(mellow techno music) - There's been Latinos and
Mexicanos here since the '20s. We call them Los Primeros. - Some people thought we shouldn't have
immigrants here. - Booming demographic
responsible for 100% of the population
growth in the area. - We could apply for immigrant,
racial and worker justice. (speaks in foreign language) - The joke right is if you're not
related to a Latino, you still (mumbles). (upbeat techno music) (mellow strings music) (traffic buzzing) (mellow strings music) - It's not a unskilled job. It's a skilled job. (cow moos) My family settled here in 1857. They were from
Switzerland and Germany. I'm fifth generation
dairy farmer. We milk 500 cows 24 hours a day. If you grow up in the
business, and you're used to getting up at four o'clock in
the morning, it's not so bad, but if you haven't grown
up in this business, it's not clean, it's
cold in the winter, and it's hot in the summer. Initially, when we had 300 cows, we needed six or
seven employees, and that was a struggle. We tried to be the
best employer around. We still do, but it was hard to find people, and it kept getting worse. In the last 10 years, I probably had 150 people
apply for a job here. Two of them have been Americans. One said he couldn't
work on weekends. So, I talked to a friend
of mine over in Minnesota that had Mexican
employees, and I asked him, "How do you access
these people?" He told me, "Look in the back
of the Hoard's Dairyman." There was an ad. I think three, four days later, Manuel showed up in
Winona on the bus. I picked him up,
and he was fabulous. He worked as hard as I did. He knew what he was doing. It's like milking cows. I used to milk cows. And they do a better
job than I do. Servero started working here,
I think in 2000 or 1999. And he's working here today. His son works here,
Federico works here. His brother-in-law,
Roberto, worked here. Each of us have to get
to know immigrants, and to get to know
them as people, rather than just as this group. So, I go to Mexico
every three years to visit the families
of my employees. And we just counted them. There were 17 different people from that little village that have worked here. Our highest-paid employees, we have a differential
for the night. He makes $38,000 a year. Marco just came recently. He'll make about 29
to $30,000 this year, plus a place to stay,
health insurance. They work 60 hours a week, so, he's probably making nine to nine and a
quarter an hour starting. When somebody comes
to work for us, I ask for their documents. They usually present me
with a Social Security card and a green card,
which is actually pink. What my immigration
attorney has told me is that if you're a reasonable person
and you look at the documents, and they look
reasonable, accept them. I've been called
lots of bad things, been called a slave-trader
and everything else. It's frustrating. I figure that if
I'm going to attract Americans to do the job, I would have to pay $20 an hour. At $20 an hour, in
the last 10 years, I would have made
money in two years. So, basically, I've
been out of business. I mean, that's just
the way the facts are. - The cows need to be
milked twice a day, so, the dairy industry
is in our corner now, saying, "Hey, do something
about immigration reform because the workforce
that we have is not protected
under existing law." (yelling protest slogans) - So, we are here
because we are making a strong stand against
an anti-immigrant law that would turn local government into an arm of immigration
and legalized discrimination. Now let us hear from dairy
farmer, John Rosenow. (cheering) - In recent times, the
last 20 years or so, we, the Wisconsin dairy
farmers, have found someone who wants to do what we love. They find the work
rewarding, just like I did, when I got out of
college years ago. They just want a job that allows
them to pursue their dream. (cheering) I'm a realist. I understand the
political climate. I've been to DC half
dozen times to testify. Certainly, there's some risk. Somebody gonna come and
steal all my employees because maybe their
documents aren't real or something like that. That's a risk, but if
we don't say anything, we're not gonna
accomplish anything. - What happens is
gonna really set a tone for politicians
that are right now building their
political careers on racism and
anti-immigration politics, to really question
their political future. - 80% of the milk
harvested in Wisconsin is harvested by immigrants. And that's a big deal. (mellow banjo music) (whirring) - We could not
operate our industry without this seasonal workforce. That's why people
from Texas, years ago, have come up here to work. There has never been
enough local workers. (mellow music) - We have more
opportunities in here in Wisconsin than in Texas. And I like for the
kids, the school. Well, we came here
this year in May, took us like around a week, 'cause my sister's
truck broke down. It's hard. We work on seven days
a week, 12-hour shift. (mellow music) - They'll say that
Latinos are taking jobs away from people that are here. When migrant workers come
to the state of Wisconsin, they take jobs that
nobody else wants. For someone to travel 2,500
miles in search of employment, without knowing that they're
going to have housing, or whether they're gonna
find employment, you know, that's a tribute to them. And then when they
