Mi Villa, Do You Feel Connected, Seen, and Heard?

When the Neighborhood Media Foundation invited me to a community-media-only discussion to be broadcast live on WOVU 95.9FM with Mayor Justin M. Bibb, I immediately said yes! As a former public servant, I have been delighted to experience the new air of inclusivity and modernity at Cleveland City Hall. When I visit those hallowed corridors today, I see and hear people like me, and that holds great significance in my eyes.

My time with the city began as a City Planning and Urban Design intern under the previous administration. I went on to spend several years working in finance at the Justice Center. I enjoyed my work, but I felt a part of an antiquated bureaucracy, marred in red tape, with limited opportunities for growth.

Like many other young people, I eventually decided to move away, frustrated by a dearth of possibilities. I left my position, relinquishing my government benefits and retirement plan for what I thought were greener pastures. Like a boomerang, I came right back. There is truly no place like home. My work today as a writer combines my many passions and keeps me close to what matters to me most: comunidad.

When I returned home, a new voice on Hopkins’ PA system welcomed me back, and I was thrilled. After all, Frank Jackson has been at the city’s helm my entire adult life. Change was afoot, and after 222 years, since Cleveland’s founding, we now have our first Latina on City Council.

¿Hablas español? Un poquito.

I’ve been engaged in a dialogue with Cleveland City Hall for some time now, around language access. It began with a question from a friend about where she could send her patients in need of social support. I had suggested the Neighborhood Resource and Recreation Centers (NRRCs). She responded by sharing that the majority of the people she sees have limited English proficiency and asked which center to refer them to specifically. I naively replied: “any of them.”

I later discovered that was not necessarily the case. I took it upon myself to reach out to the NRRCs to ask for guidance. After many, many conversations, I could not report back to my friend with any definitive or practical solution. There began this new journey with City Hall. I was bounced around from one department to the other, and no one could tell me where to refer residents that may not speak English.

My inquiry eventually landed with the Community Relations Board, and the city’s Hispanic Liaison, Christopher Martinez (or as I like to call him, el Padrino). He suggested referring residents to Estabrook, in Old Brooklyn, but did not know if anyone there is bilingual.

The next natural question to surface in my mind was what actions are being taken by the City of Cleveland to attract, hire, and retain bilingual employees.

Our municipal workforce is over 7,000 people strong. Surely, I thought, it is reflective of the myriad of cultures and languages in our city.

I directly asked Chris Martinez my question about hiring, to which he replied: “they don’t apply.”

A short time later, the city began advertising a city-wide hiring fair, to be held on January 12th in the rotunda of City Hall.

This highly publicized event brought together nearly every department, from Building and Housing to Public Safety, in hopes of filling open positions, in what has been described in the media as a “hot” labor market.

I didn’t see this information anywhere in any language other than English. I began thinking back to my conversation with Martinez and saw this as a fresh chance to hazlo bien, by advertising the job fair in multiple languages.

Nuevamente me comuniqué con el ayuntamiento. Les costó un poco de trabajo, pero aceptaron publicar el folleto en español.

This victory would not have been possible without the responsiveness of Tyler Sinclair, a spokesperson for Mayor Justin Bibb.

¿El estatus de ciudad hermana, haría una diferencia?

When I couldn’t understand why an official “sister city” relationship with a place in Puerto Rico still eludes Cleveland, it was Sinclair that I first contacted.

Since taking office, Mayor Bibb has added several new sister cities to Cleveland’s roster of siblings, including Tema, Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa.

The concept of sister cities first came about as a grassroots effort, shortly after World War II, during the presidency of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The program’s premise is to foster reconciliation between nations, peaceful diplomatic relations, and to enhance cultural and economic ties.

According to Sam Allard (Axios Cleveland, September 27, 2023), “Global Cleveland is working to diversify and expand sister city relationships to make them more reflective of and meaningful to Cleveland's current population…”

Global Cleveland, a nonprofit organization with a mission “to grow Northeast Ohio’s economy by welcoming and connecting international people to opportunities and fostering a more inviting community for those seeking a place to call home,” manages our Sister City Program. There are currently 28 such formalized relationships with the City of Cleveland.

Tyler Sinclair was not warm to the idea of city siblingry with Puerto Rico when I contacted him. He explained it doesn’t qualify because it is not a country. How strange, I thought. The Olympics treat us as a country!

Killeen, Texas, has had a sister city partnership with San Juan, Puerto Rico since 2010. Jacksonville, Florida, since 2009. Puerto Rico does qualify.

¡En vivo por la radio!

Along came March 22nd, the day of the community- media-only roundtable discussion with Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, and I could hardly contain my excitement. Cities are my thing! There were a million questions that ran through the rolodex of my brain, and I had an opportunity to ask him anything that I wanted.

I really wanted to ask the mayor if he’s single, but this thing with Tyler Sinclair, and the lack of bilingual outreach just didn’t sit right with me. I opted to ask for his thoughts on my recent conversations with City Hall and his response was completely different than that of Martinez or Sinclair.

During the broadcast, Mayor Justin Morris Bibb fixed his eyes on me and said: “it's so important for me as mayor that you feel a part of the change happening at City Hall, that you feel connected and that you feel seen and that your voice is heard.”

I’ve heard this before from other politicians. This is the first time I’ve ever believed it.

¡Que nada nos detenga!

The moral of this story is that while much is changing, much remains the same. For meaningful and lasting progress, we must have the courage to ask questions and challenge the status-quo.

This newspaper is an example of the change happening in this city, and it belongs to you. There are 46,463 Latinos within the boundaries of Cleveland. The greatest numbers of which live in West Boulevard and Old Brooklyn, at 6,805 and 6,350, respectively. I bet you were thinking Clark-Fulton, the number there is 3,453.

I’m one person, a solitary member of the only growing demographic in Cleveland - but together we can change the narrative, and in turn, change the world.

It was important to me for Aldonte and Cayden to be on this cover, and to provide a platform for Marilyn Oliveras de Ortiz’s poem, “Cleveland Rican Blues.” If you haven’t read it yet, go back a few pages and check it out! I am constantly amazed by the fortitude of our people and the breadth of talent on the ground in our communities. Our ability to flourish in the face of adversity is not to be underestimated.

La Villa is a community outlet, because while neighborhood’s have boundaries, communities do not. Write to me and tell me your stories and your frustrations. It isn’t my voice that needs to be heard, it’s yours. Lasting change requires a two way avenue of communication.

In order for the tides not to recede, we’ve got to come together and build collective power and political capital. I imagine the City of Cleveland would be more proactive regarding our concerns – if they knew we were 46,463 votes strong.

Map illustrating the distribution of Cleveland's Hispanic population by census tract, highlighting higher concentrations south of Lorain Avenue and west of W. 25th Street.

Listen to the entire Community Media Roundtable discussion with Mayor Justin M. Bibb, recorded live on WOVU 95.9 FM here.