蜜桃传媒

How Empowering People Leads to Belonging

John Barros, managing principal at Cushman & Wakefield, spoke about how his affiliation with the (DSNI) shaped his journey of belonging. DSNI鈥檚 mission is to empower its residents to organize, plan, create, and control a vibrant, diverse, and high-quality neighborhood in collaboration with community partners. Barros explained how each of these actions impacted him from age 14 when he joined a neighborhood cleanup that DSNI sponsored to his current work at Cushman & Wakefield, where he is responsible for bringing more people of color to the landscape of commercial real estate to hopefully lessen the in the Boston area.

Born to Cape Verdean parents in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Barros felt his community did not belong to him, nor did he belong听in the community. He said isolation is very high in poor, high-crime neighborhoods where parents keep their children indoors to keep them safe. Involvement with DSNI was an opportunity for youth to have a voice and change the image of young people as gangbangers and drug dealers. In his younger years, Barros helped to organize initiatives like the painting of the mural on the F and T Supermarket, which depicts images of the neighborhood鈥檚 diverse youth and their contributions. While a student at Dartmouth College, he said he drew from DSNI鈥檚 intentional planning for what the neighborhood should look like to help him model conversations with Dartmouth鈥檚 president about what was needed there. After feeling like he didn鈥檛 belong at the university during his first two years, Barros was able to get Dartmouth to develop an African American Studies major, and he was the first graduate from the program.

Early in his career, Barros served as DSNI鈥檚 executive director for over 10 years. In that time, he helped to create initiatives designed to strengthen and build ties within the community; for example, the creation of three neighborhood charter schools. As an entrepreneur, he and his brothers opened a restaurant in a predominantly Cape Verdean neighborhood in Boston鈥檚 Dorchester area to help build pride and share their culture with the rest of the community, thereby allowing Cape Verdeans to feel like they were part of it.

Barros said control and decision-making of municipal governance are critical to every aspect of community advancement. As the city鈥檚 first chief of economic development under the Marty Walsh administration, he was instrumental in creating initiatives that would make the city more equitable and inclusive, and co-chaired the campaign, created to transform the city.

Barros wrapped up his remarks by sharing his most recent story of belonging. He said when he was invited to be part of Cushman & Wakefield, he didn鈥檛 think it was a space for him because Black people are generally not in those spaces. However, he changed his mind and saw it as an opportunity to change that. He said we internalize stereotypes of ourselves that become our own insecurities, and we need to be open to opportunities and be change leaders. When asked by a student about what he has done personally to bring different voices to the table, he referenced his role on the DSNI board, where he has been intentional about providing board seats to different groups, including women, youth, the LGBTQ community, and even whites, who are a small minority in the neighborhood.

I Was Not Supposed to Be Here

听Juan Lopera 鈥�99, the inaugural chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer at听Beth Israel Lahey Health (BILH), shared his story of guardian angels and how he听is creating systemic guardian angels in his work today. Lopera began by telling听the story of his father, who came to America from Colombia to provide a better听life for his family. Leaving the streets of Pablo Escobar to live in crowded听quarters in Boston, where people are predisposed to chronic conditions, Lopera听and his family experienced and saw firsthand the health care disparities in听Brown and Black communities. And these experiences, Lopera said, grounded him听in today鈥檚 reality given the recent George Floyd and COVID-19 tragedies.听听

His arrival in America at age 13 gave Lopera the status of an undocumented immigrant. He performed well in school and had the grades to be accepted at several area colleges with offers of generous financial aid packages. However, his immigration status prevented college enrollment. Boston College allowed him to enroll after a one-week extension to get his political asylum papers in place. Lopera called this his own 鈥淢iracle on the Heights.鈥� Boston College fed Lopera鈥檚 faith, and in his junior year with the Ignacio Volunteers, he went to the Dominican Republic. However, he was detained at immigration upon his return to the United States, and his experience with the immigration officer was distressing. Still, he remained respectful to the officer, and once his residency was established, he was allowed to board a flight back to Boston. Unfortunately, this incident created another setback, with 蜜桃传媒 realizing that there was an error in his admission and that his status actually did not allow enrollment. However, in reviewing his new immigration documents, 蜜桃传媒 found that the immigration officer in Miami had stamped his passport with an stamp, which was acceptable to continue enrollment. To Lopera, this was another miracle.听听

Years later, Lopera met the admissions officer, who admitted that he had turned a blind eye to his immigration status. The admissions officer and the immigration officer, Lopera said, were his guardian angels. He said he was not supposed to be here to tell us his story, but these angels made it possible. Since then, Lopera has made it his mission to provide opportunities for people in need, particularly people of color and the poor. This mission drives the work he does. Lopera argues that businesses have a moral and business imperative to make diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging an integral part of their business plan, and every day that he goes to work, it is to an organization that does. BILH supports all communities like the one Lopera lived in as a child. As their chief of diversity, equity, and inclusion, Lopera has a big voice at the table and is undoubtedly paying it forward as a guardian angel to many.