get their job, they work really, really hard. I was born into a family
that were migrant workers. We traveled around the country, primarily to the
Midwest from Texas. In those days, they
didn't come in there and inspect the fields
and say, you know, the children shouldn't
be here, you know. So, my job was to haul
the potato sacks around. (upbeat music) - Yeah, we went to Michigan. That's where we
used to go first. We would pack the asparagus. I called my niece,
she's here, too, and she said, "Come
on here in Wisconsin. There's a lot of work." Over here at the
Seneca, the corn (mumbles) just give it a try. (whirring) We got up at four, and
we start doing breakfast, or whatever we're
gonna take for lunch. And at five, we take off. Oh, yeah, we like to work. We like to get pay
and pay our bills. (upbeat techno music) - Just a minute. Good afternoon, Jumo. Yes, what Toma would be
for Aurora and Montano. First time that I
came to Wisconsin, it was in 1998. That year, we didn't know
anybody around this area. And we were staying in a ranch in Minoscoro. My title right now is
the property manager, and I run a hundred
units migrant housing. They tell them, "You're going
to find a job over there. You're gonna work
a lot of hours." And the reality with farm
workers, you never know. We have families,
they've doing it year after year after year. And I understand what
they're going through. Really hard for someone who travel and look
for a better future. This is my house. I have four kids. I hope for my kids to
continue their education, grow up here in Wisconsin. And we have more
opportunity here because everybody have a job. (mellow piano music) - We came to Arcadia 1976. Who knew this kind of
terrain was in Wisconsin? So, we actually fell
in love with the place. The first people that came
here were the English. Then the Poles came, and
then the Germans came, the Scandinavians came, and then everything kind of stayed
the same for awhile. And then in the '90s,
the Latinos came. - Nobody likes to
see their community with empty storefronts. And I'm so grateful that
we've had the growth, and we've had the
entrepreneurship that has been brought to
Arcadia to fill those stores, and to bring business and
wealth back into the community, to serve Arcadia and its people. (upbeat techno music) - Some people thought we
shouldn't have immigrants here. Mayor John Kimmel
was elected in 2006, and he didn't want, you know, Spanish-speaking
people coming in. You know, a lot of these
things that were just somewhat you hear today with some of the political
things that are going on, but (mumbles) and Ashley
kept on expanding. And that's the time
when the Latinos were starting to
come into our area. (clacking) - The Latino population
was certainly, you know, a major factor in
our operations. We have our corporate
headquarters here in Arcadia, Wisconsin, as well as our manufacturing
and distribution services. We now have over 4,000 employees at Ashley Furniture Industries. We're the largest employer
in Trumbull County by far. - There's a lot of work in here. You can work in the farm. You can work in the furniture. You can book in a
chicken Pilgrim. So, they open to you, "Come
over and work for us." They say, "You are welcome." (mellow strings music) - The Latinos came so quickly. It wasn't a gradual thing. It was kind of fast, and change is hard
for my generation. - (mumbles) speakers, not too many Caucasian
places left in a way. Grocery stores and main
street restaurants, everything has gone
Hispanic, you know. It's a decent thing, you know. We've changed, even our
churches have changed. They have a regular
mass and Latino masses. There again, most of
the older generations, they'll say, well, that
was their time to go. Now it's a Latino
mass, so they don't go. (praying in foreign language) - On every weekend now, we
have two Spanish masses. Sunday mass, 12 o'clock, in
Spanish, is very well attended. On some Sundays, I would say it's the most attended
mass on the weekends. I am from Poland, and I spent most of my
preschool life in Peru. Six years ago, the
Bishop called me back. He assigned me to Arcadia because of the Hispanic
population being so large. It is actually the largest
Hispanic parish in our diocese. Last year, I believe,
we had like 90 some Hispanic baptisms and only
about 10 American baptisms. So, that gives you an idea where the population
of Arcadia is heading. (mellow strings music) - I'm originally
from Jalisco, Mexico. I moved to Arizona when
I was 12 years old, and I moved from
Arizona three years ago to Wisconsin, new state,
new life (laughs). My husband, he goes,
"There's nobody that speaks Spanish here for people to go
and do their taxes." This is my fifth year now
here in this location. I noticed my
business is growing, and I'm pretty
sure business here, even, you know, food,
places or stores, even around the farmers, I believe they are doing better because our people
are coming here. - This community grows by
3,000 people during the day, going down to Ashley
and down to Pill Grove. - I'm not sure if I
like all the traffic. Housing is such a shortage
here, we can't keep up. - There is a need for
housing, definitely. We're seeing multiple
families, it seems, like in these single
family dwellings. It's gotta be kinda
