Massachusetts is home to more than 30,000 Hispanic-Latino businesses, 3,800 of which are employer firms that generate over $4.2 billion dollars in annual revenue and create more than 27,000 jobs, that’s according to Betty Francisco, co-founder of Amplify Latinx.

The state is also home to 9 percent of Hispanic-Latino eligible voters, according to the Pew Research Center. 

Still, while those numbers are impressive, systemic barriers are keeping the community from realizing equitable wealth and political power. Amplify Latinx works to “significantly increase Latinx civic engagement, economic opportunity and leadership representation across sectors.

“Massachusetts is among the wealthiest states in the country, yet the Latino communities have struggled economically,” said Rosario Ubiera-Minaya, Executive Director of Amplify Latinx.

Ubiera-Minaya was this month’s guest on the Latino News Network podcast, “3 Questions With…â€�. “Latinos have a higher entrepreneurship, education, and labor force participation rates than in years past,” she said. “But it is still a disproportionate share (in the state).” Ubiera-Minaya referenced ¡Avancemos Ya!, an analysis by Boston Indicators, UMass, and the Latino Equity Fund that illustrates “the unique challenges facing our state’s Latino communities and concludes with a brief discussion of opportunities for greater prosperity and well-being.”

Ubiera-Minaya is originally from Quisqueya La Bella, the Dominican Republic. She shared how her cultural background and experience coming to the U.S., at one point, an undocumented immigrant, shaped the person she is and her work.

“I grew up in the North Shore, in Salem, Massachusetts. That community welcomed me. It was a low income, Afro-Latino community. Most of the residents were also undocumented,” she said. “We bonded together in empowering each other. I had an opportunity to develop my voice and my advocacy.”

‘Afro-Latinx Front & Center: Showcasing Voices from Our Black Latinx Diaspora’ is a collaborative series of vignettes, capped with panel discussions, as they explored the topic of “Blacknessâ€� in the Hispanic-Latino community. Amplify Latinx partnered with EmVision Productions, Cojuelos’ Productions, and Creative Collective LLC, along with community stakeholders on the initiative, which included panel discussions.

Do you have a suggestion for a guest to be featured on “3 Questions With…”? Send us your ideas to Info@latinonewsnetwork.com.

Welcome to another edition of Massachusetts Latino News +, a segment where we have conversations of most interest to the Hispanic-Latino community.

Our guest this week is a leader who has been nicknamed Chelsea’s “Superwoman.”

Gladys Vega is the Executive Director of La Colaborativa, an organization with a mission to “empower Latinx immigrants to enhance the social and economic health of the community and its people; and to hold institutional decision-makers accountable to the community.”

The organization’s six-month program focuses on survival, stability, and empowerment in working with individuals. The goal is then for the person to take those skills and reinvest them. “Once we help you…how do you give back to the community,’ said Vega in the interview. “Why don’t you get involved in community organizing?’ she asks participants. “So we can do social justice changes.”

A native of Puerto Rico, Vega moved to Massachusetts with her family at a young age. The experience of witnessing first-hand from her parents the challenges facing Hispanic-Latino residents in the United States inspired her to work with immigrant workers.

“Their rights are being violated,” said Vega about workers (many of them undocumented) who are getting paid below minimum wage and are exposed to dangerous working conditions. “In the United States, regardless of immigration status, you (employers) need to pay the state’s minimum wage.” Massachusetts has a $14.25/hour minimum wage.

In 1990, Vega joined the Chelsea Collaborative, later renamed La Colaborativa, as Office Manager. She wore many hats, working as a receptionist, tenant organizer, and immigrant rights advocate. 

In 2006, Vega became the organization’s executive director. She successfully urged the City Council to make Chelsea the third sanctuary city in Massachusetts in her tenure. In addition, she helped found Centro Latino, the only direct service for Hispanics-Latinos in Chelsea at the time. Vega gave her time to the Chelsea Board of Health and United Way Committee and served as a Democratic delegate for the National Convention in 2000.

La Colaborativa leads community-based COVID testing and vaccinations as Hispanics-Latinos continue to struggle with inequities in Massachusetts’ health care system. The organization provides reliable, healthy, and culturally familiar food distributions five days a week.

