With Connecticut's General Assembly set to reconvene in early February, Connecticut's increasingly large and influential Latino population wants lawmakers to take action on their concerns. Saturday at the Hartford Marriott downtown, Latino leaders will gather for the sold out Latino and Puerto Rican Policy Agenda Summit.
“This is the first effort to create a sense of a collective agenda among Puerto Ricans and Latinos in the state,” said event organizer Charles Venator Santiago, an associate professor and interim director at University of Connecticut’s El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies.
The event will bring elected officials together with community members and community leaders to talk about a collective agenda that could benefit Puerto Ricans Latinos, he said.
Venator Santiago spoke with Connecticut Public’s “All Things Considered” about the effort, ahead of an important presidential election.
Harnessing Latino political power
“Latinos are increasingly becoming almost a fifth of the population of the state, certainly the second largest group of population in the state,” Venator Santiago said. “I think this is an opportunity for Latinos and politicians to affirm the commitments of Connecticut to a political position that may support more democracy. And I think it's really important for Latinos, not just to participate in federal elections, but also to use that opportunity to engage in local politics.”
The guest list is wide-ranging, from local community leaders to U.S Senators.
“We're getting all kinds of requests to participate – from people in the community, from lawmakers, from elected officials. Connecticut Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz is going to be present. And we've invited federal lawmakers like Sen. [Richard] Blumenthal and Sen. [Chris] Murphy,” Venator Santiago said. “We're looking forward to having a great conversation.”
Setting the agenda
The event brings together information from a series of listening sessions held with Latino residents in Hartford, New Haven, Waterbury and New London, for Saturday's agenda reveal.
“We collected all the data on Puerto Ricans and Latinos in the state. And we wanted to get a sense of what people thought about the issues that we're seeing in the data,” Venator Santiago explained. “We've identified five issues that we're gonna look at: housing inequalities, health disparities, linguistic justice, Latino voting, and civic engagement, and educational disparities.”
Connecticut housing policy is a particular example of the way the state is falling short, and it is disproportionately affecting Latino residents, he said.
“The rent burden and mortgage burden for Latinos in Connecticut is upwards of 40%, close to 50%. In some places, 60% of their salaries,” Venator Santiago said.
Educational access for English Language Learners and bilingual accessibility were two other areas the state could improve upon, according to the findings.
“A major issue around linguistic justice is the fact that there aren't enough translators or interpreters available in agencies, schools, health clinics, hospitals, to respond to Spanish speakers,” he explained. “One of the findings that was confirmed also by the listening sessions, is that we see a lot of Latinos who want to learn English so they can incorporate into the community, but they don't have access to the ESL or bilingual education programs.”
The first of many civic engagement opportunities
The summit on Saturday is a nonpartisan event, featuring lawmakers and community members from both sides of the aisle, which Venator Santiago hopes will be the first of many gatherings.
“The goal is that hopefully we can do it at the beginning or the legislative sessions, maybe one in January every year, and then in August before bills are discussed in the state legislature,” he said.
Another goal is to host more frequent, issue-oriented summits for smaller audiences. Meanwhile, the waitlist to attend the inaugural event on Saturday continues to grow.
“There is a lot of hunger, if you will, for this kind of conversation. But definitely by the end of the day, we'll have a sense of whether people can start assuming a sense of responsibility to engage in a conversation about future legislative agenda-building.”