tough on them, is tough on the neighborhoods, because they have multiple cars. - In fact, there's
a block down here that's almost all
Spanish people, Nicaragua, Guatemala,
Mexico here, El Salvador, next to me. They bought the
house 11 years ago. - Our schools
weren't ready for it. We're outgrowing our schools. - We're actually just under
68% Hispanic, district-wide, and our elementary
is closer to 80%. And our middle school is
about three years old, and we are already seeing some space impact issues
with our middle school, just because of the
rising population. That's a great problem to have. Many districts, especially
small rural districts, are continuing to see a decline
in their student population. We've actually seen an
increase in our population. Instead of being a school
district over 1,300, we would have about
just over 400 students in our school district if we had no Latino
students right now. They're kids. They're not kids who have a demographic label to them. They're kids. They have an understanding
of other cultures that many students in small
rural communities in Wisconsin never have an opportunity
to be a part of. (chattering in foreign language) - I teach social studies. I love it. And I love teaching in a
very bilingual setting. So, right now we're reading the Diary of Anne
Frank in Spanish. And that's actually been
very interesting because many students are finding
connections with Ann's life. - The students open up to and they tell you their stories. And a lot of them
are kind of sad. I mean, you take
it home with you. Even once they're here, they're afraid that
when they get home, their parents aren't
going to be there. - We actually did have ICE in the community
back in October. When I learned of it,
I immediately alerted the entire staff in the
district and told them that if ICE does come
to the school doors, we will not let them
in the building. (upbeat accordion music) - We felt it was really
time that Arcadia had an event to kind
of celebrate the
different cultures. (upbeat accordion music) Kind of social change
fueled by art and culture. (mellow music) (cheering)
(clapping) - It may be new thing
in the experience for a small town
like Arcadia, but you know, like we've
seen in other places, people kind of get used to it, and they're happy about it. (singing in foreign language) - I think it's going to
be a younger generation and I'm seeing it already. There they're gonna be the ones that we have to rely on
to be a blended community. - I think it's a positive thing. It's diversity. You're gonna see more
of this all the time. It's happening in
Arcadia a lot quicker than a lot of other areas. - People are making
their lives here. Those people are
getting to blend in in a big way and become part of the fabric of our community. - Now after 10 years,
finally, I feel now this is home. I will stay here. I don't want to leave anywhere. (mellow piano music) - If you look at it
from an aerial view, you'll see that just
like most cities, from up high, it's
not a lot of color. There's a big spot of color. Mural of peace. It's hopeful. A lot of truckers
would come from Chicago or come from down south. And I heard that they would
say that that was a landmark. They knew they're in Milwaukee
now just looking at it. So, it's really nice to
know that it's a landmark and it was funded
by Esperanza Unida. The executive director
was Richard Oulahan. He said he wanted
to have a mural that showed the pride
of the south side. The Latinos murals is
part of the culture. It sprang out of
necessity to show problems, concerns,
and also pride of the Latino and
African-American communities. (mellow strings music) - [Man] There's been Latinos, even Mexicanos here
since the '20s. We call them Los Primeros because they were the first to develop the community. (mellow music) (engines roaring) - I was interested
in oral histories, and I said let's do a (mumbles), and we'll make it
a research project, and we'll collect
oral histories. And then we'll have the students
involved in that research. - I guess I didn't
connect the faces to a lot of the things
that I benefit from now. (mellow music) - I think the organization
has been a catalyst to create change within
the state of Wisconsin, including Milwaukee. We started off with one grant and we have an excess of
40 different programs now. - There's a natural progression
in the story of the mural. It starts off with
migrant agriculture. And so in the very beginning,
you see the farm workers. It continues through
the organizing efforts, so, Salas and others
when they marched from Wautoma to Madison. We ran into these problems that the migrants were having, injuries, not paid their wages, violations of a housing
code that we had. We not so much wanted
new legislation as such. We want the enforcement
of existing legislation. And then when Chavez
marched in '66, we said, "That's what we need." We need to dramatize really the work and the living
conditions at that time. Almost 10,000 migrant workers
were coming into Wisconsin. (mellow strings music) We called it Obreros Unidos because the workers
produce an obra, a work, just like a work
of art, or any work. Problem was that Libby's then moved their operations
out of state rather than negotiate
with the union. (mellow music) Migrant farm workers
usually traveled because there's no
