Las Vegas, NV
July 16, 2024
Hello. Buenos tardes.
Thank you so much for having me here, and I really want to extend such a warm thank you to Janet for her extraordinary leadership as Unidos President but also for having such a large family gathering and including me as parte de la familia. Thank you very much, Janet, for your critical voice on so many issues facing Latino communities—on everything from healthcare, to immigration, to jobs. We celebrate your overall awesomeness. I want to say that Janet was one of the first people that I spoke to when the idea of joining the Biden-Harris administration for me was first proposed. So, Janet is one of the people who touches many of us in so many ways and is a respected leader across the community.
So, thank you so much, Janet.
And, as you all know, the work of Unidos is very much about making sure that you can define the community for yourselves—in all its full diversity, achievement, struggles... from your origin stories to where you are today.
Our origin stories matter. They shape us, connect us, and drive us. I just want to share a little bit about my own. So, I am the daughter of immigrants. My mom arrived to the United States on a cargo ship because she couldn't afford a passenger ticket. And like so many children of immigrants, I grew up translating for my parents—navigating the adult world and adult interactions.
As I grew up, I realized law was really a language, and those who speak it decide who gets what in our society, who gets to work, vote, migrate, marry, march, work—and who doesn't.
I went to law school to become a translator in the language of law for those who were marginalized, discriminated against, and exploited.
After law school for nearly 20 years, as Janet mentioned, before I came into government, I worked at a non-profit civil rights organization that is now called Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
And I realized, when I did that work, that the power to translate involves not just translating so our communities understand the law, their rights, the system. It also means translating the system so that it can understand our community's needs, and the language of the law becomes broad enough and bold enough to incorporate the stories and experiences and needs of all of our communities.
The other thing I learned is the power of cross-racial solidarity. I started out my career representing garment workers in Los Angeles. In one of my first cases, my clients were a group of Asian immigrant workers who had worked side-by-side in the factory alongside Latino and Latina garment workers. The Asian workers had been told not to talk to the Latina workers and the Latina workers had been told not to talk to the Asian workers—a common tactic to keep workers from joining in solidarity. So, when I first approached the Latina workers to see if they wanted to be part of the case, they very were skeptical. They looked at my face, they looked at the non-profit I was working in, and they really were not sure. They said, "Porque quiere ayudarnos?" I said, as best I could, "Porque creo en la justicia. Y si no luchamos juntas no vamos a ganar."
For nearly two decades before cominginto government, I fought alongside workers—including Latino and Latina garment workers, restaurant workers, warehouse workers, and car washeros—for their rights and to help them exercise their power.
And throughout my career, I've found a deep connection between a person's wellbeing and their job—something that is not a surprise to anybody in this room.
Because we know that good jobs change lives. They bring dignity and respect. They bring security. They sustain families. You'll hear from my boss directly tomorrow, but as President Biden likes to say, "Good jobs are about more than a paycheck. A good job is about being able to look your children in the eye and say that everything's going to be okay. And mean it."
Good jobs are not just transformational for the individuals and their family. It's also something that uplifts communities and gives them hope.
To understand how far we've come in delivering our good jobs, it's important to remember where we were.
Before President Biden came to office, COVID was raging and there was no national strategy to get it under control. Unemployment was as high as 14.8 percent. At the height of the pandemic, Latina women's unemployment rate was over 20 percent. When people went to the store, we didn't know if we were going to find toilet paper, if they needed it. Remember panic buying?
So, compare that to where we are today. Since President Biden has been in office, almost16 million jobs have been created in our economy. That is the most jobs under any other president in the same time period in our history. And at the same time, the unemployment rate has remained low—for the longest stretch since Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon.
Now Latinas have not just shared in this economic growth, Latinas have been the ones powering it! Yes, Latinas have fueled our country's economic recovery. So, women came into the labor market at record rates in 2023 — in fact the highest rates on record. Then in May of this year, 2024, we broke our own record! Because the record-setting rates for women have been driven by women of color.
Real wages are also up, which means that working families have a little bit more in their pockets, and that makes sense under the most pro-worker, pro-union President that this country has ever seen.
Wages have exceeded the rate of inflation. Latinas are doing especially well with their earnings growing at double the rate of women overall. This room is filled with powerful Latinas who know a thing or two about reaching new heights.
