 Hispanic Heritage Month kicks off September 15th and it's a nationwide celebration, honoring the many achievements, histories and cultures of Hispanic and Latino Americans. We've invited community members from around the First Coast to talk about Hispanic heritage and some of the events that they are curating. So let's give a warm welcome to Monica Hernandez, president of the First Coast Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Good morning, Monica. Hi, good morning. Thank you for having me. Attorney Elizabeth Ruiz, managing a partner at Ruiz Law and Accident and Immigration Attorneys of Jacksonville. Ms. Ruiz, how are you? Doing well, thank you for having me today. And just to be clear, like we're calling you Lisa because Lisa's what everybody calls you, right? That's my nickname. All right, that's your nickname. Okay, I don't want people to be like, you said she was Elizabeth. We're just getting it right. Then we've got Eric Garcia, treasurer of First Coast Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Eric, how are you, sir? Yeah, doing well. Good morning. Buenos dias, everyone. All right. And Dr. Rebecca Dominguez-Carmini, an oral historian and founder of, you know what, I'm gonna let you say the organization that you founded. Okay, I founded Voces Hispanas and it's an oral history collection. That is amazing. Thank you for having me. I would have totally butchered it. So that's why I give it to you. But oral histories are my jam. So I can't wait to talk a little bit more about that. Listen, callers, listeners, listen, you can join the conversation. Call us at 549-2937. You can tweet us at FCC on air. You can email us at First Coast Connect at wjct.org or message us on the First Coast Connect Facebook page or Instagram. So I'll just open this up to the panel. Actually, I'll start off with you, Monica. So what exactly is Hispanic Heritage Month? So Hispanic Heritage Month really was started in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week as a way to celebrate the history, the culture and the contributions of American Hispanics in the United States. And then in 1988, it actually transitioned into a full month from September 15th through October 15th, which is today where we celebrate. And people always wonder and tell me like, why is it like from mid-September to October 15th? And it's really because during that month or that transition period is where you're going to have the independence of many Latin American countries. So we're going to have Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. And then Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence on September 16th and the 18th respectively. And then on Columbus Day, Valdilla de la Raza, which is on October 12th, falls within that same 30-day period. So it does have a reason as to why it's from September 15th through October 15th, but really I always like to highlight and recognize that really we just utilize that time to make sure that we are celebrating the diversity we have within our culture, within our ethnicity, because really being Latino, being Hispanic, it's an ethnicity, it's not a race. Therefore we look different, we think different. I mean, all of us here, we are completely different, yet we're all Hispanic and or Latinos. Yeah, I was about to ask you about that because as you are naming off all the different countries that have independent states coming up, that when we talk about Hispanic heritage and Hispanic culture, it's not a monolith. Like there's so many different types of Latinos and countries and all of that. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, so if you think of the term Hispanic really is, it's just, it's a way of identifying a whole community. We sort of all got lumped into this box where if you want to put one community into a box, it is Hispanic, right? And it is a community that is of Spanish, the language, it's from, they speak Spanish. However, we're different, right? I have friends that are Hispanic, that are Latinos, but they're Asian, right? Their heritage, their parents are from Asia or you have indigenous people that are equally Latinos, that are equally Hispanics. You have African descent, individuals that are also Latinos and it's equally, right? It's all about the ethnicity in the country where you're from. I want to open it up to the panel a little bit more and just ask, talk to me a little bit about the Hispanic culture in Jacksonville and the First Coast. I can definitely say that it's roamed over the past 10 years. Duval County, St. John's County and Clay County have all tremendously increased according to our Census Bureau. So the amount of Hispanics moving to the area, starting their own businesses has definitely grown over the past 10 years. Elizabeth, can you tell us some of the struggles that this growing community has in Jacksonville? Well, I think the challenges that we face are very similar to the ones that are faced by Hispanics on a national level and immigration reform being one of the top challenges that we face right now. And then I know that there are also challenges to accessing healthcare and others that have been affected by recent changes in state law. I was having lunch with a friend of mine who is Latino and when we were talking about this subject, he said like, you just need to make sure that everybody knows it's way more than just tacos and tequila. Absolutely. It's a lot deeper than that. It's a very rich history. And I just wanted to dive into that a little bit. So