Moises Caballero promotes integration through Sumner Hispanic Alliance

Moises Caballero and the Sumner Hispanic Alliance are featured in this article in the Tennessean about the work of locals who plan to "make a difference" in 2008. The Sumner Hispanic Alliance was created last fall (story here) to focus businesses, educators, and government on the Hispanic residents of Sumner County.

From the Tennessean story:

Moisés Caballero took on the reins of the relatively new Sumner Hispanic Alliance as its chairman this past fall, and he'll be spending 2008 building metaphorical bridges.

The growing Hispanic population and existing Sumner County community benefit if they learn from each other, said Caballero, 42 and assistant vice president at Regions Bank in Gallatin.

Caballero will visit Hispanic businesses to raise awareness of and involvement in the alliance, which is sponsored by Volunteer State Community College, and he'll encourage school and government officials to meet with the Hispanic community.

"It's a community that's here to stay," he said. "It's to our benefit as a larger community . . . to have those folks integrated, to be educated in our educational system, our business system, governmental system. You prevent problems down the road if people understand and work within the system and grow within the system."

Other difference-makers featured in the article are Judith Biondo Meeker, who uses quilts to teach children compassion for people in other countries, and Win Myint, who wants to use the Nashville Buddhist Meditation Center to offer Christian immigrants and refugees "a place where they feel at home."