Young adults perform community service outdoors

Strengthening Community and Resisting Individualism: Challenges for Young Latinos and Contributions from Latino Culture

Individualism too often defines our current social and political moment in the United States. It contributes to polarization, civic disengagement, and general apathy, and it has contributed to the weakening of democratic processes and norms. Especially after the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ideals of collective striving, solidarity, and responsibility for our neighbors seem to be receding from public life. This pandemic, Pope Francis has said, “unmasked the other pandemic, the virus of indifference, which is the result of constantly looking away.”

The culture in many Latino communities resists this slip into individualism. Households are often intergenerational and family is paramount; obligations to neighbors and others in close communities are central, and many times, solidarity is born out of shared joys and difficulties. Can these attitudes, norms, and practices offer a model for communities that haven’t yet recovered from years of isolation?

This gathering will have three parts:

6:00 – 7:00 p.m. | Welcoming Happy Hour 
Meet and network with other young Latinos over food and drink

7:00 – 8:00 p.m. | Latino Leader Gathering
A dialogue and conversation on “Strengthening Community and Resisting Individualism: Challenges for Young Latinos and Contributions from Latino Culture” with three leaders

8:00 – 9:00 p.m. | Reception
Continue the conversation over food and drink

Participants:

  • Bishop Evelio Menjivar is an auxiliary bishop in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington and the former pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Landover Hills. During his ministry, he has actively supported workers and promoted social justice for immigrants.
  • Diana Dau David is part of the core leadership team for the Ark young adult community at St. Ann Catholic Church in Washington, DC, works at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and has a master’s degree in intercultural and international communication from American University.
  • Mirka Sosa (C’23) is an immigration paralegal at Wilkes Legal, LLC in Takoma Park, MD, and is a graduate of Georgetown University from Texas. While at Georgetown, President DeGioia nominated her as a Campus Compact Newman Civic Fellow to recognize her work with immigrants and the Latino community.
  • Christian Soenen, projects manager of the Initiative, will moderate the conversation.

The participants will answer questions such as:

  • What is the relationship between indifference and individualism? How do they affect our social bonds?
  • How can Latinos, especially young Latinos, play an active role in resisting individualism, both formally and informally?
  • How can a more communal cultural experience inform our experience and practice of faith? How does it draw from and express the principles of Catholic social teaching?
  • How can we expand our understanding of social responsibility? What are some concrete actions and social conventions in Latino communities that reflect this?
  • Beyond simply building community, how do we go about diversifying our communities and the kinds of people to which we are bound within them? What is the value of this diversification?
  • How do we harness the solidarity we’ve already developed in certain parts of society (the re-emerging labor movement, informal and formal networks of mutual aid, etc.) and strengthen and expand it into the places where it’s lacking?

This Latino Leader Gathering is for young Latino Catholics and others to explore key issues and personal stories involving faith and public life with distinguished Latinos and other leaders.

Recording and Accessibility​

For those who cannot join us in person, the dialogue starting at 7:00 pm ET will be livestreamed and posted online for later viewing.

All in-person accommodation requests should be sent to cathsocialthought@georgetown.edu by October 13. A good-faith effort will be made to fulfill requests.