Dr. Dominguez-Carmini, can you shed some light on that? Well, as Monico referred to all of the Hispanics, we're all different. And of course, our histories are all different. We come from different parts of the world. And I think that, I hate to use this word, but I'm going to use it, that diversity that exists is very palpable in our population and we're just all very different. I think that we, even in this room, represent different countries and backgrounds. For example, my dad is from Peru. He came here to the United States in the 70s and after he married my mom, who is of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant descent, native Floridian. So I grew up in a very just, I guess, rich cultural background that comprised of the food and the different, you know, the Spanish language. But yet at the same time, on my mom's side, there was also, there's rich culture that derives from here, Southern culture. An interesting fact is that one of my great, I was not one of it, but yeah, on my maternal grandmother's side, one of our ancestors was the founder of Nashville and was the general in the Confederate Army. So I've had the chance to grow up as an American, born and raised here, but at the same time, exposed to cultures from different parts of the world and especially Peru. And Monica, you're the president of the First Coast Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Can you tell me a little bit about what the Chamber of Commerce does? Absolutely, so as an organization, we represent all nationalities, right? So even our events are highlighted and inclusive of the different countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. So as an organization, really we focus in advocating for Hispanic business owners, for entrepreneurs, for creating connections that are ultimately going to improve the betterment of the Hispanic business community. We also work closely with other organizations within the city that can ultimately provide more opportunity for business owners that can represent that we can advocate. So for instance, as I started with the Chamber, one of the main focuses that I have was to be able to find, get programming that is bilingual for the entrepreneurs. So for instance, working with the SBTC as the SBTC is providing training courses and programs for the Hispanic community. They now have a bilingual speaker that is ultimately being able to meet with entrepreneurs, with individuals that are starting to open businesses that are, you know, as a fastest growing minority, that is what's happening, right? They are opening, we are opening businesses that are at a faster rate than any other community. Being able to work with JSAB that now they also have a representative that speaks Spanish, that is ultimately allowing a business owner to learn in their language. I always jokingly say, you know, it's very difficult to learn math in a different language, right, let alone to understand the tax code in a language that's not yours. It's not about a handout, it's about opportunity, right? It's about having the opportunity to learn, to be able to have the ability to ask the questions in Spanish, even if, you know, even if the program is in English. So, you know, I think it was last year that we hosted a two day federal series event where we had individuals from the city come in and speak about the various programming that are available, how to, you know, how to gain an access to contracts within the city. And even though some of the speakers were not bilingual, we were there, we were able to have somebody from the SBA that was bilingual that way. If anybody wanted to ask questions in Spanish, it was an option, right? I personally moved to the US 24 years ago, I had to learn the language from the bottom, right? I only, I think I only knew the colors and the numbers at the time. So I understand, right? I still do math in Spanish, I still do certain things in Spanish because that is my first language. So I fully understand, you know, what it means and I've seen it, I've seen the struggle through my mom, right? Through the lens of my mom. Where, you know, creating a business, a business plan, understanding how to gain access to capital and that is actually one of the largest and biggest limitations, you know, that are impacting business owners, minority owned businesses is gaining access to capital. Yeah, I would imagine if you don't speak the language, it's English, and you're trying to get capital from a bank, it's a huge barrier. 100%, right? And I think we also have to take into consideration what it means from a cultural standpoint, right? In the US, we do businesses, we do business differently than we do in Latin America or in Spanish speaking countries. Here you have to have a full understanding of making sure that your personal, that your small business banker is your best friend, right? That you have that relationship with the banker, that you have an understanding of your FICO score, having a budget, how to do a business plan. All of those are, while it may sound simple, for your average person, it is something that can be or make a difference in the experience and the success of that business. Not to mention, right? Gaining access to a contract, whether it's through the city or within the states, that is going to pivot your business that much more, right? You're going to be able to scale your business because now you have access to contracts that are going to allow you to, you know, gain more, have more businesses and