February 15-17, 2023
Celebrate with Us February 15-17, 2023
To commemorate our 40th anniversary, Esperanza United is hosting ¡Adelante!: A virtual celebration of Latin@-led advocacy.
Free to attend, ¡Adelante! is a series of engaging events for Latin@ advocates to go deeper on prescient issues related to their work and well-being.
THE SPEAKERS
10:45 – 12:00 CST
Welcome and Introduction: A Celebration of Latin@ Leadership
Speakers: Stephanie G. Lopez, Patti Tototzintle, y más
Esperanza United’s President and CEO Patti Tototzintle will kick-off ¡Adelante! by introducing our objectives, structure, and highlights. She will be joined by special guests to discuss the challenges, successes, and way forward for Latin@ leadership in this movement.
2:00 – 3:00 CST
Break Out Session: Polyvictimization as a Risk Factor for Commercial Sexual Exploitation/Human Trafficking
Speakers: Rita Abadi and Sonia I. Rodriguez
Polyvictimization refers to having experienced multiple forms of victimizations over the course of a person’s lifetime. Exposure to one form of trauma often makes immigrant survivors vulnerable to experiencing other traumatic experiences as well. Moreover, the harms caused by the trauma(s) can also be passed on from one generation to another. In addition to Childhood Adverse Experiences, immigrant survivors often experience violence in the immigration process and loss of protective factors after migrating. Many professionals/organizations working with immigrant trauma survivors do not feel equipped to assess and work with their poly-victimized clientele and often work in compartmentalized approaches. However, their clients’ lives and experiences are not compartmentalized. This workshop will help participants gain an understanding of polyvictimization, the impact it has on the lives of immigrant survivors, their varied service needs, and how to best meet those needs. The workshop will also present the dynamics of working intersectionally across barriers such as language and culture. It is our hope that by empowering ourselves with emerging research, experiences, and approaches, we can become better stewards of addressing and ending sexual and other forms of violence.
2:00 – 3:00 CST
Break Out Session: The Power of Our Story: Strength of Immigrant Families Despite Legal Violence
Speaker: Dr. Maria Corona
Dr. Maria Corona will share a brief overview of the policies that have shaped the current anti-immigrant socio-political environment in the United States and Iowa and its impact on the health and well-being of children. In this session, Dr. Corona will highlight findings from her academic research and uplift the strengths and strategies of the Latin@ immigrant families that participated. There will be opportunities to discuss practice implications and brainstorm ideas for disseminating this knowledge broadly.
3:15 – 4:15 CST
Community Connections: Working in Rural Communities
Speakers: Maria Limon
Frequently, Latin@ populations reside in rural and semi-rural settings in the US. Given the unique characteristics and needs of Latin@ survivors and rural domestic violence organizations, examining the intersection of service provision for Latin@ survivors in rural areas warrants further exploration. During this conversation, we will share best practices that support rural dual/multi-service advocacy programs to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate services to family violence and sexual assault survivors making services for all rural survivors more inclusive and accessible.
10:45 – 12:00 CST
Featured Plenary: A Conversation with Sandra Cisneros
Speakers: Patti Tototzintle and Sandra Cisneros
Esperanza United’s President and CEO Patti Tototzintle speaks with celebrated poet, author, and activist Sandra Cisneros. Cisneros will read from 2022’s Woman Without Shame, her first poetry collection in nearly thirty years, and her other works, sharing her wisdom about rejecting sexism, loving herself, and leveraging the power of art.
2:00 – 3:00 CST
Break Out Session: Promotora Leadership
Speaker: Laura Villarreal
Promotoras or community health workers bring health education to the community in Spanish. Esperanza United’s Laura Villarreal will discuss how increased awareness, capacity, and partnerships with promotora programs along with culturally responsive organizational practices can increase mainstream organizations’ reach among the Latin@ community and provide preventative health services to Latin@ survivors to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 by sharing information about health and safety.
