A civil rights activist and a panel of business professionals spoke about cultural empowerment in business at an event Thursday.
Activist Dolores Huerta spoke about her experiences with labor issues at the inaugural event of the Association of Latino Professionals for America at UCLA, a national business organization for Latino students and professionals that recently re-established a chapter at UCLA during fall quarter. The event also featured a panel in which business professionals discussed the vital role their cultural backgrounds play in their daily lives and careers.
Jocelyn Perez, president of ALPFA at UCLA, said the event aimed to inform Latino students at UCLA about opportunities in the business field and solidify ALPFA’s presence on campus.
Huerta, a civil rights activist who worked alongside Cesar Chavez to fight for labor rights and social justice, spoke about labor issues she experienced while founding the United Farm Workers union and the struggles she went through to advocate for basic human rights.
“Some of these things that workers do, we take for granted. Like in the farm worker movement, the struggles that we had to go through just to get the basic human rights for workers,” Huerta said. “To get a toilet in the fields, can you imagine what it was like as a woman after working and not having any place to go to the bathroom?”
Several students said they attended the event because they were inspired by Huerta’s activism.
Marcy Flores, a fourth-year gender studies student, said she chose to attend the event because of Huerta’s influence on women’s rights.
“As a gender studies major, I think she was very influential for women’s rights in the workplace, and for coining the iconic, ‘Si, se puede’,” Flores said. “Most people don’t know that she coined it.”
Bryan Perez, a fourth-year history student, said he decided to attend the event because Huerta made a big impact on his hometown of Salinas, California with the United Farm Workers movement.
“She’s very well-known where I’m from,” he said. “She helped out along with Cesar Chavez to get better wages for workers, so that’s what really attracted me because I’m from there.”
After Huerta’s speech, panelists talked about how they integrate their cultural backgrounds into how they approach their careers and daily lives.
James De La O, ALPFA national ambassador and the event’s moderator, said people can draw from their cultural knowledge to enhance their studies, professions and personal strengths and weaknesses.
“I invite you to activate your cultural intelligence,” De La O said. “Take advantage of that tool that you have, the thing you were born with.”
He also said Latinos have played a key role in the United States’ growing businesses.
“Eighty-six percent of the growth in small businesses is driven by Latinos, Latino-owned businesses,” De La O said. “It is impossible to drive accelerated growth in businesses, small and big, across the U.S. without us, without Latinos.”
Roberto Basualdo, a risk assurance manager at the accounting firm PwC, said he thinks diversity in the workforce leads to organizational success because it promotes new perspectives.
“Good organizations, they thrive on diversity,” Basualdo said. “I know that the company that I work for cares a lot about different backgrounds because we all bring a different perspective to the conversation.”
Jason Lippe, a UCLA alumnus and former director of professional development for the Bruin Real Estate Association, spoke about the importance of having real passion for one’s career.
Lippe, a senior analyst at Entrada Partners, said his involvement with BREA as a student helped him with his professional development.
“The benefit that I derived from it had nothing to do with real estate, it had to do with being given the opportunity to be a leader and to work with a team, and that is actually the most fulfilling thing I have done in my life to this point,” he said.
Lippe added people should pursue endeavors because they are intrinsically passionate about them, not because they see them as means to an end. He added while he did get a job because of his involvement with BREA, he was only able to do so because he was genuinely passionate about the organization.
“I went into it because it was passion, it was a primary result that I was chasing after, and all these great secondary things came,” Lippe said.
Eleazar Lopez, co-vice president of ALPFA at UCLA, said he hoped the event accomplished ALPFA’s goal of educating UCLA students about the business field by exposing them to professional development and networking opportunities.
Jocelyn Perez added that a part of ALPFA’s mission is to create a safe space for students interested in business and to diversify the workforce.
“There just isn’t enough color and we all share that sentiment of, ‘Well I want to accomplish this, but there aren’t enough people that look like me, so is it possible?’ And that’s what we’re here for,” Perez said.
Its ironic that Dolores Huerta trys to speak about business to Latino students when the United Farm Workers union is in an exponential decline. The UFW has lost 99% of its members and as a business has been failing. The UFW fails to even pay their own employees correctly and was ordered to pay $2,000,000 in a lawsuit started by its own organizers. The UFW has contributed to so many companies closing and thousands of jobs lost. So with that being said, having Dolores Huerta speak about business is like having Hitler speak at an anti-racism convention.