None of this happens by accident. From the outset, President Biden and I have been clear-eyed and intentional about bringing in communities that have been left behind and left out of opportunity for far too long.
President Biden's historic Investing in America agenda is pouring money into communities to fix roads and bridges, to make sure every family that turns on the faucet gets clean drinking water, and every community can get high speed reliable internet. And that we are making things in America again.
Latinas must have equal access to the good jobs that have been created under the President's historic legislative achievements. So a good job, as I have talked about across the country in my Good Jobs Summer Tour, is a job where workers make a decent living, one that allows them not just to get by, but get ahead.
A good job is one with benefits, where a mom can take her kids to the doctor when they get sick, and a good job is one where women can bring their full selves to work.
We've also seen a small business boom in this country, in fact the highest rates of entrepreneurship in a decade.
Today 10% of Latino households own a business. That's 5 million Latino-owned businesses across the country generating $800 billion in revenue.
And, again, leadership matters. We talked earlier about access to capital. This is happening when we have a Latina, Isabel Guzman, as our nation's Small Business Administrator, the highest-ranking Latina in the Biden-Harris Administration.
And we've heard him talk about it. President Biden has built a cabinet that looks like America because representation matters.
And the push for diversity and real representation means not that those who are unqualified get into positions, it means that those of us who are wildly qualified get a chance that we otherwise would not have gotten.
And when we get it, watch out, because we are going to make it count make it count. Again, in this room, you know exactly what that looks like. Whether that's in presidential cabinets, board rooms, C-suites or nonprofits, diversity and excellence go hand in hand. Which makes me think of my good friend, Maria Salinas, who I believe is in the room, former Unidos board chair, and who is also the first Latina President of the L.A. Chamber of Commerce.
I appreciate your friendship and partnership as well.
So, when an organization demands diversity, it finds the most excellent candidates.
I know that Unidos is also working diligently with partners in this room, who I got to meet with before this luncheon, to bring more Latinas and Latinos into good jobs, including through pre-apprenticeships and Registered Apprenticeships.
At the Department of Labor, we are proud to support this work. In fact, we've just announced $4 million to Unidos to build a diverse pipeline into registered apprenticeships.
This $4 million is going to bring over 300 Latinos into Registered Apprenticeships Programs in hospitality in Chicago, in clean energy apprenticeships in Atlanta, and in advanced manufacturing apprenticeships in Phoenix—all good paying and growing industries.
And these efforts are also combating occupational segregation. In 2023 alone, Latinas lost $53 billion in wages compared to white men because of occupational segregation. So, we have to keep on making sure that economic prosperity is widely shared—that every person who wants a good job, can get that good job. And when we bring Latinas into higher paying jobs, we not only ensure all communities can get their shot, but we also build intergenerational wealth and security.
And we build the power of Latina voices, which brings me back to where I started about defining our own communities. I talked about my early work representing Latino and Latina workers who were skeptical at first about who I was.
One of those workers, Araceli, was an undocumented worker from Mexico and she had a daughter, Maria, who was 8 years old when I met her, and who would always come with her mom to meetings—in the rain, on a bus, with their groceries. Like too many immigrants, childcare was a luxury she could not afford.
So, Maria showed up every week. And I got to know her. I spent a lot of time talking to her. Araceli challenged me often, but the reason I gained her trust was not through my power as an attorney or my ability to articulate that we had to fight together to achieve justice, it was because I always spent time getting to know Maria. I began to bring toys and books to my office. Maria helped me when I couldn't find the right word that I needed. Over the years, Maria began to say she wanted to be a lawyer, too, because lawyers help people fight. And despite the initial interactions that with Araceli, at Maria's quinceañera, I was introduced as part of the family.
I am a believer that we can define for ourselves our families and our communities because I've seen it done.
All of you in this room are writing the stories of your community but also the story of America, and it will be one where everyone will have an opportunity to make a better life for themselves and for their families.
We have a moment right now with President Biden's leadership and those of us in this room to make history and increase intergenerational wealth, to strengthen Latina's economic power, and have our country live up to the promise that everyone can have a piece of the American Dream.
So, we have to continue to embrace our origin stories, our communities, the women who came before us—and with that knowledge and power, build off the work of our ancestors and one another to write new chapters for our communities. So, let's make it count.
Thank you so much.