job on the home base. Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, they saw the opportunity
of staying in Wisconsin because they could
get a full-time job. They could see a better future, not only for them as worker, but also for the family. What we found later on was that there was a lot of
discrimination in the workplace. - There's marches
against Allen Bradley for filing of job
discrimination. But Allen Bradley was
a federal contractor during the Vietnam War. They were obliged to have an
affirmative action program and out of several
thousand employees and a handful of
Latinos working there, the brewery industry was
in the same situation. So, the (mumbles)
participated in the picket, and during that period of time, that the American Union
for Civil Rights is formed. - The issues were also
tenants' rights and education. And then we saw police problems. And we saw during our
organizing campaign that we were having
a lot of young kids going to high school
and graduating, but not going to college. So, we thought that maybe what we could do
then was to begin to address the University
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. - When I enroll here at the University of Wisconsin
in Milwaukee in 1968, so out of 25,000 students, all the Latinos could
sit around one table. - Why aren't there
more of us, you know? That's the one
thing I kept saying. Why are we so few of us, why? So I go to my class, I'd run, and then go straight
to the beginning line and eat my lunch
while I was picketing. But I never missed my class because I was afraid
of retaliation. I really was afraid
that somebody would say, "We're gonna give her a
bad grade," or something because of my activities. - We adopt the tactic
of direct action. In other words,
we're not gonna stand in front of the
chancellor's office for weeks at a time,
picketing with no alternative. When the chancellor, Klotche,
refuses to meet with us, we start escalating
our activities. And that's when
five of us decide that we're going
to get arrested, to bring attention to the fact that there's only a
couple of dozen of us out of 25,000 students. And what do we have now? We have academic
support services provided by the Roberto
Hernandez Center. You have this peer interaction
among the Latino kids that will hopefully lead to a better college
graduation rate. - Going to the RHC, the
Roberto Hernandez Center, even just like the simple
act of doing homework around people that
looked like me, you know, was nice for me. (mellow music) This mural will tell the story of the people of the community. I think it's gonna
empower people to see huge brown
heroes, you know, to see heroes that
look like them. You know, like
Graciela De La Cruz, who played a huge role in shaping bilingual
education in NPS schools. - They were flunking our kids. We needed teachers
in the classroom that would have lived and walked in the shoes of our children, whether you were migrant
or you were not migrant, whether you were Puerto
Rican or Mexican, they needed the culture. They had to survive and
they had to survive in both. And we want them to
be A+ in Spanish, A+ in English, not
just in English. To me, I represented a bilingual education
that it was coming. And a lot of people were
not too happy with me. It will always be controversial because we have people who feel, if you're in the United States, you have to speak only English, especially now because
of the politics. (beeping) - And then we end up
at Fiesta Mexicana. But Fiesta Mexicana, curiously,
isn't only a celebration. (upbeat music) - [Man] You had a
purpose because our
community was growing, and we thought maybe
it was important for us to begin to recognize our
identity and who we were, a Mexican,
Mexican-American, Latinos. Now Fiesta continue to do what we've wanted to do in the educational system, promote kids to go to school. - Well, it's called
the Wisconsin Hispanic Scholarship Foundation. 1.7 million to
scholarships for Hispanics to go to higher education,
to universities. (protesters yelling slogans) - Voces was created
to continue to fight for immigrant, racial,
and worker justice. (speaks in foreign language) - Where I consider
the contemporary immigrant rights
movement to start is really in 2006, when
Congressman Sensenbrenner introduced a bill that
would have created a mass criminalization program of anyone who was out of
status, including children, and anyone who knew
about someone's status and didn't turn them
over to immigration, would also face
criminal charges. So, Voces De La
Frontera would be not allowed to exist. - I wanted to get a bill
passed in 2005 and 2006, and the people who did not
like increased border security had all of these demonstrations, and literally, they
divided the country. - Milwaukee was the
third city in the country to turn out in mass scale. And you know, that really
moved that off the table. It brought immigration
reform back on the table. 2006 was also
important because it exposed the face of the
immigrant community. And what was it? It was working families. It was parents with their kids, standing up for themselves, and really demonstrated
that immigrants have a positive
contribution to our state. And they're tired of
these kind of attacks. - [Announcer] Good
evening, (mumbles). Our street painting
workshop is in full swing. Come on down. - Okay, I'll hold this.
