Adriana and I on the other hand have also done a few cool things together. We met at one of Hillsboro’s largest Latino cultural festivals. Her husband, Emilio, is a long-time Intel engineer and we connected on a personal level there amongst the thousands of Washington County attendees. We discussed the great need to build community. The great need to get engaged as citizens and engage our own in the life of our own communities. To represent our families and our communities. I walked away from that Hillsboro festival meeting dozens of entrepreneurs, military Veterans, students and young professionals. I was moved.

Shortly  thereafter, I asked if Adriana would be willing to host a forum at her home for a friend that was running for Congress. The Cañas familia gladly accepted. In fact, Adriana invited her closest friends and colleagues, prepared a feast and her solid questions. What was inspiring was feeling the passion in her voice and the pointed questions. It was clear Adriana was not shy about asking the questions, re-framing the question and getting to an answer we could all nod at. She probed at the candidate on issues of governance, transparency, budgeting, protecting the elderly and vulnerable and even engaged the rest of us to not be shy and ask questions of our guest. I walked away that evening inspired.

I was even more inspired not long after when Adriana called to invite Edith and I to her first organizing party for her candidacy for the Hillsboro School District. She was putting her name in the hat. She ended up getting the votes 4-2 and went on to do great things on the school board. While I’ve nudged Adriana before to put her name in the hat for State Representative, today, it’s reality and she’s running for a seat in the Oregon Legislature. While there’s very few elected officials in the Oregon Legislature that are bilingual, adding Adriana to represent one of the most diverse districts, both in culture and vibrant economic engines in the heart of Silicon Forest in the State of Oregon would be a win-win. Her expertise & passion in public education, economic development, emergency services, affordable good paying jobs, and collaboration would provide an excellent addition to the people’s house.

If you’re on Facebook and would like to drop her a line of support visit her page. See you out there!

Over the weekend I was reading through Jon Bischke’s, “What Really Keeps Poor People Poor.” In it he argues that people from lower-income families aren’t able to gain access to the same networks that higher-income families have access to. The money line: poverty is not deprivation. It is isolation.

When you don’t expand your network in high school or college, what happens? If you didn’t take that class would you have met those folks? If you had not joined that club, fraternity, sorority, ROTC, do you think you would have expanded your network? What if you weren’t active on campus? What if everyone you knew were just from your coursework? How far would your network be?

Networks are meant to coordinate communication and sync opportunities
Is there a difference between networks from Ivy League and public land-grant institutions? Absolutely. Often the opportunities that will come your way will be due to people who know you. Networks at this level coordinate communication within specific groups of people and sync opportunities to only those in their respective networks. It doesn’t matter if you are trying to get a job at the local plant that packs potatoes or the Federal government, the question is not who you know, but who knows you. Networks exist in the public, private, not-for-profit, religious, political and military environments. Networks or connections, often are referred by its nickname, “good ol’ boy network.”

Social strata and college
College provides individuals from the lower-income side to elevate their social strata, to elevate their thinking, to connect with others from an often different economic class. There will be folks from non-traditional and first-generation backgrounds to sons and daughters of lawyers, bankers and venture capitalists. Does this provide greater opportunities? Perhaps. Are the chances for success greater? Absolutely.

Local and global networks
Whether its prestigious Ivy League universities, military academies or exclusive invite-only summits, these places provide a setting for individuals to network, to connect and build relationships for the future. Bischke argues that this is one of the fundamental problems of our time. The ability for lower-income families to access these same networks. How does someone who makes $9 p/ hr afford professional education on top of rent, monthly expenses, child care etc? What if they don’t have internet at home? What if they are very concerned about rising food and gas prices? What if they don’t have a clue about these wonderful opportunities? Is this intentional exclusion?

How do we elevate the poor? As a former MEChistA, I know first hand this is one program that works on empowering and pushing students through school and into college. One of the purposes of BilingualHire is to put more talented bilingual skilled professionals to work. To get them more connected and part of a larger network that keeps us employed in awesome work.

So tell me about your networks. Is it hard or easy to network? How are you building your network?

– David Molina is the Founder and CEO of BilingualHire.

When determining whether or not investing your resources on a direct hire through BilingualHire or internally first consider your organization’s brand and readily accessible bilingual talent pool around. Is your organization well known? Does everyone know what you do and how you do it? What about your organization’s reputation? If your organization is well know, and has a great reputation and there’s a ton of bilingual talent capable of performing this senior role perhaps a direct hire might not be the best investment of your resources. Especially, if your board of directors and human resource staff has been doing the due diligence in identifying talent, networking w/ other organization’s and businesses and generating outside interest.

In many cases, if your a groom from within organization then developing talent is organic. If on the case you don’t, generous advertising announcements on your sites homepage coupled w/ ads in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and eNewsletters might generate enough interest and flow of resumes/cover letters. It helps if people in those networks also share the oppt’y. Many blogs, online news outlets already garner a steady stream of attention. If for example, your a progressive organization you might consider posting in demochambas. The problem you’ll eventually run into is that people stop forwarding your emails and so its only as good as the distribution.

The reason you would hire BilingualHire for a direct hire is because you only want pre-screened ready, high-caliber bilingual talent scheduled for interviews. We do all the grunt work that typically staff in your human resources department would do, this includes advertising the position, writing about it, responding to resumes, pre-screening bilingual talent first by phone then in person over un cafecito, lunch or dinner, and responding to all phone inquiries, etc. We also support your human resource department, augment the team and search committees and help coordinate interviews. Our clients view us as an extension of their operation. If there’s sufficient numbers in your area, you have available personnel committed to the process, and have extensive networks go ahead and try it alone. Give it a swing. Nothing will break. In any case, we could start on a temporary basis and go from there.

If its reputation and no one wants to join your team then that’s another post.

In any case, the BilingualHire Team is available at the ready and can be reached right here. Why now? Look no further than the statistics. Clearly hiring and retaining bilingual talent in your organization should be a top priority.