Alejandro Mayorkas, Miguel Cardona, Xavier Becerra and Isabel Guzman talked completely to ABC Information about bringing their tradition to the Biden administration for Nationwide Hispanic Heritage Month.
Mayorkas has served as secretary of Homeland Safety for the reason that early days of the administration, whereas Cardona has been secretary of training for a similar interval.
Xavier Becerra is secretary of well being and human companies, whereas Isabel Guzman leads the Small Enterprise Administration. Each have served in these roles since 2021.
On this March 1, 2021, file picture, Secretary of Homeland Safety Alejandro Mayorkas speaks in the course of the day by day press briefing on the White Home in Washington, D.C.
Drew Angerer/Getty Photographs, FILE
ABC Information’ Maria Elena Salinas sat down with all 4 to debate their heritage.
CARDONA: Yo siempre digo [I always say], I am as American as apple pie and rice and beans. We belong right here. We’re America.
ABC NEWS: They’re 4 of essentially the most highly effective officers in authorities. All Latinos serving within the Biden-Harris administration.
MAYORKAS: It’s exceptional to go searching the desk within the Cupboard Room, and to see America.
ABC NEWS: For Nationwide Hispanic Heritage Month, I sat down with these Cupboard members to listen to how their distinctive heritage has influenced their work. Secretary of Homeland Safety Alejandro Mayorkas joined us proper after for a separate interview.
MAYORKAS: We fled the Communist takeover of Cuba. And I grew up with a really sturdy understanding of what it means for a person to lose the nation of 1’s beginning and to be displaced not by selection, however by necessity.
ABC NEWS: Every of their tales, displaying a novel upbringing. An immigrant story.
CARDONA: My dad and mom got here from Aguada, Puerto Rico, to Connecticut, and I used to be born in Connecticut.
BECERRA: My dad introduced my mother from Guadalajara, Jalisco Mexico, when he married her. They made positive their three, three daughters and one son had an opportunity to both serve within the army or go to school.
On this March 22, 2023, file picture, Well being and Human Providers (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra testifies earlier than the Senate Finance Committee in Washington, D.C.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Photographs, FILE
ABC NEWS: Do you guys get collectively and in case you do, do you resolve to have both Mexican meals or Puerto Rican meals?
CARDONA: I keep in mind having a dialog within the Oval Workplace. We had a dialog in Spanish, the 4 of us. And that to me, was such a supply of pleasure. And once we’re collectively, we favor the tequila or cafe puertoriqueño [Puerto Rican Coffee].
ABC NEWS: Secretary Becerra, you mentioned that your mom used to say “Mejor prevenir que remediar,” which implies “It is higher to forestall than to, than to treatment.” What else must be completed to make sure everybody has entry to reasonably priced well being care?
BECERRA: We now have to ensure we’re reaching everybody, as a result of one of many issues we’ve got is just too many individuals reside in areas the place it is arduous to entry the physician or the hospital.
So the extra we make care out there shut by, that is the way you attain quite a lot of these populations which might be underinsured or uninsured
ABC NEWS: Secretary Cardona, we’re seeing some colleges crack down on variety and inclusion. How does that have an effect on the state of training within the nation?
On this Jan. 27, 2023, file picture, Training Secretary Miguel Cardona delivers remarks on the division’s Lyndon Baines Johnson Constructing in Washington, D.C.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photographs, FILE
CARDONA: We are saying bilingualism is a superpower, biculturalism is a superpower. So our, our response to that’s to be unapologetic. We all know that college students, after they have multiple language, they’ve extra alternatives in life. And I am dwelling proof of that.
ABC NEWS: Faculty shootings have change into so widespread on this nation. How can we assure a superb training for our youngsters after they need to be anxious about staying alive?
CARDONA: We have labored actually arduous by the bipartisan Safer Communities Act to offer $2 billion to offer safer colleges, to offer as much as 14,000 extra college social employees, college counselors. We now have to do extra to guard our college students and preserve these assault weapons off our streets. It isn’t only a college problem, it is a neighborhood problem.
ABC NEWS: Administrator Guzman, you mentioned that you simply grew up watching your father run a enterprise. He had a veterinary clinic.
GUZMAN: That is proper.
ABC NEWS: You even labored on the veterinary clinic?
GUZMAN: Sure, I did. I obtained to witness that firsthand and perceive the eagerness that goes into it, the grit, the dedication, the imaginative and prescient and the arduous work each single day.
ABC NEWS: What’s the greatest problem for small companies throughout the nation and the way can or not it’s solved?
GUZMAN: Our small companies have been challenged all through this time of the COVID pandemic and submit.
However the prime points these days, in fact, have been inflationary pressures, you understand, navigating provide chain and we have actually wished to be sure that we might assist degree the taking part in area and get reasonably priced entry to capital.
WASHIIsabel Casillas Guzman speaks on stage in the course of the “Small Enterprise Panorama” panel for The Atlantic Competition 2024 on Sept. 19, 2024, in Washington, D.C.
Paul Morigi/Getty Photographs for The Atlantic, FILE
ABC NEWS: Mayorkas is the primary immigrant and Latino to function secretary of Homeland Safety.
Each the Biden administration and Mayorkas himself have been criticized for his or her border insurance policies, because the administration has grappled with record-breaking numbers of migrant encounters on the Southern border in recent times, in response to CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Safety) information.
MAYORKAS: It is a very polarized problem, sadly. The one solution to repair it’s by laws, congressional motion. We’re coping with a system that has not been reformed since 1996, and the challenges of migration have modified dramatically over these 28 years.
ABC NEWS: What in regards to the critique that you’ve got an open border?
MAYORKAS: That’s false. We have eliminated or returned extra folks this yr than in any yr since 2010. Inform that to the migrants who’ve been returned to their international locations as a result of they didn’t qualify for reduction in the US.
ABC NEWS: What would you say are among the greatest challenges which might be dealing with the Latino neighborhood proper now within the U.S.?
BECERRA: Latinos have the very best price of labor participation. You will discover that we’re on the market working more durable, longer, however we make much less. So let’s pay the correct quantity for the work that is completed.
GUZMAN: I believe it is positively underneath funding. If we spend money on these extremely entrepreneurial communities, they’ll ship for America.
ABC NEWS: For Mayorkas, bigotry and prejudice are a prime concern.
MAYORKAS: Discrimination continues to be a problem even in 2024. We have to perceive the great thing about our heritage, the facility we’ve got and to train that energy.
ABC NEWS: How would you end this sentence? The Latino neighborhood is …
BECERRA: … aspiring.
GUZMAN: … extremely various.
CARDONA: … rising.
MAYORKAS: … stunning, highly effective, sturdy and wealthy.
