{"id":2671,"date":"2023-01-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/www.youradv.com\/people\/a-journey-of-identity-and-discovery-with-the-advantage-hola-erg\/"},"modified":"2023-01-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T00:00:00","slug":"a-journey-of-identity-and-discovery-with-the-advantage-hola-erg","status":"publish","type":"mrktblog-posts","link":"https:\/\/youradv.com\/mrktblog\/a-journey-of-identity-and-discovery-with-the-advantage-hola-erg\/","title":{"rendered":"A Journey of Identity and Discovery With the Advantage HOLA ERG"},"content":{"rendered":"

Growing up, I felt pushed to choose one identity but stuck between two worlds. Was I Puerto Rican, like my mother, or white, like my father? In either environment, people made me feel out of place, saying \u201cYou\u2019re Latina? But you speak so clearly!\u201d and \u201cYou can\u2019t be Latina. You don\u2019t speak Spanish!\u201d The Latinx community is often assumed to be a monolith, although it includes over 62 million people in the U.S.<\/a> with diverse origins and experiences.<\/p>\n

Finding Belonging and Leading With Purpose<\/h2>\n

Once, in the early years of my career at another company, the topic of immigration came up and I tried to stay out of it. An associate turned to me and said, \u201cNatalie, as an immigrant, you must have an opinion. What are your thoughts?\u201d I sat in stunned silence as multiple thoughts popped into my head: \u201cI was born in San Diego, California!\u201d and \u201cDoes she not know that my mother \u2014 and all Puerto Ricans \u2014 are American citizens?\u201d<\/p>\n

I tried to stay calm and professional. After a moment, I said, \u201cPlease leave me out of this. I will not have this discussion with you,\u201d and walked off. Despite my irritation, I realized I did not want others to define who I was. I needed to do something about it.<\/p>\n

From then on, I\u2019ve thought carefully about my identity and worked hard to stop allowing other people to define me. Here at Advantage, when the opportunity arose to sign up for the HOLA (Hope and Opportunity = Latinx Ambition) employee resource group (ERG) for Latinx associates and allies, not just as a member, but also as a steering committee leader for the HOLA culture team, something in me said, \u201cYou need to do this!\u201d I knew there had to be others like me, feeling pressured to limit themselves to a label. After joining the group, I realized everyone has struggles and growing pains that come with defining who they are.<\/p>\n

In our Advantage HOLA ERG, we acknowledge that lines of identity can be blurry and overlapping. We discuss these sometimes-difficult nuances of identity to garner the change we wish to see in the world. In fact, it\u2019s become an important part of how we think about customer engagement\u2014because creating a culture of inclusion internally helps us show up more authentically and thoughtfully for the communities we serve.<\/p>\n

After years of researching and soul searching and now being a member of HOLA, I am happy with who I am and I cannot be put into a box.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Growing up, I felt pushed to choose one identity but stuck between two worlds. Was I Puerto Rican, like my mother, or white, like my father? In either environment, people made me feel out of place, saying \u201cYou\u2019re Latina? But you speak so clearly!\u201d and \u201cYou can\u2019t be Latina. You don\u2019t speak Spanish!\u201d The Latinx […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2705,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"mrktblog-category":[43],"class_list":["post-2671","mrktblog-posts","type-mrktblog-posts","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","mrktblog-category-people"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEmbracing Identity and Community Through HOLA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An Advantage associate shares her story of cultural identity, belonging, and leadership as part of the HOLA employee resource group.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"\/www.youradv.com\/people\/a-journey-of-identity-and-discovery-with-the-advantage-hola-erg\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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