Local and national Hispanic leaders, including California Congressman David Valadao, spoke to students Wednesday morning in the Fresno State Satellite Student Union as part of a
Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute (CHLI) hosted conference.
The discussions focused on jobs, immigration and other topics affecting the Latino community.
CHLI, founded in 2003 in Washington, D.C., is committed to “fostering a broad awareness of the diversity of thought, heritage, interests and views of Americans of Hispanic and Portuguese descent,” according to its website.
The organization invited regional leaders to speak to Central Valley students — including politicians, business-owners and corporate managers.
Valadao, who is running for re-election in the 21st Congressional District, expressed the importance of giving young Latinos positive role models as they begin their professional careers.
“Today is more of a conference for giving positive examples for someone to look up to and an example of someone who has succeeded in the world from Hispanic backgrounds,” Valadao said.
He noted that he, and many other Latino leaders at the conference, shared the same upbringing as the students in attendance.
“My parents are immigrants,” Valadao said. “We’ve struggled ourselves with language barriers and with a poor upbringing. And then we’ve been pretty successful, and that came from a lot of hard work.”
It’s a message that resonated with Maria Laguna, a senior at Taft Union High School. Laguna immigrated with her family to the Central Valley from Jalisco, Mexico when she was three years old. She said that seeing successful Latino leaders in her community is an inspiration for her.
“This is a wonderful thing for us,” Laguna said. “Especially because I’m an immigrant. So, this is actually really inspiring for me to be able to see that you can make it.”
The theme of the conference was “Explore your world, discover your future,” and it included a professional panel that gave students tips for developing leadership skills.
Pastor Magana, also of Taft Union High School, sought tips to develop his public-speaking skills from the panelists.
“I hope to be an orthodontist in the future so there are skills that I need for the future,” Magana said. “I need to be a stronger speaker for that.”
Laguna echoed the importance of being able to speak in public as a professional.
“I’m a terrible speaker,” Laguna said. “So, I’d like to learn how to improve my speaking skills and how to be able to communicate thoroughly and not stutter as much as I usually do.”
“I see myself as a psychologist, and you need to have really good communication skills in order to tell people what to do and help them with their problems,” he said.
Fresno State President Joseph Castro said that teaching the next generation of leaders is one of the biggest priorities of his administration.
“I love these opportunities to both share what we’ve learned as well as hear the dreams that [students] have, and I fully expect that they’re going to do even better than what we have done in this generation,” Castro said. “Each generation builds on the previous one.”
Castro said that he went to professional conferences during his college career and was inspired by the professionals he spoke to and connected with.
“I remember coming to events like this and meeting people who have done incredible things and that was a real inspiration for me, and it gave me a sense of a road map for my future,” Castro said.
“It’s the reason why I’m at Fresno State,” Castro said. “The primary mission, in my view, of universities, is to educate the next generation of leaders.”
CHLI provided students information regarding internships in Washington, D.C., at the conference, and Univision 21 also provided students with information about career opportunities.