then also improve. You can join the conversation at 549-2937. You can tweet us at FCC on air. You can email us at firstcoastconnectedwjct.org and you can find us on Facebook and Instagram. Dr. Dominguez-Carmini, I wanted to turn to you to talk a little bit about the project that you do with oral histories. So are you gathering oral histories here on the First Coast? How does that work? And how can people hear these histories? I love oral histories, probably more than I love reading histories and history books because you actually get to hear what a person's experienced and lived, you know? Exactly, you hear the tone of their voice, the emotion. And I also take videos as well so one can see the emotional impact of the questions or the life history that they're relaying to you and the trials, the tribulations that they went through to get here. I originally began this project in 2021. Jacksonville Historical Society approached me and asking if I could give a history, a presentation on the history of Jacksonville Hispanics, or more recent histories, what they asked for. And I said, sure, I'd love to. So I went to their archives and unfortunately, the information that I was able to access was very scant. And that being the case, I did what comes naturally to me. I'm an oral historian. So I asked them how they felt about me creating an oral history collection. And they were very, very happy to say the least. So I embarked on this journey. I met some key individuals in the Hispanic community here, in particular, Mario de Cunto from the, let me see if I say this right, the Duval County Democratic Hispanic Caucus. He was one of the ones I was able to reach. And he was very interested in the project and said, yes, I'll help you. So through the snowball method, he gave me Monica Hernández's name. And once we talked and we shared, it was instantaneous love affair. And she was very committed as well. So between Mario and Monica, we started rolling and the introductions came in. I followed up with phone calls and the rest is history within a three month time period with COVID in full force, of course. I did mainly, I did all Zoom actually, but I was able to get 40 oral histories in a three month period of time, which I thought was fantastic because it was only moi that was doing it. As someone who does oral histories for a living, that's pretty fantastic. That's a lot of work in three months time. What were some of the stories that you found that really moved you? Oh gosh. A lot of immigration stories were very telling. And the obstacles and the hardships that individuals encountered when first arriving here, they didn't speak English. They were thrust into a situation where it was either speak English or die. You had to really strive a lot. And for some individuals, they ended up going the wrong way at a young age because they couldn't understand the language and they just had such difficulty. And of course, some of them had been traumatized by war, by desaparecidos, in their native countries. So they had a lot of trauma coming here. So they had that to deal with, plus the burden of learning the language. But they triumphed. And it's just very warming to the heart to listen to these stories and see them triumph and become successful business people, professors, leaders in the Hispanic community. And they have so much to offer then. Yeah. We're gonna go to the phones. We've got Charlie and Jack's Beach. Charlie, how are you this morning? Hey guys, I'm doing great. So my kids are grown, but in hindsight, if I were going to put my four-year-old in a daycare or a school, I would try and find one, this is just my personal opinion, that spoke Spanish. So that my child would be speaking Spanish all day long. And instead of just knowing one language, my child would grow up and know two. They're just saying that if you're trilingual, you speak three languages. If you're bilingual, you speak two. And if you speak one language, you're American. So I want to try and, if I had the opportunity to do it all over again, I would put my child in a place like a daycare or a school that only spoke Spanish so that my child would grow up and be bilingual. So are you asking where those schools are? Oh, no, I'm not. I guess I'm just asking you guys, if you all think that's a good idea, would you recommend putting your children in a school, your four-year-old or your child in a place where they only speak Spanish? Is that a good idea where they become bilingual? Because being bilingual, that gives you many, many more opportunities for positions on your resume, et cetera. Yeah, Charlie, thank you so much. I will just say that I love to travel. I've been all over the world to many Latin American countries and I can't speak the lick of Spanish. I can say hola, but that's about it. And I wish, I want to speak Spanish so badly. Like I was in Barcelona where they speak a mixture of Catalan in Spanish. I was in a sea of, like, I don't know what you're saying, but the people were always great with me. I've had the opportunity to go to Cuba and could not speak the language. So yeah, just to the caller's response, I think that if we can all teach our children how to be bilingual, it's just so much, not even for the resume, but just to connect and understand each other. Because I think that in this human experience that we're all going through, language at times is a barrier to just understanding that someone is a lot like you. And maybe the little differences are things to be celebrated and