Sadly, the division that I described 25 years ago seems even more severe today. Some people said then, the same as some will respond now, that my outlook is negative. The opposite is true, there are numerous steps we can take, in order to boost Latino families as part of uplifting all people, from children to elders.

What’s YOUR viewpoint? We all still are young enough to learn.

We Need a Village First

(from 1999, keynote to the former Bridge Center for Racial Harmony)

Just as I am, many of you may be tired of hearing, “It takes a village to raise a child.” It has become so common and almost like a catchphrase, but what do we mean by it? In order for a village or a community to act, first it must exist.

Let’s face it. We need to ask, think and take note. Do we even have a village? Or are we each just concerned with our own tribe, racial or religious group? Too often we think, if it does not affect my group, it’s not my problem, I don’t have to be concerned about it or get involved. The greedy among us ask, “What’s in it for me?”

The Good Book, the Bible. tells us we are our brother’s keeper, which is another way of saying we are the village. But are we really? Or is it simply easy to say the right thing than to do the right thing.

Growing up, we learned that what you give away returns to you tenfold. This also holds true when we fail to share, and to work together.

My experience in Saginaw generally is that whatever racial, ethnic, religious or political faction is the first to obtain a special project or a grant, whatever the case may be, this is theirs to have and to hold and nothing can part them from it. If it is information that may assist other programs or lead to collaboration, they cannot pass it on to others, lest someone else get credit for doing it.

The village should not be about who got the funds, who started the programs, who gained the info. It should be about the community.  If it’s the schools the primary focus is the students, not the adults and their jobs. If it’s the city, it’s the citizens, not the politics. A business, customer service, not endless greed. For clergy, saving souls, not always soliciting dollars. And so on. If all would cease acting as factions in competition, then we form a true village.

From our schools, our children will gain the education they need to succeed, and one day in return to help provide for the generations that uplifted them. Politicians will succeed via the citizens, business through the customers, clergy for serving as role models for our values and morals.

That is the village because everyone has a part to play. It is not merely a cliche that sounds good, but a plan to live by and to work by, not just words to simply spout off. Doing the right things, not simply saying them.

Indeed it takes a whole village. Are we finally ready to make Saginaw a village?

After years as a parent volunteer, Minnie Rosales in 1993 became the only Latino ever elected to the Saginaw Board of Education, before or since. She also has been a leader for 50 years in establishing an Hispanic senior citizen center. With her husband of 60 years, Arturo, the family still grows, now from grandchildren to more great-grands.

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