“In addition to providing yuca, platanos, aguacate…we also use the food line (pantry) as a lifeline,” she said. “We used the food line to organize our community in terms of vaccinations.” La Colaborativa leads community-based COVID testing and vaccinations as Hispanics-Latinos continue to struggle with inequities in Massachusetts’ health care system.

 In 2007 and 2008, she was named one of Massachusetts’s one hundred most influential leaders.

Last year, Vega was recognized by the Eastern Bank Foundation with the 2021 Social Justice Award. The award recognizes community leaders who have made an outstanding impact in addressing critical social justice issues.

Nancy Huntington Stager, President and CEO of the Eastern Bank Foundation. Said of you, “She is an extraordinary leader and community trailblazer who leads by example and continues to be a social justice champion. She empowers individuals to realize they can affect change and make the difference they seek….�

“We are especially honored to receive the 2021 Social Justice Award from the Eastern Bank Foundation because it understands all too well that relationships and trust in the community are always necessary to create justice, equality, and opportunity and especially during a pandemic,� said Vega in accepting the award.

For more information on La Colaborativa, click on this link:

“It will help to enable members of the Hispanic community too be able to afford starting a business and go after their dreams,� said Eastfield Mall property manager Dave Thompson.

The Eastfield Mall and Massachusetts Latino Chamber of Commerce are working together to provide a local, Hispanic-Latino-owned business space inside the mall for one month at no cost.

The mall features a pop-up shop every month that is expected to bring in 12 new Hispanic-Latino “micro-businesses� this year. 

Massachusetts is home to more than 30,000 Hispanic-Latino businesses, 3,800 of which are employer firms that generate over $4.2 billion in annual revenue and create more than 27,000 jobs, according to Betty Francisco CEO of Boston Impact Initiative, co-founder of Amplify Latinx.

“Our economic recovery and growth depends upon the success of Latino businesses and the development of Latino talent in high-growth industries that are in need of diverse talent,� wrote Francisco in an opinion article calling for investments in Hispanic-Latino and Black businesses.

Hispanic-Latino consumer purchasing power is $1.7 trillion today and projected to grow to $2.6 trillion in just three years, according to the LDC 2020 Latino GDP Report. 

State Representative Orlando Ramos secured $100,000 to help fund the Pop-Up Shop Program. “Small and microbusinesses have struggled in the pandemic,� Ramos said. “Many were owned by Black and Latino business owners.�

Businesses can use the grants of about $1,000 to launch a marketing campaign, hire an accountant or cover unexpected expenses as the COVID recovery drags on, said Andrew Melendez, director of the Massachusetts Latino Chamber of Commerce.

“Black and Latino micro-businesses are the Commonwealths’ economic engine, and now more than ever, they are in need of direct support with capital infusion and tools to continue to be successful post-pandemic,â€� Melendez said.

More information is available from the chamber by emailing LatinoChamberMA@gmail.com or calling 413-342-1292.

Publisher’s Note: This story is an aggregate from MASSLive, WWLP, and

Cover Photo: ‘Our Modern Love‘, candle and craft vendor, (Credit: Eastfield Mall)

Not enough Hispanic-Latino, and not enough Black. Afro-Latinos are often made to feel like outsiders by the biases of communities who force them to choose one identity over the other.

In the past ten years, the number of people across the country who identify as Black and Hispanic-Latino has increased 11.6 percent, according to a CNN analysis of census data.

â€�It hasn’t been easier for me to say that I am Afro-Latino because Latinos themselves don’t accept the term Afro-Latino. Because we do not accept that we are Afro-descendants,â€� said Yvette Modestin, founder and director of Encuentro Diaspora Afro in an interview with NHPR.

Modestin was born in Colon, Panama. A writer and activist who focuses on the Afro-descendant experience in Latin America, Modestin came to Boston as a student.

“Afro-Latinos� is a term barely known in the Hispanic-Latino community because of its rejection of Blackness. Modestin said Hispanic-Latinos often forget this population is a part of the community.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, many people of African origin were brought to the Americas by the Spanish and Portuguese. Those who were directly from West Africa mostly arrived in Latin America as part of the Atlantic slave trade, as agricultural, domestic, and menial laborers and as mineworkers. The Caribbean and South America received 95 percent of the Africans arriving in the Americas with only 5 percent going to Northern America.

