By: Ashmar Mandou
In a unanimous vote, the Executive Committee members of the Chicago City Council Latino Caucus, selected Alderman Rey Colón (35th Ward) to serve as the council’s new chairman, an announcement that was made last week. “I am honored to be chosen by my colleagues to take on this role,” said Ald. Colón. “I have a strong vision for supporting the growing Latino population in Chicago.” During the 2010 remapping process, the Latino Caucus gained five additional Latino majority minority wards, expanding the caucus. As a ten year veteran of the Chicago City Council, Ald. Colón phoned Lawndale Bilingual Newspaper to briefly share his vision for the Latino Caucus.
Priorities for Latino Community
One of the things we have already started to do is educate our board officers for the anticipation of immigration reform. We know immigration reform is eventually going to pass at the federal level so we want to ensure on a local level that we are doing what we can to prepare our offices and communities for the many changes that can occur. We are committed to prioritizing issues for the Latino communities. Some of our activities have included holding press conferences for the government to stop deportations. We have lots of different resolutions and we are constantly discussing ways in which to better protect the rights of our constituents. We also have opened up the caucus to non-Latino aldermen who have a growing Latino population in their wards to work together to provide more resources and opportunities to them.
Accessibility
It’s real important to have open lines of communication no matter the status of our constituents because we want them to know they are part of the life of the community. With all these different levels of information about issues of Obamacare, immigration reform, deportations, etc., we need to make sure as a caucus we provide our community with the up-to-date information and where they can go for additional information.
Goals Next Year
I think one of the things we need to do better is communicate as a Latino Caucus. Sometimes we do things individually in our ward and I think we need to do a better job at coming together to the let the communities know what exactly we do as a Latino Caucus. One goal I have in mind is to completely renovate our website so that we can share our upcoming activities. That said, we are currently working on a couple of resolutions that we will soon share with the media.
