In 1967, a group of Cuban immigrants in Northern Virginia, among them Luis Vidaña and Marta Vidaña, became convinced of the need to establish an organization that would create programs to ease the difficult process of acculturation and advance social values related to self-reliance and democracy.  These Cuban refugees and many of their  neighbors living in small enclaves throughout Northern Virginia were part of the mass exodus of Cuban refugees who came to America after the Cuban Revolution in 1959 when their land, businesses, and companies were confiscated by the newly-instituted communist government headed by Fidel Castro. 

The first wave of Cuban immigrants (1959-1962) were Cuba’s elite:  executives and owners of firms, big merchants, sugar mill owners, cattlemen, representatives of foreign companies, and professionals such as lawyers, doctors, professors, architects, and engineers.  However, their foreign degrees and credentials did not meet U.S. licensing and employment requirements, and similarly, to millions of immigrants before them arriving through Ellis Island, they were without money, jobs, or solid English skills.  They too were faced with the psychological, somatic, and social-economic difficulties of starting a new life in a foreign country.

            The old idealism and romanticism of the early 1960s among the Cuban elites who imagined a temporary exile, gave way to pragmatism.  This group of Cuban immigrants, along with some of the members of the second wave of Cuban immigrants (1965-1974), led by the Vidañas, began to hold frequent community meetings to plan for their collective futures as refugees struggling not just for survival, but for success in American soil.  Each member of this close-knit community played an important role—grandparents took care of the children while the parents met to devise successful acculturation strategies.  In June of that year, the Committee of the Spanish Speaking Community of Virginia, which we know today as the Hispanic Committee of Virginia, was incorporated in the Commonwealth of Virginia. 


EARLY PROGRAMS

            The passage of two major pieces of legislation had a significant impact on the early programmatic focus of the Hispanic Committee of Virginia.  The Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962 had been developed to train and retrain thousands of American workers left unemployed as a result of technological advancements and automation.  Shortly thereafter, the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 qualified Cuban refugees who had arrived in the United States after January 1, 1959 to apply for permanent residence and provided direct financial assistance to their plight, including eligibility for public assistance, free English classes, and scholarships.

            Soon, the Hispanic Committee of Virginia was able to establish a Manpower Training Center in the Wilson School in Arlington.  English and typing classes and job counseling were available free of charge to the local Spanish-speaking population.  Furthermore, Manpower provided the students with small stipends to cover living expenses and placed high-school-aged students in summer internships.  In fact, the classes were in such high demand that Manpower opened a second location in Marshall High School.

            Meanwhile, the Hispanic Committee of Virginia was able to open a satellite office in space donated by the Arlington Police Station.  The staff consisted of two employees—Manolo Alonzo and Irma Ortiz—and Executive Director Orlando Cruz.  Soon, Arlington County took notice of the work of the organization and awarded funding so that they could move to their own office space (first in the Greely Building and later in the Holmes Building, both in Arlington) and hire staff Job Developers, whose role would be to find jobs for the immigrants who attended and graduated the Manpower classes. 

            The Job Developers, trained by the Virginia Employment Commission, were an integral part of the organization’s programmatic success.  As a direct result of their efforts, several major local employers began to offer their job placement exams in Spanish and, subsequently, many of the organization’s Manpower students were hired in entry-level positions.  The benefits were twofold: they were able to learn practical English while securing steady employment, good salaries and benefits.  They were able to advance quickly in their careers and today some of them are just beginning to retire after long, successful careers.  Triumphantly, the Committee was able to open satellite offices in Annandale, Falls Church, Richmond, and Alexandria.

            In the late 1970s, the United States experienced a massive influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants, mainly from Mexico and Central America.  (Today, there is a sizable Hispanic/Latino population in Northern Virginia, primarily consisting of Salvadorans, Peruvians, Bolivians, and Colombians.)  Many of these immigrants became an “invisible minority” as they struggled to live and work in America as nannies and maids in suburban households, dishwashers and short-order cooks in urban restaurants, and agricultural laborers in rural farm areas throughout the country. 

