling voter turnout in key states (Pennsylvania among them) during the midterm elections, Hispanics, nationally, have the potential to be the tiebreakers in the run for president. At the same time, our participation in the Census will help ensure that our communities receive their fair share of resources for essential needs such as housing, health services, and economic development, not to mention our fair representation in City Council, the General Assembly, and Congress. The key here, too, is to participate in large scale, en masa, because the Hispanic Promise without collective action is just an unfulfilled dream.
We believe that intractable, intergenerational poverty is the greatest threat that the Hispanic community faces. The fact is, that at 38%, Hispanics observe the highest poverty rate in Philadelphia and are among the most impoverished in the nation. It is also a fact that small businesses continue to be the greatest source of employment growth and that most new jobs are created by small businesses with fewer than 250 employees. In other words, Philadelphia’s job creators are the construction firms, coffee roasters, auto repair shops, restaurants and grocers located in our neighborhoods, and increasingly, those creating the jobs are Latinx entrepreneurs who are starting businesses at three times the rate of the general population. There are over 23,000 Hispanic businesses in the region that, with the support of organizations the GPHCC, could attain incremental, sustainable growth, thus adding thousands of new jobs in the neighborhoods that need them most. This is GPHCC’s Hispanic Promise.
At GPHCC we are committed to Latinx entrepreneurship as a key means of fighting the structural poverty that hampers the growth and development of our City and our community. We invite you to join us in this crucial mission, because it requires a shared voice and collective action. As business leaders, as community leaders, and as residents, we should not be satisfied until every neighborhood, every family, every resident and every child, feels they have equal opportunity to share in Philadelphia’s and in the region’s prosperity.
The key to shaping our future is to participate in the present. Let’s make this year count and let this decade be transformative. May the 2020s be the time in which the Hispanic Promise became unleashed.
Sincerely,
Jennifer I. Rodríguez, MCP
President & CEO
support GPHCC in 2020
GPHCC hosts over 20 events annually that attract 3,000 attendees. View our 2020 calendar. For more information, contact jsuarez@gphcc.org.