- Yeah. - You got it?
- Okay, got it. (cheering) - I think, as an educator
and as a community artist, Milwaukee is a place that
you can start new things. If you look at like
memorials on the street, I think, sometimes art, I think it's helping
us heal some sort of, some part of us that doesn't
know how to deal with death. And that's when I
decided to start the Day of the Dead Parade. (rhythmic drums thumping) I really think it was
the skull images though, that really attract people because they're not like
these bloody, gory skulls. They're happy,
smiling, colorful, fully dressed skeletons with
bright flowers in their hair. We're also embracing part
of our ancient culture, part of our ancient history, whether it's indigenous people, black people in our
Latino community. And so I feel like
the more we embrace other parts of being
Mexican-American, or Mexican or Latin X or Latino, that we're including now
all of those other voices. - And we all strive, no
matter who we are as people, we want peace and harmony,
live in happiness, and get along with one another. So that was the theme. Even though that's the goal, there never is completely
peace in the world. There's always
tension, so I put in a lightning bolt showing
tension in the world, but then there's little things
at the bottom of the mural. You see like little, they
look like doll cutouts of people of different races,
so there's white, black. I even put like other,
put an orange person, 'cause back then, on
your driver's license, they had the, you're
either white, black, or they wouldn't even
recognize you as being brown. It was those three
things or other, so I include everybody
the world over, including the others. (pensive strings music) (mellow piano music) (kids chattering, squealing) - A recent report
on facilities show that the growth of the
population in this area is the largest in
the city, okay? Latinos are growing in
many different ways. Right now, we're like 28%
of the public schools. And we could be larger
in years to come. So, they recommended that
in order to accommodate the growth in the population
in the public realm here, you needed to build at
least four more schools. It's impossibility, politically,
you just can't do that. There are issues of money
that have to be addressed and all of that stuff, but the people who are
in the private sector, they don't care about that. All they care about
is that, whoa, there's a population growth. And they build a wonderful, beautiful facility
that takes kids. (mid-tempo music) - Everybody ready? One, two, three. (cheering)
(clapping) The first stage, I think,
costs total about 53 million, of which 10 million was
raised outside the family. The reality is there
are more students than all of our schools can
handle at this point in time. The Hispanic
community is the only growing community in Milwaukee. This was the right location, right place for a
large new school. If you see where all
the school growth is, where all the new
schools are coming, they're mostly on
the south side. - When we looked at some data from the Milwaukee Foundation, which told us that
the 53215 zip code, or the zip code west of
UCC, west of 16th Street, that there are
over 5,000 children of Spanish-speaking
descent in that zip code, that led us to sort of say, "Can we explore how we
can go to the zip code to work with our
youngest population?" The importance of early
childhood education, particularly the importance
of early childhood education in a Latino community,
where you can really begin to provide vocabulary
words, stimulus very early on, is
extremely important. We're building a new facility
that will accommodate 200. It will be close to a
$10 million investment. Imagine what a $10
million investment means to the 53215 zip code. 25 years ago, when we merged
what Bruce Guadalupe School, that changed the whole
focus of our organization. We are a public school,
anybody can come, anybody can participate. The only difference between
us and a public school is that we're managed
by a private entity. 1,700 children, over 1,700
are attending our school, K3 through eighth grade. - UCC and Bruce
Guadalupe just gave me a lot of opportunities
outside of the community to grow and to find success. My name is Daniel-Eli Cevilla. I'm a Human Development
and Family Studies major here at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison. I'm also doing and
completing some certificates in global health, as well as
Chicano and Latino studies. (mellow music) - My name is Gissell Vera. I am a 2019 graduate from
Cristo Rey Jesuit High School. I was the first valedictorian. And I was also the student
body president for two years. - Cristo Rey schools educate over 12,000 kids
across the country, with 37 schools in metro
areas coast-to-coast. So, we opened in 2015 and
we had about 125 freshmen. About 90% of our
students are Hispanic. Currently we're at 398 students. Both the demand for what we do and the desire to grow has led us to build
a new school building at 18th and National. It's a $33 million project. It is a little over
100,0000 square feet. We're a Catholic