not to be scared of. And I think if the language is not the barrier, you can begin to break that down. Right, so Spanish is like the second most spoken language after Mandarin, right? And I think language is definitely a connector. And to me, being able to not only represent the language, but really connect with individuals from different backgrounds just makes you so much more, I wouldn't say successful, but better in your day-to-day because we're so different, right? From different backgrounds, even if we're within from the US, with depending on where you're from, being able to identify, being able, it makes you a better communicator, makes you a better person whenever you're trying to get your point across. And it's so much easier to learn a second language as the child. I want 100%. Sure. I know DuVall does provide, they do have some immersion schools. They do. Yeah, I think to answer our caller's question is it's important to not necessarily just go to a school where they only speak Spanish, but I think it's important just to do research on the curriculum that the schools are teaching for your toddlers. So in most of them, where I'd say several are including Spanish in there already, so I think it's just important just to do your research and find out which ones are teaching. What are the predominant Spanish nationalities or Latino nationalities in Jacksonville? You know, there's a Mexican community, there's a Puerto Rican community, Honduran community, Guatemala, Cuban as well. So I think there's upcoming contact with quite a few in. Yeah. And growing. And growing, yep. It's rapidly growing. You're going to have a lot of Venezuelans that have definitely moved into the Northeast Florida from directly from Venezuela, if not from Miami that just continue to discover, right? I feel like Jacksonville is like this hidden gem. And as it gets rediscovered, just more communities continue to come to embrace it and really to enjoy the, you know, everything that we have here. Yeah, yeah. Politically, when we're talking about, you know, Latinos and the Hispanic vote, I think when I think about Miami, I tend to think that specifically, like, and this is from reporting, I did back in the day that a lot of older Cubans were generally conservative and generally voted. And of course, like, you know, we're making blanket statements here, but just saying that like generally voted conservative and generally voted Republican, but that migrants from different countries from Venezuela, from, you know, wherever, like they were voting a little bit differently and sometimes a little bit more democratic. Do we see like specific groups like tend to vote in one direction or has it kind of equalled out now? That's a big political question. I think, yeah, that's a loaded question, 100% because, you know, to be transparent or from a political standpoint, I do have to remain neutral given as you know, our organization is nonprofit. I don't mean about you specifically. I'm talking about like the community on a whole. Do we see the community tend to like vote conservative? I think like the black community is interesting in ways because I think at the root of it, a lot of black people are conservative because of church values, a lot of black folks go to, you know, and obviously these are blanket statements, but we tend to vote democratic. And so I'm just trying to understand, you know, where that is with the Hispanic community. I think it would depend upon the group, yeah, the particular group and then also the socioeconomic status that they have as well because obviously if more of the programs that would assist, they would probably veer towards that party rather than the more conservative ones that might just not have those, what do you wanna call them, the safety net to fall into? And there's also the countries that they've come from and the country's experience. I think that they really, that really feeds into their decision as far as who to follow. A lot of these countries have been ruled by dictators. And so the trend to support democracy it's getting a little bit mixed now as far at least in terms of immigration. It used to be that Republican, the Republican party was pretty much the major proponent of amnesty and other types of immigration reform. I mean, a lot of the major legislature was passed under Republican presidents. I mean, you're going back to Ronald Reagan's day, right? Because I mean, Ronald Reagan really was the, please correct me if I'm wrong. Ronald Reagan was the first president to really grant amnesty to migrants that had crossed. But that issue specifically in the Republican party has now gone in a completely different way since Reagan's day. It has and it would say it might have been overnight just because of September 11th. And that's when you started to see the shift to what you see now. But historically you've seen border enforcement under heavy border enforcement under both parties. And you have not seen a push towards immigration reform from either party because it's just too politically loaded of an issue right now. But we're seeing a current border crisis and politically, President Biden's the one being blamed for it. But it really is just a culmination of Congress not dealing with the issue over the past 30 years. Yeah, I've done a lot of reporting in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and migrants crossing over. Specifically the reporting that I've done have been about migrant deaths that have, people, they cross from Mexico, they