COMMENTARY: Empowering Latinos and ensuring they know that they belong

Nevada is a state that looks like the future and looks to the future. A big part of that is Nevada’s large and expanding Latino population, which has fueled so much of the state’s progress.

Latino-owned businesses in Nevada are growing at twice the rate of non-Latino businesses, and Latinos form the backbone of unions such as the Culinary. Catherine Cortez Masto is now the first Latina to serve in the U.S. Senate. In so many ways, Nevada’s Latino community embodies the values that make us Americans — an entrepreneurial spirit, work ethic and commitment to faith and family.

Yet recently, Latinos have been subjected to relentless and bigoted attacks. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has rounded up students, war veterans, and children who belong in this country regardless of their citizenship status. Thanks to this officially sanctioned prejudice, hate crimes against Latinos soared by more than 20 percent last year. Most devastatingly, in August, 22 people were murdered in an anti-immigrant and anti-Latino attack in an El Paso, Texas, Walmart.

Our country is stronger when everyone in it knows they belong. Which is why it’s time we put an end to prejudiced policies, work to dismantle the institutional barriers that have held back Latinos and strive to ensure every Latino has the opportunity to thrive.

That starts with economic empowerment. Latinos are 50 percent more likely to start a business, yet less likely to get a bank loan. So we need to invest in Latino-owned businesses and Latino entrepreneurs, including investing up to $10 billion in federal capital to establish a fund for underrepresented entrepreneurs. We need a $15 federal minimum wage. As long as Latinas earn 54 cents for each dollar earned by a white man, we need serious action to deliver equal pay and promotion for equal work. With gig workers, domestic workers and farm workers disproportionately Latino, we should guarantee worker protections and the right to form a union.

We must also expand access to affordable housing. Half of Latinos in Nevada are paying too much for housing. To unlock access to affordable housing for Latino households, we will build 2 million new units for people with low incomes, expand rental assistance to 5 million more families and establish a fund and housing counseling services to prevent evictions.

Environmental justice is also critical, as Latinos are especially likely to live where toxic waste, air and water contamination put their health at risk. Latino children are twice as likely to die from asthma than white children. We must strengthen air quality standards, reinstate protections against industrial disasters and expand access to water and wastewater services.

Finally, we must fix our immigration system to bring it in line with our values as well as our laws. That includes a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented people, including people with temporary protections who have lived and worked here for decades. While working with Congress to deliver this, we should waste no time to restore and extend the temporary protections rescinded by the current administration.

From the farmworkers in Delano to immigration activists today, Americans have rallied to declare “el pueblo unido, jamás será vencido” — the people united, will never be defeated. It is up to us to unify as a people to ensure that the next era is one where all Latinos feel they are empowered and belong.

Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.