college prep school. We serve students of
limited financial means. And so we participate
in the Milwaukee parental choice program,
and it helps fund the cost of education for
our students at Cristo Rey. We offer students four
days of school a week, and then one day of work. We charge a wage
from the company that the company
then pays the school to help offset the
student's education. - For me, it was really
important to graduate college and also the work
part of it all. - Students can go out
into the community, and get their foot in the
door in a potential career that they might not
have had otherwise the opportunity to do. - When we decided
to build the school, we had four pillars: the family, faith, education,
and athletics and arts. And we wanted
excellence in all areas. And the reason is, we felt
educating the whole child was essential to achieve
long-term success. We created a great soccer field, an aquatic center
that doesn't exist in any other school in the
state and in the world. We are spending $10,000,
or we will spend $10,000 when we get to
capacity per student. Now spending more, but
as we build the school, we'll eventually get
down to that level. Choice students get about 8,000. That creates a $2,000 gap between what we
get from the state and what we spend
on the students. So, every year we
expect to donate anywhere from one to $2 million, depending on our
effectiveness fundraising. The current school has a
capacity for 1,500, 1,600 kids. And we're looking at an
addition in four or five years that might expand
that to another 1,500. We want everybody to be
as effective as we are. And if they're good competitors
and we have a hard time getting students, hey, that's
my definition of success. - So, the idea that
you have a few schools that are doing well because what we call new
liberals, you know, people that think
that it's a good idea the schools are all bad, so let's put it in
the private sector, but their money,
the philanthropists, everybody puts their
money in there, and they cut the funding
from the public schools. When we look at the amount
of money that they get, combined with all kinds of
other resources that they get, voucher schools get grants, I mean, charter
schools get grants, they get incredible amounts
of money put into them. The aggregate of the financial
resources that they get is better than
the public schools in those big schools, okay? On top of that, they are
English-only schools. That's a problem for
me as an educator. Right now, we have, my
gosh, over 30 schools that are involved in
bilingual activity. (speaking in foreign language) (all reciting in
foreign language) - I think there's
a misconception of what bilingual education is, because bilingual education is
not just teaching in Spanish. Bilingual education is teaching in the students' native tongue. So, academically, they're
learning while learning English. (mellow music) - Please open your books. Even if we read to the
middle of the page, I always go back and read what I did yesterday,
just a little bit. She is pretty like my own girl, 'cause that's at the
top of page five. - I felt very comfortable
at that school because everyone was like me. I didn't know how to
speak English at all. - So in '95, we opened our doors as a dual language school with the focus of
science and technology. And now, he's bilingual,
is K3 through eighth grade. Currently, we have about 665. So, we've doubled in size
in the last six years, along with doubling in staff. - And those kids, 80,
90% will go to colleges, both four and two-year colleges, and Milwaukee will be
a different community. - I'm currently a JAMS major at the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, journalism, advertising, public
relations and media studies. Cumulative grade point average
at the end of high school was it 3.8, and as of right
now in college, is 3.9. - After I graduate, I
plan to keep studying. I want to go into a counseling
psych graduate program, and become like a
family counselor. - I was admitted to
Marquette Georgetown and Holy Cross on a full ride. I don't really see myself moving somewhere else
after graduation, especially 'cause I feel like
there's so much work to do. There's so much I want
to accomplish here. Therefore, (mumbles) would
be the best place for me. I love law, so I want
to become an attorney. - We will be the
people that will stay in Milwaukee in Wisconsin
and we'll do things, so that will be a
whole another movement. (mellow piano music) - This city will go as far as the Hispanic
community will take it. The growth over the last year
of staying closer to 600,000 has been almost
totally attributed to the growth in
Hispanic community. (upbeat techno music) - For years, we've been
hearing, right, the Latinos are the fastest growing
population in the country. And that, what,
by 2052, I think, we're going to make up more
than 50% of this country. And the joke, right, is if you're not related to a
Latino, you're (mumbles). - Wisconsin as a whole,
I think our population grows by less than 1%
over the next 50 years. And so, looking
towards populations that are going to replace what has been largely
