LULAC Convention 2016

This is my first LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) Convention and I was excited to go. In my work with La Casa de Amistad we have a lot of interactions with LULAC, we have received several grants from them from support for our immigration legal services program, to youth programs and even health related grants. They have been a great partner of ours, and in the past we sent other staff members. I am proud to be able to be here and represent our center.

I am attending with Gregorio Chavez, Jr. who has been a long time LULAC Member. I have written about him and his work before, like when he was inducted into the South Bend Hall of Fame (Hall of Fame Chavez). He held various leadership position at the local and regional level. He hasn't attended a convention in over 5 years, and was excited when I told him I would travel with him. We even had to adjust our flights so we would be sure to arrive in time to see Hillary Clinton speak. I am not huge into politics, or speakers, but he wanted to, and I just got to enjoy traveling with him and hearing all his stories.

The car ride to Chicago was especially fun, Greg remembers dates and details from his service in the Air Force, from traveling to past LULAC Conventions and all of his involvement. Not to mention he loves to talk about how proud he is of all the things his kids have accomplished.

The first day was fantastic. We got to see both Hillary Clinton AND Julian Castro speak. You know I usually am not gaga over seeing or meeting politicians, but I really like Julian. He gave a great speech and afterwards I had the chance to meet him. He was in South Bend recently and remembered his trip to South Bend, but I forgot to tell him I am a Housing Authority Commissioner and trying to improve HUD programs in our community. My pic with him made his flickr page which was cool!

Of course I can't make a trip to big cities without hitting up some local Betas. Lately DC has been buzzing with activity from Brothers in various careers and I was hoping to find some downtime to catch up with some Bros. Its hard cause everyone is busy, I don't have a car, and the city is fairly big. Nice to see some Brothers at the convention, and others who swung by to say hello.

We are about to kick off day two, I'll be busy in some workshops this morning and hopefully catch up with some more Betas and local friends today. Tomorrow we buzz back home.