With the election of President Donald Trump for a second term and the new administration’s focus on deportation, the central narrative surrounding Latinos has focused primarily around issues of immigration.
But Madison leader Karen Menéndez Coller says the local Latino population is more than a community facing persecution.
Immigrants carry a lot of trauma from their journeys and face many barriers once they arrive, she said.
“But we’re going to thrive anyway. We’re going to continue to grow,” said Menéndez Coller, executive director of Centro Hispano, a Dane County organization working to elevate the local Latino community through education, workforce development and cultural celebration.
Discussions and news coverage of Latinos right now focuses more on what’s wrong than what is going right, she noted.
Beyond the national limelight of mass deportations and court order disputes, local Latinos are working to further their education, make decisions that are best for their families and get into professional fields that help their neighbors.
“It’s either we’re a crisis piece … or we’re a cultural piece,” Menéndez Coller said. “There’s no narrative that talks to us as the fastest growing community.”
Census data from 2020 shows that Wisconsin’s Hispanic population grew by 33.1% from 2010, the last time detailed population data had been collected, making those who identify as Hispanic the fastest-growing population in the state. The Latino community’s expansion is also part of what’s driving Dane County to be the fastest-growing county in the state.
To match that growth in population, Centro moved to a larger location on Cypress Way on Madison’s south side about a year ago. The new building is called Calli, an Aztec symbol meaning home.
Centro Hispano of Dane County opened its new building, Calli, on the corner of Hughes Place and Cypress Way in April 2024.
It’s here that the organization runs workforce training programs in areas like health care and technology, provides peer support for community members struggling with mental health, holds cultural workshops and educational opportunities and serves as a central space for healing and advancement.
One of the more recent career advancement tracks created at Centro is Caminos in Tech, which helps local Latinos to get the certifications necessary to enter the technology industry workforce.
“We’ve been thinking about how to elevate the work in a way that really breaks through the tech sector. Because while people are getting trained, individuals are not necessarily getting hired into the sector,” Menéndez Coller. “Then, even if they’re hired, there’s no like, retention practices across the employers to move them ahead.”
This is all the more critical since Wisconsin was recently named a regional tech hub by the federal government, a designation that came with nearly $50 million in federal funding for biohealth research centered in Madison.
The classrooms on the second floor of Centro Hispano’s new location have doors that connect them. One can walk from the computer lab used by workforce program participants into the youth room.
Other workforce training includes certified nursing assistants, finance, administration and peer mentoring fields.
While a core goal of the programs is to advance professional opportunities for local Latinos, an added benefit is adding diversity to the local workforce, Menéndez Coller added.
“How do we work into workforce sectors where we want to see our faces in a deep, meaningful way,” she said.
When someone comes to Centro to get help with workforce development, the organization works to provide wraparound services beyond that immediate need to make sure whatever positive professional change comes from training is sustainable in the long run, Menéndez Coller explained.
“When you come to Centro, you take that first step to address that immediate need. It might be that you need work, but then what you find is really a space that allows you to heal everything else that you’ve had in your journey,” she said.
But beyond helping themselves and each other, Menéndez Coller said local Latinos want to make their home community a better place for everyone and, in order for that to happen, discussions of community advancement and solutions need to take place not just when a problem arises.
“We address problems, but we’re not exactly elevating solutions all the time,” she said.
The resilience needed to leave your home country and find a better life for yourself and your family as an immigrant takes qualities that make a community better, Menéndez Coller said.
Karen Menéndez Coller, executive director of Centro Hispano, says Madison’s Latino community is still thriving despite a national narrative.
“That uprooting, that takes a lot. It takes a lot of resilience, drive, ingenuity, hustle,” she said.
Those are the qualities that Menéndez Coller wishes were focused on more when it comes to her community of immigrants.
“We’re going to continue to thrive, because this is where we want to be, and we’re deserving of this opportunity,” Menéndez Coller said. “We don’t need to be saved. We want a partner. Because everybody helps their neighbor.”