a white community is important to our future
and important to understand. - We're an incredible
consumer base. 24% of the moviegoers
in the United States happen to be Latinos. One in practically every
four consumer is Latino. That's a pretty
important consumer base. - I think numbers
don't mean anything unless they paint a picture. And for us, it's how do we make
sure that people understand the significance of our growth
and accept the contributions that we are making to the
country and to our communities. And then how do we make sure we are being noticed
for the right reasons, and that we're being noticed and given opportunities
like anyone else. - Here, we are a
booming demographic responsible for 100% of the
population growth in the area, 100% of the job
growth in the area, but yet, we only have
one Hispanic (inaudible). - My district in particular,
it's close to 70% Latino. I represent about 40,000 people. 30% of the district is
under 18 years of age. - When I walked
down Cesar Chavez, when I walk down
Mitchell street, I see an entrepreneurial spirit. People are working and
talking to one another. And that resilience, to me, is what's made the
neighborhood successful. - When I ran for office, the common wisdom
was that a Latino could never get elected
to anything in the city. Most of the Latino candidates
had been soundly defeated, but the community obviously
grew and grew to the point where neighborhoods that were
previously not Latino at all became completely Latino. - I have always felt that within our
Latino community, we are very diverse, of many different
political persuasions. Now, we have four
Latino state legislators serving in the Wisconsin
State Assembly: myself; Representative Jesse
Rodriguez joined after me, a Republican; we also have Representative
Jimmy Anderson, who, many don't realize, his
mother is a Mexican immigrant; and our newest legislator,
Representative Marisabel Cabrera from the ninth
assembly district, the south side of Milwaukee. We know that the super majority is on the near south
side of Milwaukee. When we get the near
south side voting, that means the Latino
community is voting, too. And that's a good
thing all around. (mellow techno music) - In 2016, the Greater Milwaukee
Foundation came out with the 2016 Latino study. There was a lot of
negative trend pieces that, you know, we really wanted
to get our arms around. You know, the key things
that came out of it were strong recognition that we had to do
something different. That's where the Hispanic
Collaborative was born. - The Hispanic Collaborative
and the partnership with MMAC came about almost naturally. As we look ahead
at entrepreneurs, at workforce, at leaders
in this community, the Latino and Hispanic
community are gonna be an integral part of
our business future. - And we took it to the
next level and said, "Let's compare ourselves
against 50 different cities." And what we found out that
when we did that comparison, Milwaukee ranked
39th out of 50 cities in the wellbeing of Hispanics, and that encompassed everything from educational attainment, to workforce development, to income levels. - Just in terms of employment, Hispanic Milwaukee
would be number eight, a lot of our people working. If we look at that index in
terms of income and poverty, we slide from 39 to 45th. - I believe that
if we can work with that population
to figure out how being underemployed, we
can create opportunities for them to actually
get what they're worth in the workplace with additional
training certifications. So they don't have
to work two jobs, and they can work one, and get paid what they
should be getting paid. - Well, after high school, I
started working at Smithfield. All my family pretty
much worked there, like my dad worked there,
my brothers worked there. So I thought that
was the way to go. I've been working
there for 12 years now, 14, $15 an hour. - I started there
in production area. Then I moved on to crew leader, packing pepperonis and sausage. - So, the Smithfield
apprentices come to class here at MATC, one day per week. And Smithfield is using
the apprenticeship to upscale a large
group of individuals to attack the skills gap
within their own company. These individuals have come
from production worker, and they're moving
into machine repair, repairing the actual machines that they were actually
working on before as production workers. - I think one of the
key things that MATC did was open the Walker
Square MATC location in the heart of the Hispanic
community, is bilingual. - One of the processes
of apprenticeship is that you gradually
move up in your pay scale. So, a person that's
earning $15 an hour, that eventually moves
up to 28 or $30 an hour, can be life-changing. - This has given
me an opportunity for my future and my kids. Right now, thanks
to the program, I'm actually going to
buy a house pretty soon. Better life, better
life for them. - It changed my perspective
about everything, like, I actually signed
up for a two-year degree here at MATC as well. When I graduate here, I will go to a