go in the Sonoran Desert, they're trying to get here and a lot of them die. And so we were doing a story about that. And that was well before Biden or Trump was in office. It was during the Bush years. And so it just feels like it's such a hot topic that keeps getting kicked down the road. And while we play political football with it, people are dying or living lives that, living lives that they have to keep undercover and be quiet about. Yeah, it's heartbreaking the stories that I hear about the reasons that people make that trek to come here. And I've always thought if the law were more welcoming, if the quotas were raised, if there was the ability to do it legally, people would not take such a dangerous trek to get to the United States. I think the biggest thing when I'm thinking about these issues after report, like I did reporting on this for about two or three years. And I think that the thing that came to me, I'm just thinking about a heartbreaking story that I reported. I was, John Fife, who was the leader of the sanctuary movement who started the sanctuary movement, I was in the Sonoran Desert with him at a camp that he has. And the camp is there to basically make sure migrants don't die in the desert. And so they put water out and so forth. And I'll never forget this. We were talking about migrants crossing over and I asked him, you know, I said to him like, you know, I don't think our political gridlock is gonna change. And so if the political gridlock is not gonna change, why do you keep doing this? And he pulled out a picture of a little girl and he told me that she was crossing the desert. She got separated from the party that she was with and she ended up dying in the desert. And she was less than a mile from this camp because she never found it. And he said that, like, that's why he does this because he doesn't want any more little girls to die in the desert. And it cracked my heart in two because it's just, it's heartbreaking and senseless. And I think what I came away from that is that the issue really for me and how it gets into our politics, like I'm not, whatever, with the politicians, but the American people don't know who these migrants are, who are crossing over and what they're coming from and what they're going to and how much they put on the line to actually do that. It's so easy to buy into the rhetoric. Right. And if they just looked at it as a human issue, which is really what it is, you know, what is driving these folks out of their country? If the tendency is to want to be in your own country, why is this happening? To where it's something that I try to relay that to folks and I think that there's a lot happening now, like through media, where there is more and more access to those stories. But I think that that is gonna be the ticket to persuade people in their political views if they start looking at this issue as a human issue. I'm curious, given Governor DeSantis's stance on immigration and migrants crossing over, have you seen an increase in clients and just so we can reset for the listeners, Lisa Ruiz is an immigration lawyer. Yes, there was, it was panic this summer, starting in May when we realized that the law was going to get passed. The phone just started ringing off the hook and clients, potential clients alike were scared. They just, they didn't understand. I have a lot of clients that are mixed families where we have a lot of US citizens as one of the spouses. Does this mean I can't drive my husband around because he can't get a driver's license? Should we move? I mean, these were big fears and questions that were coming to me and the other immigration attorneys in the area and in Florida. And they're valid. I mean, I don't know what to say to a woman who, she's a citizen but her husband is not and the law says if you are transporting someone who's undocumented that you could go to jail as well, right? Right, it's, I had to basically analyze it as best I could legally because all it would do is just infuriate me the way it was written. It just, to me, it just seems like it was a pure political stunt and just kind of had a freezing effect on the amount of people coming into the state. And so I had to be able to look at it and be able to analyze it from their perspective and be able to advise them accordingly. And thankfully it's being challenged and it doesn't seem to be having the same effect that we were afraid it was going to have. If anything, I think there's what we're seeing as an economic effect on our state, which is also terrible. But at the same time, we're challenging the law. We're also pushing forward. And if there's anything that the immigrant community and the Hispanic community, which is a big part of the immigrant community, especially here in Florida, if there is anything that we are, it's resilient. And we're gonna find ways to move forward. And yes, of course, try to work within federal law as it stands now to achieve status and to bring folks legally. But at the same time, as U.S. citizens stand up against this and call our legislators and tell us, like, this is not what we want. You are not representing our interests. There are a lot of business owners that have lost workers. We're suffering from a labor shortage. It makes no sense to me why this was passed other than for political reasons. On that note, we're gonna take a break. We are gonna come back and keep going with the panel. But we will be here and you should call in to join the conversation. But we'll be right back.