2:00 – 3:00 CST
Break Out Session: The Magic of Virtual Facilitation
Speakers: Ivonne Ortiz and Kim Camacho
For many domestic violence organizations, the pandemic has led to shifting how advocacy supports are delivered. That is, many supports are now being offered virtually to accommodate the pandemic quarantine and in-person restrictions. Support groups, a cornerstone of domestic violence advocacy, have historically been one way to cultivate social connectedness for survivors. With the move to virtual platforms, we know that effective facilitation is critical to engagement, peer support, and even healing in a support group space. The same principles can be applied to listening sessions, focus groups, and other groups across our organizations. In this follow-up to Transformative Facilitation: Building Virtual Communities, we will discuss lessons learned in the shift to virtual facilitation and explore ways to navigate challenges that emerge.
3:15 – 4:15 CST
Community Connections: Economic Empowerment of Latin@s
Speakers: Elvira de la Cruz, Hanncel Sanchez, and Melissa Cano Zelaya
Panelists will highlight the importance of identifying strategies for increasing the overall well-being of Latina IPV survivors through their economic empowerment interventions. These include entrepreneurship, developing culturally responsive transitional housing programs, and the importance of language access for community members to navigate social service systems.
10:45 – 12:00 CST
Plenary: How to Survive the Nonprofit Sector as Latin@/POC Executive
Speakers: Ines Negrete, Maricarmen Garza, and Margarita Guzman
Latin@s are the fastest-growing population in the United States and will be one in six individuals by 2050. Despite this increase, Latin@s remain absent from board rooms, executives’ offices, and many leadership positions in the nonprofit sector that are in charge of making decisions that directly impact our communities. Panelists will share their experiences as nonprofit leaders, the importance of mentorship, and strategies for organizations to create a culture that embraces Latin@ leadership.
2:00 – 3:00 CST
Plenary: Healing from Our Ancestry: Expressive Arts and Nature Therapy
Speaker: Marién A. Peña
This is an experiential presentation where participants will feel the healing capabilities of the expressive arts and nature connectors. The intermodal expressive arts process includes guided meditation, visual art, movement, creative writing, music, sound, drama, and reflection. Nature connectors are sensory-based activities to help us ground and reconnect with the environment and others. We will tap into our creativity and ancestral wisdom to lead us to discoveries and help us recognize emotional barriers.
3:15 – 4:15 CST
Community Connections: Celebrating the Power and Wisdom of Latin@ Leadership through Culturally Responsive Healing Practices
Speaker: Elizabeth Delgado
During this session, participants will have an opportunity to engage in culturally resilient practices through movement, body-drumming, inquiry, mindfulness, and critical self-reflection.
A FEW NOTES
About Us
From a humble but mighty beginning as an emergency shelter created by a small group of persevering Latinas, Esperanza United has grown into the largest, most-respected Latin@ organization in the country focused on ending gender-based violence.
Formerly “Casa de Esperanza: the National Latin@ Network,” we are celebrating 40 years of strengths-based service. We are one of eight federally designated cultural resource centers on domestic violence and the only one serving Latin@ communities.
Our national work is fed by our roots in Minnesota; powered by our belief in the strength of women within the context of family and community; and includes research, public policy, training, and communications.
Why Do You Use “@”?
Esperanza United has chosen to use “@” in place of the masculine “o” when referring to people or groups that are gender neutral or both masculine and feminine. This decision reflects our commitment to gender inclusion and recognizes the important contributions that women, men, and gender-nonconforming people make to our communities.
About Our Supporters
This project was supported by Grant No. 2016-TA-AX-K039 awarded by the Office on Violence Against Women, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this publication/program/exhibition are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women.
This project is also generously supported by The Allstate Foundation.
The First ¡Adelante!
¡Adelante! 2020 was a great success. Twenty-plus amazing Latinas shared their wisdom, including the first Latinas to be elected to each US House of Government, journalist and author Maria Hinojosa, President of The TransLatin@ Coalition Bamby Salcedo, one of the founders of the farmworker women’s movement Mily Treviño-Saucedo, and many more. Watch the event’s sessions, see the full speaker list, and check out the 2020 agenda below.