four-year university and get my bachelor's degree. - It's important for
Latinos to have good jobs for the economic impact
of the area, but you know, why don't we have more Hispanics in high-ranking
positions in the city? - And in fact, our study
showed that, nationally, we represent less than
2% of representatives in board of directors positions. We're less than that here. - One of the key things
that we try to do at HPGM is mentorship, because
mentorship has been crucial and so important in my career. And you realize that without
the guidance and support of someone that has been
there and done that, or can offer support or
network and connections when you're trying to
make something happen, you could easily be discouraged and you can easily
probably want to quit. - I'm the chairman, president,
and CEO of Marcus Theaters. There is no other, you know,
chairman, president, and CEO, unless you look at
some private companies. - We have a really robust
work pipeline initiative that we started three years ago. And that was really the goal, is to get more
Latinos on boards. And we want people
to stay in Milwaukee. We want to grow our community, but we want people to grow into the right
positions in leadership. And so to date, we have given almost $600,000 in
scholarships to 139 students. - On the (mumbles), a
force to be reckoned with. A Latino is more inclined
to start a business, like 50% more than the
general population. - When we opened, I thought
that we we're gonna have the little store
and that was it. We didn't expect that we
were gonna grow this big. (whirring) - Rough estimate would
be over $70 million. A family business. I got four children. They all work on the stores
and the spouses, too. When we opened here in '60, there was almost
no business at all. Today is different,
now we got restaurants. We got almost everything
in Cesar Chavez. - Our philosophy has always been is to buy every business
available on this street. We're probably one of
the largest commercial and residential
landlords in the area. And we continue to branch out into buying shopping
centers and strip malls. - My dad's always
looking at new buildings. He's like, "Oh, you know,
we should buy this building. We should make another
store," you know. He may be 70 years old,
but there's no retirement in the foreseeable
future for him. He loves what he does. (mellow music) - We are a general contractor, and we sell per form carpentry,
electrical, and low-voltage. We've been in business
for 10 years now. We have 40 employees on staff. We are between 10 and 12
million a year revenue. We're looking at gearing up
to maybe 14 million this year. I have physical offices
in Colorado and Kansas. You know, it is a very
stressful industry. I can't deny that,
but it's rewarding. I feel like it's a new
beginning for Hispanics because there are so
many new Hispanics that are now empowered, right? And we now have the chance
to empower ourselves. - The chamber of
commerce decided it wasn't doing
about three year ago, we keep seeing
gap in the market, in which small business
owners were left behind. I think that it will take
us to empower entrepreneurs, to creating networking
opportunities, to connecting them with
the banking sector, or creating alternative
sources of financing. It also will take us
educating entrepreneurs to feel comfortable
to hire people, and to implement the systems that will allow a business
to grow and scale up. - We provide wireless
networking services, handheld computers,
barcode scanning, and most of these
solutions are used in supply chain for
tracking inventory, whether it's in distribution, or in the store setting
or manufacturing plant. We now serve customers, now on 50 states
and in 14 countries. So, very proud of
what we've been able to accomplish together. We've been very fortunate that the Lord has blessed us with some degree of success. And there came a point where
we started asking ourselves, "What can we start doing? What can we start giving
back to our community?" And that's what
eventually got me doing the work that I do on
a regular basis today. The more I got involved
doing these types of things, the more and more
I became convinced that these weren't
exceptions to the rule. They were just what was
happening regularly, and the rules were wrong
and needed to be changed. I also have the great
pleasure and honor of being national president
of Foreign Latino. And we help individuals of Latino descent
all over the country with the challenges
that they face in trying to achieve
the American dream. - So, the world's
going to change. I mean, that's sort
of a demographic fact, and that demographic facts
are just that Latinos are going to be a
much bigger group. The issue is what do we do? Do we reflect differences
in a better way? Do we get along with
the black community in a way in which
we can all thrive? Do we get along with
the broader community and change the debate in
which we've been strapped to by the history of this nation? So, there's all
these shortcomings, but the flip side of
the shortcomings is Wisconsin is a place where
Latinos naturally should thrive. (mellow music)
