WASHINGTON, Oct. 20, 2015 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — Voto Latino, the leading non-profit organization empowering Latino Millennials and engaging them in the civic process, gathered more than 300 Latino Millennials at its seventh VL Power Summit. The event was held at Stanford University, October 16-17, in collaboration with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity.
“Voto Latino is making good on the promise chanted by so many over the last decade: ‘Hoy marchamos, mañana votamas (today we march, tomorrow we vote).’ Tomorrow is here,” said Tomas Jimenez, Associate Professor of Sociology and Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, on why he chose to host Voto Latino at Stanford University.
“We held this year’s Power Summit in Silicon Valley at a pivotal time for the Latino community. Our community is under attack, making it all the more crucial to convene hundreds of Latino Millennials, and to set the stage not only for 2016, but the years that follow,” said Maria Teresa Kumar, President & CEO of Voto Latino. “Power Summit gave them the tools they need to challenge the naysayers and continue being the leaders that our community needs.”
“Young Latinos and young people in general hold the power,” said Wilmer Valderrama, co-chair of Voto Latino’s artist coalition, on the importance of this demographic. “They have the ability to actually talk to their parents and reeducate their parents, who have sometimes been removed from the political process and from the voting process. They single-handedly can create change.”
VL Power Summit kicked off Friday evening at Electronic Arts (EA). Participants toured the EA campus and heard from a panel of EA developers that included Crystal Sanchez, the company’s highest-ranking Latina. She shared her journey from a graduate in Chicano studies to working for one of the biggest video gaming companies in the nation.
On day two, VL convened more than 300 Latino Millennials to educate, engage, and empower them through workshops and training sessions from industry experts with Buzzfeed, Fusion, Microsoft, FWD.us and more. Participants were also called upon to serve as VL Insiders and continue building momentum and activating change in their communities once they returned home. Notable speakers included:
- Antonio Villaraigosa, former Los Angeles mayor
- Jose Acosta, president of publics affairs for UPS
- Jose Antonio Vargas, filmmaker, journalist and activist
“We can’t change the politics about immigration without changing the conversation about this issue,” said Vargas during a conversation on race in today’s society. “You’re living in the biggest time for intersectionality.” Further, in the era of black lives matter, LGBT rights, women’s rights, and climate change. He said it is important for them to become activists and advocates for the issues they care about.
You can learn more on what happened at VL Power Summit HERE.
This year’s VL Power Summit was made possible thanks to the generous support of the MacArthur Foundation, The California Endowment, PG&E, Defend Our Future, Electronic Arts (EA), Comcast, Aids Healthcare Foundation, Microsoft, the Ford Foundation, Sprint, and HipGive.
About Voto Latino
Voto Latino is a nonpartisan organization that empowers Latino Millennials to claim a better future for themselves and their community. United by the belief that Latino issues are American issues and American issues are Latino issues, Voto Latino is dedicated to bringing new and diverse voices to develop leaders by engaging youth, media, technology and celebrities to promote positive change. To learn more about Voto Latino, visit www.VotoLatino.org. Also engage Voto Latino on Facebook at www.facebook.com/VotoLatino, on Twitter at www.twitter.com/VotoLatino and on Instagram at www.instagram.com/VotoLatino
