Mariela Dabbah - The Latino Advantage in the Workplace: Use Who You Are to Get Where You Want to Be

THE

LATINO

ADVANTAGE

IN THE

WORKPLACE

THE

LATINO

ADVANTAGE

IN THE

WORKPLACE

USE WHO YOU ARE

TO GET WHERE YOU

WANT TO BE

Mariela Dabbah

Arturo Poir

Copyright 2006 by Mariela Dabbah and Arturo Poir

Foreword copyright 2006 by Julie Stav

Cover and internal design 2006 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

Cover photo 2006 by Maria Fernanda

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systemsexcept in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviewswithout permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc. Purchasers of the book are granted license to use the forms contained herein for their own personal use. No claim of copyright is made to any government form reproduced herein. All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

First Edition: 2006

Published by:Sphinx Publishing, An Imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dabbah, Mariela.

The Latino advantage in the workplace : use who you are to get where you want to be / by Mariela Dabbah and Arturo Poir. -- 1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4022-3450-7

ISBN-10: 1-4022-3450-3

Success in business--United States. 2. Hispanic Americans--Life skills guides. 3. Hispanic American businesspeople. I. Poir, Arturo. II. Title.

HF5386.D16 2006

650.1089'68073--dc22

2006026457

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

SB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

DEDICATION

To my siblings Fernando and Paula

M.D.

To Soledad

A.P.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank Dianne Wheeler for her immediate interest in the book and Michael Bowen, our editor, for his visionary instincts and support through the publication process.

Our gratitude also goes to the colleagues and close friends who have supported us throughout the project and who read our manuscript to provide feedback: Ezequiel Caride, Marisol Gonzlez, Susan Landon, Soledad Matteozzi, and Elizabeth Nieto.

We are deeply in debt to the many people who we interviewed for this book and who so openly shared their stories. We would like to specifically thank those who we profiled given the extent of the interview: Mario Bsquez, Esteban Creste, Cecilia Gutirrez, Ernesto Schweikert, Teresa Mlawer, Lillian Ortiz, and Ana Duarte-McCarthy.

We thank Julie Stav from the bottom of our hearts for her ongoing mentorship and support, and for a wonderful foreword.

We extend our gratitude to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) and its members for having welcomed us so warmly.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

In the past few years, the American publishing industry has seen a substantial growth in the number of all kinds of books focused on Latino subjects, another proof of our increasing contribution to and success in this country. With enormous satisfaction, we now see displayed in bookstores from coast to coast, titles on Latino cuisine, our countries, our habits, our artists, and our history. There are books that help with the citizenship exam and books to learn English or Spanish, titles on finances and relationships, novels by our best authors, and career manuals. Books for people to know us better and for us to learn how to better integrate into society in general.

Up until now, however, we didnt have a book like the one Mariela Dabbah and Arturo Poirtwo successful Latino authors who are an example of everything we can achieve when we set out to pursue our dreamsare making available to us. I dont think there is a book similar to The Latino Advantage in the Workplace out there, one so capable of showing us in a concrete, positive, entertaining, and realistic way the enormous wealth that our language, our character, our culture, our essence can offer us. A book that teaches us how to use this marvelous treasure to achieve our highest goals.

The Latino Advantage in the Workplace shows the reader, in a way no other book has been able to do up to now, how to use who you are to getwhere you want to be, as the subtitle promises. And it does it in ansinnovative waythrough practical exercises taken from real-life situations. These exercises will enable us not only to discover and make use of our strong points, but also to recognize and tone down traits that could be an obstacle in our path to success in our personal or professional life. In my own experience as a financial planner and in my daily conversations with the thousands of listeners of my radio program, Ive seen how difficult it could sometimes be for many Hispanics to take advantage of the incredible resources they have within their reach and of the many opportunities that could help them move up in life with more self-assurance.

Mariela and Arturo have elaborated a unique methodology that will help us succeed in our fight to become an integral part of this society and to overcome those barriers which, many times, we create ourselves. I dont think there is another title available to readers at the present time that will teach them with such precision and objectivityyou wont find here rhetoric like: We are Latinos, and thats why we are better than the rest of you!how to maximize their potential; how to really understand what it means to belong, now and here in this country, to such a fast-moving and rich culture as ours; how to defeat any obstacles that may inhibit us from advancing further in order for us to become success stories like the ones we will read about in these pages.

The Latino Advantage in the Workplace tells you: You are Latino and because of it you own a wonderful set of resources that can be used to attain a life in the United States that will be full of rewards. These are your virtues! Take advantage of them. These are your limitations! Overcome them. Through exercises and easy-to-implement activities, you will be able to value and use in your daily life the enormous power that your language, your culture, and your uniqueness provide you.

I felt very proud of Mariela Dabbah and Arturo Poir when I read this book because they have discovered and shared a fantastic secret that, for the first time, will allow us to understand what it means to be a Latino and how to take advantage of a unique heritage and culture that will help us conquer the American Dream.