There is an economy within the United States worth $4.4 trillion.

If it stood alone, it would rank as the world’s fourth-largest economy, behind only the United States, China, and Germany, and ahead of Japan. Its consumers spend nearly $3 trillion a year. College attainment rose 144.5 percent between 2010 and 2024, more than three times the rate of the rest of the country. Its businesses are growing nearly seven times faster than others. And in 2024, its workforce expanded 5.5 percent, the strongest growth on record.

This economic powerhouse is the U.S. Latino community.

This growth is deeply rooted in America. Latino population growth has been driven increasingly by U.S. births, not simply by immigration. We are not an emerging force waiting on the horizon. We are already one of the most powerful economic forces in the United States.

But economic power is only part of the story. The question before us now is how we turn that strength into something that lasts beyond any one of us.

Our greatest asset is not only our economic contribution. It is the wisdom, resilience, relationships, and leadership already living inside our communities. The numbers measure output. They do not capture the quiet strength that has sustained families and neighborhoods for generations.

Many of us who have built successful careers know this strength firsthand. Yet success can also create distance from the community that raised us, the church that held us, and the neighborhood leaders who first believed in us.

Last week our Board Chair, Alex Santillana, spoke at our all-staff meeting and shared a story that stayed with me.

Alex built a distinguished career long before he ever encountered Hispanic Access -leadership roles at Volkswagen, Pfizer, Microsoft, and Ralph Lauren. He had already succeeded in the rooms where decisions are made. Along the way he also volunteered with the Shanti Bhavan Children’s Project in India. During a conversation in Bangalore, the organization’s leader, Dr. George offered him advice: “You do not need to go far to make an impact. Help is needed everywhere, including your own country.”

As that chapter of his career began to conclude and he started thinking about what came next, one earlier moment kept returning to him. Alex had attended a Latino Conservation Week event in Austin, Texas, with his family. It was a simple experience -time outdoors, cultural connection, belonging -but it left a lasting impression. That moment, paired with Dr. George’s words, became a compass. When he began considering how he wanted to invest his next chapter, Hispanic Access became the place where he chose to put his time, his networks, and his influence.

At the meeting he told the team that the corporate work had been meaningful, but it was not his legacy. Now, as Board Chair, Hispanic Access is becoming part of that legacy. Since joining the board, he has walked alongside our community network partners and seen the collaborative work driven by local leaders firsthand. He wants the success he earned to strengthen those leaders and the networks that will shape what comes next.

Lesson we are learning together: The moments that stay with us, and the wisdom that points us home, often become the compass for how we choose to use our success. Legacy is not only what we build for ourselves. It is what we choose to strengthen in the communities that shaped us.

My husband and I made a similar decision. We created a donor-advised fund to support Hispanic Access, our church, and the community organizations closest to our hearts. The fund is a tool. The intention is deeper: to align the resources we have with the future we believe in.

That same intention drives our work at Hispanic Access. We resource trusted community leaders and the organizations closest to the people so they can shape the systems that shape opportunity. When those leaders gain capacity, networks, and resources, impact compounds. Leadership plus networks produces systems change. That is how economic contribution converts into social and political will and how a thriving nation is advanced for everyone.

Successful Latino professionals hold a unique position in this work. You understand how institutions operate. You have networks that open doors. You have resources that can be directed with intention. Non-Latino allies who care about Hispanic upward mobility and shared prosperity have a role too, by investing alongside, opening institutional doors, and amplifying Latino-led leadership.

This is not about obligation. It is about agency and legacy. The same drive that produced individual success can now multiply impact when it is placed in the hands of trusted community leaders already doing the work.

The data have settled the question of our economic contribution. We have built extraordinary economic power. The question now is what we choose to do with it. When we put our resources, relationships, and influence to work alongside the leaders and organizations strengthening our communities, we turn individual success into collective power and help build a thriving nation for everyone.

Whether through a donor-advised fund designation, annual giving, or connecting your network to Latino-led organizations doing this work, each of us has an opportunity to put some of what we have built to work for the communities that helped build us.

What This Season Taught Us: Economic power becomes lasting only when we invest it in the relationships, leaders, and communities that will carry the work forward long after any one career ends. The $4.4 trillion engine is already ours. The legacy we build with it is still being written by the choices we make next.

What does legacy look like for you beyond the career you have already built?

Paz y Adelante.