Last Friday I had the privilege to speak to the 300 plus leaders that crowded to the rim a huge  room of the Hilton Hotel in MidTown Manhattan, in NYC, in the 3rd consecutive year of the reception in that capital of the world of the AL DÍA Foundation—   the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization associated with AL DÍA News Media, with a very specific mission that transcends our current news organization.

Our Foundation’s new tradition in the Big Apple, started only in  2016, has managed to connect well with the over 100-year tradition known as “PA Society in NY,” an over a century-old tradition that gathers in New York leaders from across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, from the fields of politics, entrepreneurship, corporate world, and academia.

Mayor Jim Kenney was gracious to stop by, as did U.S. Senator Bob Casey, Lt. Governor-Elect John Fetterman and his charming wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman. Along with them, the top of the leadership of the Latino community, including Nelson Diaz, Rev. Ivonne Camarda, Priscilla Jimenez, Councilwoman Maria Quiñonez-Sanchez, CEO of the Hispanic of Commerce Jennifer Rodriguez, and Nilda Ruiz, CEO of APM, among many others.

Speaking from the podium with a hoarse voice, after a direct flight from Panamá City to NY City that took all day, I was able to articulate some thoughts, first on our Foundation and its meaningful mission, and secondly, on the need of unity in our city, so drowned in issues of poverty and lack of education, mainly in communities that were represented in the crowded room.

They were, however, the educated Latinos, African Americans, the Jewish, the Gentiles, and even the Muslims, all children of God gathered there in some sort of new rainbow coalition that, in my wildest dreams, appears from time to time in the horizon of the great city of Philadelphia.

Thank you all who honored us with your presence.