Last month, NBC News’ Generation Latino blog published the story of 18-year old Jason Mero, who headed off to Brown University this fall, “proudly staking claim to his Latinx heritage, but mindful that the sacrifices his immigrant parents made for him.”

Born in Queens, New York, to parents who emigrated from Ecuador 30 years ago, Mero would ruminate with his family growing up about the challenges facing an American with Hispanic roots: how to deal with a more hostile environment against Latinos, and how to assert his U.S. citizenship, his birthright, while staying connected to his community.

What stuck with me about Jason’s story is how, in a country built in part on immigrants, so many people across ethnic and minority groups are actively questioning if they belong here. And how, in this divided America, we ever get beyond that feeling.

Competing Narratives

There are so many “competing narratives” about the American experience. The New York Times’ David Brooks has argued that there are four, to be exact.  As said in this column, “Different groups see themselves living out different national stories and often feel they are living in different nations.”

A Pew Research Center: Hispanic Trends study from a few years ago found that most young Latinos are “satisfied with their lives, optimistic about their futures, and place a high value on education, hard work, and career success. Yet they are much more likely than other American youths to drop out of school and to become teenage parents. They are more likely than white and Asian youths to live in poverty. And they have high levels of exposure to gangs.”

As Pew stated in its report, “these are attitudes and behaviors that, through history, have often been associated with the immigrant experience. But most Latino youths are not immigrants.”

Like Jason, two-thirds of Latino youths were born in the United States, many of them descendants of the big, ongoing wave of Latin American immigrants who began arriving in this country around 1965. According to Mark Hugo López, director of global migration and demography research at the Pew Research Center, one million Hispanic-Americans will turn 18 this year and every year for at least the next two decades.

Sitting here in Washington in the lead up to this year’s midterm elections, one particularly loud narrative is the role that Hispanic and Latino voters will, or will not, play in determining the outcomes of the election. But, there’s far more at stake beyond this midterm election, if we don’t find ways to come together. If we don’t challenge ourselves—and by extension, our businesses, our governments, our faith communities, and our families—to listen to and learn from the massive wave of Hispanic Americans who will play a significant role in the future of our country, we are setting ourselves up for failure.

Elevating Important Voices

At Mission Partners, we live by person-first communications. We listen beyond the loudest voices in any conversation to the voices often struggling to be heard. We listen to challenge assumptions, and to close gaps in our understanding of issues. And it’s a philosophy that extends to every issue we take on. Whether we’re tackling equity in education, women’s issues, public health or affordable housing, we believe that every voice in our community matters, but there are far too many voices that aren’t being listened to in meaningful ways.

On Thursday, November 15, Montgomery County-based Identity, Inc. will release a new report on Latino youth in partnership with the Pew Research Center called the Promise and Potential of Latino Youth. Mark Hugo Lopez, referenced above, will be on site to share his findings and elevate trends that nonprofit, government, and philanthropic decision makers must be aware of and acting upon.  It will be an important conversation and one that I look forward to attending.

The next day, Mission Partners will gather community members, business, academic and social sector leaders, entrepreneurs, and students at AFI Silver Theatre & Cultural Center to take the conversation one level deeper. Most importantly, at Mission Forward: Narrative Change, we’ll hear from Hispanic and Latino youth living in Montgomery County who will bring Identity’s research report to life, through a conversation with Emmy-award winning reporter and Montgomery County resident Armando Trull. We’ll also hear from award-winning freelance journalist Valeria Fernandez who covers the intersection of migration and politics, and the people in between. And we’ll look at the issue through a post-midterm election lens with American University Professor and CBS News Political Analyst Leonard Steinhorn, and MacArthur Genius Award Winner Mauricio Miller, who will give new perspective to the dangers of competing narratives.

We’ll close the conversation with best-selling author Anand Giridharadas. His new book “Winners Take All” challenges us to consider whether we are inadvertently perpetuating the social problems we seek to solve.

But it won’t end there. This November’s Mission Forward event will launch a series of community meals and conversations, hosted in the DC region and across the country, during which we will listen and learn from voices that often go unheard. We hope you’ll join us for the first of many conversations, and that you’ll be part of this wave of change.

If you’d like to be part of the conversation, please register to join us today.