💸✊🏽Moneda Moves (02): What's "self-made" again?
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Con poder,
Lyanne
Let's keep tabs/cuentas on what happened last week at the intersection Latinx and money. We review studies, features and news updates as they relate to our community and underrepresented communities at large.
The impact of New York Daily News drastic cuts on staffers and readership. Early last week the Tronc-owned paper announced the newsroom was firing 50% to its staff. In The Takeaway with Tanzina Vega, she and Jaclyn Peiser, a media reporter from The New York Times spoke a bit about the Tronc model, which tends to hire people in leadership that come from a business approach as opposed to a journalism perspective and its possible implications for the future of journalism. "The Daily News was available -- is available in every borough in the city, every neighborhood," Peiser said. "Everyone has access to the Daily News. It was really a draw for the working class and for immigrants, and it spoke to what was impacting those people."
How would you define “self-made”?💄 If you’ve had a pulse on responses to Forbes' recent cover story choice, you probably noticed it generated some heated discourse. The recent issue touted Kylie Jenner as one of United States’ most successful self-made women entrepreneurs with no immediate mention of her family's famous background. This has sparked a dialogue and curiosity on what it means to be self-made and how you measure progress (thanks, Dictionary.com).
Naturally, it has also spurred conversation around wealth, whiteness and the racial wealth gap. The New Yorker’s piece by Jia Tolentino, “Refinery29, Kylie Jenner, and The Denial Underlying Millennial Financial Resentment.” tried to make sense of the controversy over the cover story, while also calling out the problem with naming people with financial privileges "self-made." Per Tolentino, they "are shrouded in such heavy dissembling, in an instinctive denial of what American wealth really is and what it really means." A stat from a Brandeis University study lays out the stark difference in “intergenerational financial transfers” between white families and those of color: Among college-educated black families, about 13% get an inheritance of more than $10,000, as opposed to about 41% of white, college-educated families. Meanwhile, Ladders published an insightful piece by Monica Torres that quoted Ramona Ortega, CEO and founder of a financial tech company Mi Dinero, Mi Futuro on how to measure “self-made”: “Success is not a matter of how far you go in the world, it’s how far you’ve come.”
Get to know the powerful Latinx and up-and-comers making a splash with their approach to business.
For Mexico, there’s a new stock exchange in town.🇲🇽 The second ever stock exchange just made its debut in Mexico, therefore ending a monopoly of 43 years on the public market. BIVA launched on Wednesday morning, powered by Nasdaq trading technology. In the lead up, Nasdaq spoke with the CEO who happens to be a jefa, and her name is María Ariza. "We want to give the Mexican market and its companies more visibility around the world so that global investors can invest in new opportunities our country has to offer," she said.
A program in Chicago is offering scholarship money and lifelong role models to young Latinx and black men.🏫 The program is called Call Me MISTER (Mentors Instructing Students Toward Effective Role Models) and its funding is intended for elementary school majors. Additionally, it will provide full scholarship recipients with mentorship and job placement. The story, which comes from Chicago Tribune’s Ted Gregory, notes that nationwide, while students of color make up about half of the country’s national public school enrollment, Latinx and African American males make only about two percent for each group. The program leaders believe that by increasing these numbers, academic focus for the same demographics could have a better outlook. Researchers call it “the role model effect.”
Put your money/monedita where your mouth is! These are Latinx entrepreneurs, business owners and thought leaders to consider backing this week.
Lin-Manuel Miranda says money made from Hamilton will back a new arts fund in Puerto Rico.🇵🇷 The goal for The Flamboyan Arts Fund? $15 million. A significant input as Puerto Rico's cultural and arts programs have been declining in a 11-year recession, in addition to damage by Hurricane Maria. He plans on reaching that benchmark with help from Hamilton-goers after donating all proceeds from Puerto Rico performances in January, per the Associated Press. "Every penny that gets made at Hamilton will go to this arts fund to help revive arts," he said in an interview with Today's Savannah Guthrie.
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