Not all news is bad news for the Latino community: We Saved New Jersey

By Bill Colon

Not all news is bad news for the Latino community.

Yes, we have taken a beating for two years, as the current Trenton administration almost got away with eliminating all programs serving Hispanics, took away health insurance for poor working Latinos, tried to financially strangle the urban school districts which serve our children, and used them as guinea pigs for their experimental school reform initiatives.

Yes, our poverty rates have increased substantially during the last five years, as we suffer the consequences of the recession and a slow recovery, and our unemployment rate, especially amongst our youth, skyrocketed alongside with everyone else.

But our people have a resilient spirit and still believe—in spite of the haters and those who would prefer for us to disappear—that America is the country of opportunity, exceptional in the world, where if you work hard and are willing to sacrifice, you will be rewarded.

Latinos are coming to New Jersey to do just that.

Let’s take a look at the other side of the coin.

The 2010 Census already showed the Latino population at 1.5 million, almost 18 percent of the population. It also showed that Latinos are in every county, substantial pockets everywhere.

Moreover, if not for Latinos, New Jersey would have lost population instead of gaining it. If not for Latinos, New Jersey would have lost more than one congressional seat. It is safe to say Latinos saved New Jersey.

I recently attended one of the celebrations being hosted all over the nation in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. This one was organized by the Hispanic Federation, one of the premier Latino non-profit organizations which provide services to our community in the tri-state area. The keynote speaker, Robert Montemayor, journalism professor, Pulitzer Prize winner and director of the Latino Information Network, at Rutgers, gave us an earful of good news. Actually, excellent news.

Among those: the discretionary purchasing power, or what the professor better described as “indiscriminate spending”, for Latinos nationwide is now $1 trillion. That’s Trillion with a T. Get this: the Latino purchasing power is equivalent to one of the top 10 richest countries in the world.

What about this? New Jersey Latinos boast a whopping $55 billion in “spending money” or indiscriminate spending power. That’s a lot of pesos and hard to fathom. Spending in this state also means a lot of pesos for the New Jersey Treasury at seven percent a purchase. Gee…..might it be that we pay a large percentage of Governor Christie’s salary? Might it be the services our poor receive are paid by none other than us? Neat.

These facts belie the image created to criticize us as poor, uneducated non-contributors to society.

In New Jersey and in the nation, Hispanics, and especially Latinas, are the growth engine of small business.

Item: there are now 68,362 Hispanic-owned businesses in New Jersey, with $10.2 billion dollars in annual receipts.

On average, that is almost $150,000 per business. Not great, but not bad if you own the business and work it with your family.

So there you have it. Not all is bad news.

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