Foreign and domestic policy has put Latin America not only in the headlines but on the minds of many Americans, immigrant and non-immigrant alike. This can lead to tension, discomfort, and misinformation, says Maria Jose Ramirez Braiz, the founder of Latinos Connect.
Her Kansas-City and St.-Joseph-based organization aims to counter that, she said.
“Our big work is to connect. Integration is a priority for us. We need to integrate with each other. And for that we need all parties at the table: Latinos and American people working together to improve our cities, our towns, our communities.”
Sometimes, that’s a metaphorical table: the organization runs school and workplace diversity programs, offers transportation services, and fosters communication online. Ramirez Braiz is also the CEO of Te Lo Cuento News, which publishes in both English and Spanish.
But tonight, the tables are real: the organization holds monthly multicultural dinners, offering a space to share a meal and create conversation.
The topic at the February gathering is the ongoing developments in Venezuela. At their January dinner, Ramirez Braiz explained, “we had so many questions about everything going on [in the country], so tonight is an opportunity to ask anything and get those questions answered.”
Food was provided by the Escobar family, who came to St. Joseph from Maracaibo nearly ten years ago and have created a community in the city while their asylum claims are being processed.
After filling platefuls of Arepas stuffed with pork, beans, eggs, beef, or the famed ‘reina pepiada,’ a mixture of avocado, chicken, mayonnaise and cilantro translating roughly to ‘curvy queen,’ participants sit down to eat and fire off questions for members of the city’s Venezuelan community to answer. At the center of the room, Ramirez Braiz translates: Spanish to English, English to Spanish.
Most questions focus on President Trump and his role in the Jan. 3 capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a move that brought hope and celebration to Venezuelans at home and abroad. The atmosphere in the room is joyful, unguarded, and raucous. Americans warn that Trump does not have the interest of the Venezuelan people at heart, while members of the Escobar family declare they so despise Maduro that they now “love” Trump.
Carlos Escobar, who worked in the oil industry in Venezuela and came to the United States in 2018 following a period of extreme instability and scarcity in his home country, said St. Joseph has been a supportive place to land.
“Tonight’s event is a perfect example of the resources we have here,” he said: “an organization like Latinos Connect that provides a space for us to interact and adapt, alongside our own effort day-by-day to set out a life in St. Joseph.”
Escobar says his family would consider moving back to Venezuela if the situation stabilized, a new government came to power, and their asylum claims were denied by U.S. courts. Further, he speculated that part of Trump’s motivation in capturing Maduro was to stabilize the country to send Venezuelans back.
But overall, he said his family, which has attracted other immigrants in the region to settle in St. Joseph, creating an ex-pat community of over a hundred residents, is dreaming of a future in the United States.
They plan to start a food truck later this year, and “try out a business,” he said, “to bring Venezuelan food to the people of St. Joseph. If it goes well, we’ll open a restaurant.”
If tonight is any evidence, it will be easy to get city residents hooked on Venezuelan food and interested in Venezuelan issues. Ramirez Braiz says creating these connections is essential at a time of political and cultural polarization.
“Our goal is to focus on the positive, not on the negative. Our goal is to prove the values and the skills that we Latinos have to offer. That is our priority at Latinos Connect,” she said.
“Even if people disagree with the Latinos, the migrants, being here, we want them to gather with us,” she said. “We want to have this conversation; we want them to know us, because most of the misinformation comes [from what people don’t know]."
"We are here to have those discussions,” she said.