“Immigrant Latinos are walking in this country free and with rights [because] of the African American civil movement,� Modesin said. But the exclusion is not only from Hispanic-Latinos. Some African Americans also see Afro-Latino people as not belonging. Modestin says during the Black Lives Matter protests, Afro-Latinos felt displaced from the cause. Some didn’t embrace it because they didn’t recognize their own Black life.

The term Afro-Latino traces to the 1970s, when Black activists in Brazil sparked a social political movement to fight for recognition in the country’s census because Brazil — at the time — did not recognize its Black citizens in the census, said Solsiree Del Moral, a professor at Amherst College who studies Latin America and the Caribbean modern history told CNN.

Created in 2004, Encuentro Diaspora Afro provides a space for Afro-Latinos and all people of African descent to explore and embrace their complex and multiple socio-political identities across the U.S. and throughout the world.

Some of the young people Modestin works with are from families who tell them to not present themselves as Black so people don’t mistreat them.

Ultimately, defining what it means to be Afro-Latino is personal. “I have stood in front of Latinos, and they are the ones who question me the most,� Modestin said. “Racism within the Latino community is such a painful thing,�

Publisher’s Note: This story is an aggregate from NHPR and CNN.

Cover Photo Credit: AMPLIFY LATINXtggt c c

“No mother wants to lose her child. It’s something extremely painful, that has no cure and there’s no replacement,â€� Ligia Guardado said. “Nothing they say will bring my baby back.â€�

Immigrant women and mothers in Massachusetts are calling on state officials to investigate complaints of discriminatory and substandard care at East Boston Neighborhood Health Center (EBNHC).

In July 2020, Guardado noticed her 40-day-old baby, David, seemed tired, listless, and his lips were turning purple. She took him to EBNHC, where she said they listened to his heart and lungs.

“They said it wasn’t significant,� Guardado said in a Spanish-language interview, reported GBH News. She explained that the appointment lasted around 20 minutes before clinic staff told her son was fine, and to take him home.

David had the same symptoms the following morning, so Guardado returned to the clinic. This time, she said, he was put into an ambulance. David stopped breathing en route to Boston Medical Center and was revived once, but then he stopped breathing completely. 

“When we arrived, they said ‘There was nothing we could do. Your son is deceased,’â€� Guardado remembered.

Patricia Montes, head of Centro Presente, a Boston-based Latino organization assisting the families, says immigrant patients have repeatedly reported substandard, discriminatory treatment at the clinic, resulting in “misdiagnosis, worsened health conditions, even death.�

“The experiences of these families lay bare not just these broader, systemic issues, but some specific concerns relating to such a trusted institution as the East Boston Neighborhood Health Clinic which was created specifically to address the health care needs of populations such as these Central American immigrant families,� she said.

Advocates say they’ve identified about ten impacted families and individuals and are interviewing others.

“State law forbids health care providers from discriminating on the basis of race, national origin, sex, or MassHealth insurance status,� Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights said in a statement. At a news conference this week, Espinoza-Madrigal argued that the state should still conduct a civil rights inquiry because their evidence shows that immigrants, women and those on public health benefits have borne the brunt of the substandard care.

East Boston Neighborhood Health Center declined to comment on those and other examples cited by the advocates, reported the Associated Press. The clinic said it sought a meeting with Centro Presente and the families it represents when they first raised the complaints last month, but none agreed to meet.

It also said it’s launching a patient advocate office as part of a broader effort to “listen to our patient voicesâ€� that also includes cultural awareness and diversity trainings for medical staff.

State Attorney General Maura Healey’s office  said it plans to meet with the families to hear their concerns; the public health department confirmed it received the complaint and is investigating.

EBNHC is the largest community health center in Massachusetts.

“More than 70,000 of our patients identify as Latinx, and more than 65% of our office visits are with patients whose primary language is Spanish,� the organization said in a statement. EBNHC‘s Interpreter Services Department conducted more than 190,000 interpretations last year in nine different languages using its in-house interpreters alone.

Cover Photo: Patricia Montes, executive director of Centro Presente, stands outside East Boston Neighborhood Health Center as part of a protest in repose to allegations that immigrants have received poor quality care. Photo by Sarah Betancourt.

Publisher’s Note: This story is an aggregate from GBH News, Associated Press, WJAR.