out for another very long day of manual labor. I remember splashing water on my face to wake up, since I was too young to drink coffee. Without a word of complaint or rebellion, all five of us would pack into our father's 1978 pink Datsun, with silver flames along the side, We didn't bother with seat belts, but I felt safe, because I was with my parents and siblings. This job taught me early on to be respectful of migrant workers, as I was a migrant student. But as a young, curious student I vividly remember gazing out of the side window as we drove to Cupertino to pick some cherries and see some of the neighborhoods surrounding early Silicon Valley companies like Apple, which was based out of the garage of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak as they were about to embark on creating a company that would not only change Silicon Valley, but the world.
My early childhood life centered on staying out of trouble, because my father wanted me to keep busy. When I was just 12 years old, in the summers I went with my father to clean offices, a job that he worked part‐time for a janitorial company in addition to working full‐time at a cannery. I know that my father's intent was to keep me busy on weekends and during the summers, working in the fields to keep me away from some of the kids who had joined a gang in the barrio. I believe his motive was to make me realize the significance of an education. He didn't want me to work as hard as he had to; he wanted me to work smarter. During that era in the Silicon Valley the industry was electronics and the product was known as a circuit board, and as first‐generation Americans we had never been exposed to this language or concept.
On the weekends when I worked with my father as a janitor, throughout the Silicon Valley and the Venture Capital Mecca of Sand Hill Road, I spent many hours daydreaming. I recall what I was thinking I cleaned the office of the CEO of a successful tortilla company. I was slowly pushing the vacuum cleaner as I admired everything in the office, from the rich smell of mahogany to the awards of recognition he received as an outstanding Latino. I also enjoyed looking at his awards hanging on the wall and the ticket stubs from the first Super Bowl they played in the Silver Dome, which were carefully displayed in a case. My father walked in and interrupted my reverie, shouting “Hijo, this is the reason you need to concentrate in school and concentrate on going to college!”
My story, along with those of Dr. José Morey and all great Latino and Latina interviewees, is intended to change the narrative and show how our Latinx Business Success will enable a transformation into recruiting more Latinas in leadership positions in corporate America, from C‐suite level to boardrooms, from creating a business idea to receiving venture capital funding to executing a business to becoming a successful entrepreneur, in roles ranging from healthcare to technology leaders.
Also, in the areas of media and arts, we show how it is just as important for these industries to have representation in the top Silicon Valley firms in the country.
We also wish to encourage key leadership roles from academia to nonprofits to rising stars, to show Generation Z Latinas and Latinos that anything is possible. To make these roles transparent and accessible we will be sharing the tremendous success stories.
The book also focuses on the evolution of digital Latino intelligence, but to get to these solutions, the stories all have a common thread of the gaps and the digital divide, and explain that the solution is an increasing number of Latino and Latinas participating in the transformation of understanding their significance to technology and how to not only be part of the Silicon Valley and beyond, but to take ownership of the Latino future to follow.
This is our time – Es Tiempo – it's time to get a piece of that Silicon Valley pie.
—Frank Carbajal San Francisco, California September 2021
FROM BORINQUEN TO THE BOARDROOM
I was born in Puerto Rico in the early 1980s and grew up in a barrio called El Verde (The Greene) in Caguas. We were a traditional Puerto Rican family. My grandmother was the youngest of nine siblings and had studied nursing; my grandfather spent his entire career as a card dealer at the famous Caribe Hilton in Old San Juan, where he spent 36 years or, as he used to say, “Till the age of Christ,” dealing cards to international tourists coming to visit the Island of Enchantment.
My father was an immigrant from the Dominican Republic raised in a small town called Higuey and my mother was a beautiful, strong woman from the island. They met at the University of Puerto Rico and soon started a family. My father finished his studies while my mother both studied and worked from home to tend to the family.
Our family was a typical low‐ to middle‐income family on the island. My grandparents were of more modest means. Although we didn't have all the lavish trappings that others may have had, I never noticed, for we were wealthy in love, in passion, and in aspirations of what life could be.
It was my upbringing in el barrio that prepared me for the boardroom today. It was my island upbringing that taught me that family goes beyond the boundaries of blood, and the ideal that the growth and prosperity of community far outweighs that of capital. In short, the things that center me as Hispanic from El Caribe are very much the strengths that I bring to the teams and projects I have had the honor to work alongside.
I remember my grandmother, Amelia Tirado de Lasa, always thinking of others. Despite not having much of her own, she always had much to give. She instilled in us the mentality that if one can eat, then all can eat. I remember her always planning and purchasing potential gifts for people in need even before the person arrived at our home. From my grandfather, Victor Lasa, I learned that it is more important to give than to receive. From an early age we would talk about my future as a physician. Abuelo would always say, “José por cada dolar que ganes en una clinica, estes seguro que hagas tres clinicas para regalarlo.”
From my father, Juan Manuel Morey, I learned the importance of soft skills. My father always had the amazing gift of understanding a room instantly. Like a live chess game, he could analyze not just the pieces on the board, but what their strengths were and how the game needed to play out for the greatest opportunity of success. His people skills are something I have always admired. I have never met a person that my father could not instinctively read. He was careful to evaluate nuances and interpersonal idiosyncrasies, a skill that served him well throughout his years in management at Honeywell. Dad understood the importance of finding allies in your journey. As the African adage states, “If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.”
My mother, Carmen Ivonne Morey Lasa, was the heart, soul, and glue of our core family. Like many Hispanic families, our mothers are the foundation on which our life and societies stand. They are our refuge in the storm, strength for the journey ahead, and our ever‐present help in times of trouble. My mother was no different. She has been and will always be that and so much more. She was also the person from whom I learned most about creativity and to continually reinvent oneself. Her entrepreneurial pursuits led her to nunca parar de aprender. She studied art, linguistics, and design and she always endeavored to pursue her passions. Above all, she held the fierce belief that she, her children, and her children's children could aspire to anything they set their mind on. She never wavered when storms rose and never faltered when the journey seemed arduous.
My mother was always what I call a “no box” type of thinker. She never saw the problem from outside of the box; she would never define it as a box to begin with, for that was too limiting. This is a lesson that I learned well and has brought me from being a child born on the Isle of Enchantment to a leader on Silicon Island. Attention to detail and presentation was another amazing art that my mother taught me over the years. She was very much the embodiment of not dressing for the role you had, but for the role you wish to attain.
Despite the amazing support I have had from strong Hispanic women and men in my life, it has not always been a life of ease. I have most certainly been blessed, of that there is no doubt. But my journey has been
