Omaha event celebrates immigrant communities amid heated conversations on immigration

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Grabbing cafecito, or some coffee and gossip, with a group of friends is something common in many cultures, but especially prevalent in Hispanic cultures.

And that’s why the Heartland Workers Center (HWC) chose it as a theme for its event to celebrate immigrants in Nebraska. HWC is a statewide organization that focuses on organizing leaders, promoting workers’ rights and fostering civic engagement.

Cafecito with HWC started last year and has grown into a larger event. It now has 20 sponsors. White tablecloths draped the tables and attendees showed up in their finest to participate in the cafecito. But HWC expanded the common cultural practice to bring attention to the immigrant experience in Nebraska.

Executive Director Lina Traslaviña Stover said the different segments of the event were meant to inspire, instill gratitude and motivate leadership in Latino and immigrant communities.

"This event is also about humanizing what an immigrant is. I think that especially this year, there's an election year, the narrative about immigrants can be hijacked and can be very negative, and we forget that we're talking about human beings," Traslaviña Stover said.

She said the decisions behind the event were intentional, such as organizing the cafecito outside Hispanic Heritage Month, and talking about immigrants in a more human way following rhetoric from the debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump in which Trump made a reference to immigrants eating pets.

Traslaviña Stover added she wants all attendees of the cafecito to leave with more empathy than they walked in with, as many times, immigrants face harsher obstacles in gaining leadership positions and acceptance in their communities.

The cafecito event started with a cocktail hour and quickly transitioned into a more serious, heartfelt presentation features letters from an immigrant and seminars on how to “know your power.”

One seminar speaker, Rosa Pinto, started out as a volunteer with HWC and is now a community organizer in Columbus. Her family brought her to the U.S. from Peru when she was 16.

“I’ve always had a passion to build teams, but with last year’s training, I’ve been able to identify people’s skillsets, talents and understand if we all work with those skillsets collectively, we will build power,” Pinto said in Spanish.

A black and white blanket was draped across a couch in the back of the room as a sort of hands-on exhibit to symbolize the themes of the event. Organizers encouraged attendees to each add a colorful stitch to the design so that one day, the blanket will be as colorful as the communities in Nebraska.