 Fortunately, the previous generations of immigrants that comprised the Hispanic Committee of Virginia’s Board, staff, and volunteers, not only empathized with the plight of this new population of linguistically and culturally isolated Spanish-speaking immigrants, but also had the experience and expertise, to help them in their arduous process of acculturation.  The Hispanic Committee of Virginia opened an office in Fairfax County along Route 7 to serve the growing community of Central Americans in Northern Virginia.  Its persistent efforts to sensitize County officials to this new community of Latino immigrants resulted in funding to expand its existing social service and employment programs and develop new programs, specifically, immigration consultation and application assistance.

MARTA V. WYATT

            The decade of the 1980s began with double-digit inflation.  Government funding for social welfare programs was dramatically reduced and the privatization of public social services, along with a new focus on accountability and performance replaced the Great Society days of the 1960s and 1970s.   In response to these trends, the Hispanic Committee of Virginia consolidated its efforts into one centrally located headquarters in the Culmore neighborhood of Falls Church—with one satellite office remaining open in Arlington—that offered social services, employment, immigration, and information and referral under one roof.

            In addition to finding alternative sources of funding to replace shrinking government funds, the Hispanic Committee of Virginia was face with another major challenge:  finding a new Executive Director.   In 1989, the Board of Directors hired Marta Wyatt as the organization’s Executive Director.  She came highly recommended by Deputy Director Irma Ortiz, who had worked with her previously in community service at Catholic Charities.  She proved to be a charismatic and capable leader who had the unique ability to not only care for the less fortunate and vulnerable, but to bring  people together to solve problems.    

To diversify the funding base of the organization, Wyatt began to generate unrestricted funds from special events such as the Annual Gala.  But more important, she built partnerships with visionary public officials, including then Mason District Supervisor Tom Davis and Verdia Haywood, Fairfax Deputy County Executive.  With their support, the organization was able to obtain specialized pockets of funds to continue the organization’s constituency-based services.   

From this point on, the organization began to evolve into what it is today—beginning with the name, which was officially changed to the Hispanic Committee of Virginia in 1990.

            Marta Wyatt passed away in 1999 of a liver cancer.  After her untimely death, the Hispanic Committee of Virginia was determined to continue its legacy of building sustainable solutions by responding to the needs of the Hispanic community from the ground up.  With a renewed sense of purpose, an innovative staff, and new partnerships, the organization forged ahead.

NEW DIRECTIONS

By the year 2000, Hispanics had become the nation’s largest “minority” group.    Unfortunately, more that one in four Hispanics—and two in five Hispanic children—were poor.  Their concentration in low-wage and low-skilled sectors made them very vulnerable to economic downturns.  Meanwhile, “self-sufficiency” became the goal of poverty reduction policies. 

In response to the economic issues faced by Latino working families, the Hispanic Committee of Virginia created three avant garde programs—homeownership, micro-enterprise development, and financial literacy education.  These programs provide low- to moderate-income, limited-English-proficient Latino immigrants with a menu of services to help them climb the economic ladder, and are staffed by bilingual/bicultural government-certified counselors with US-based MBAs. 

Today, the Commonwealth of Virginia is home to one of the largest segments of Hispanic-owned businesses in the country.  Latino immigrants have also revitalized abandoned neighborhoods in Northern Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley and Richmond, increasing the real estate income and property tax receipts in these locations. 

Today, the Hispanic Committee of Virginia is also the oldest and largest Hispanic nonprofit organization in Northern Virginia.  The organization has stood the test of time and now faces one of its greatest challenges:  becoming an institution in an increasingly changing and challenging modern nonprofit landscape, in order to continue providing outstanding service to those in need and enable Hispanic immigrants in Northern Virginia to more fully participate in, and thereby, contribute to American society. 

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