Alison Flores on the Office of Multicultural Affairs

​​What if local government felt like a neighbor who shows up with the right help at the right time? In the latest episode of the Pittman & Friends podcast, County Executive Steuart Pittman sits down with Alison Flores, Director of Anne Arundel County’s Office of Multicultural Affairs, to unpack how a “small but mighty” team turns the value of belonging into practical action. From festivals and murals to legal lifelines and business roundtables, they trace the systems that let immigrant families connect, grow, and navigate services without getting lost in the maze.

Alison explains why the office was built to connect rather than duplicate—linking residents to Economic Development, Central Services, and trusted nonprofits. They talk about the Community Building Mini Grant, the Certified Welcoming audit with Welcoming America, and a monthly network of immigrant service providers that keeps information current and useful. The thread through it all is trust: engaging directly with communities, honoring language and cultural nuance, and using faith partners to reach people who might be wary of public buildings or paperwork.

They also reflect on cultural visibility: from a joy-filled Super Bowl halftime performance, to neighborhood businesses that anchor community life, and on pandemic lessons that revealed both the essential role and the fragile safety net around immigrant workers. If you care about immigrant inclusion and building a welcoming county, this conversation offers a grounded, hopeful roadmap. Subscribe, share with a friend, and join us next week for another great episode.

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Transcript

Meet Allison And The New Office

SPEAKER_02 0:10

All right, welcome back to Pittman and Friends Podcast. I am your host, Anne Arundel County Executive Stuart Pittman, and I am here with my friend. You gotta be my friend to get on the show, with my friend, the director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs of Anorundal County, Allison Flores. Welcome.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Thank you so much, County Executive, for having me today.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

You bet. All right. So the Office of Multicultural Affairs. Tell us what it is and what it does.

Purpose And Early Wins

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Yeah, great question. So the Office Multicultural Affairs was created by you in 2024 to really create a structure for a multicultural community, to have a place where we're ensuring that everyone is engaged specifically, that they are able to connect with others, that they're engaging in our economy and taking really advantage of all the services that the county has to offer. But I think a really important part of this is we are a two-year kind of office. I like to tell people we're kind of like a toddler. So we're no longer a newborn. We're learning to walk and run and doing a lot and moving around. But the work here in the county has really been going on for a long time, and the community has been here for a long time. And so we've kind of just come in to be a home for a lot of different communities who have been part of the county for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Right. Yes. And y you're small but mighty and grew out of the work in constituent services. So you you are an extension of the county executive's office at this point. So I have followed your lead and the lead of the community that you work with, which is immigrant communities from all over the world, correct?

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

About what the county should and and could be doing better to include and engage in government the folks you represent. So what are some of the what are some of the initiatives over the last few years that you've you've been working on?

Partnering With Nonprofits And Constituents

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Well, we've been busy. And so some of the things have really come from the community, right? Folks that have said, hey, we really care about this, we want this. One of those things is our community building mini grant, which is designed to support the celebrations like festivals, cultural activities, murals, to really connect people to each other. Because although we have a very immigrant kind of focus, I think what the office we've tried to do is include other generations. So first generation, second, third, and then folks who may be even more removed from that, an opportunity for people to connect and learn from each other. We've done things like certified welcoming with Welcoming America, which was a really big initiative around doing an audit throughout county government of how inclusive we are of an immigrant community here. And it's kind of like what AARP does, and I think you've mentioned it this way too, on just how senior-friendly age jurisdiction is, and essentially it's the same thing. We know that when people have access to those critical resources, they do better, and that makes us all stronger. And so we have that, we do different, we chair different like coalitions that we've kind of just, you know, I like to believe that we're providing just like logistics support because people know what they want. And so we're just helping people facilitating, have a space, create an agenda, and bring in the experts so that they can connect and let our leaders know exactly what they need.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

As you were talking, I was remembering, I'd forgotten this, that when we were thinking about making the transition from just having folks in constituent services that deal with immigrant communities to having something more standalone separate, we convened a lot of the nonprofit organizations that existed to serve immigrant communities. And we asked them, what could government do to facilitate your work? And that's how we ended up with you and your team. And I'm really glad that you spend most of your time engaging with those folks.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

We do. I think at this point there are a couple folks who see my name come up and they're phone and they're like, oh gee, not her again. But I think it's all I think it's all good. We're all really committed to the work, and so we create as many opportunities to have standard meetings where we connect, like our immigrant service providers network. We meet once a month virtually, but then we create all these other opportunities to engage people in different ways. That includes our nonprofit partners, they're on the ground and they hear directly from constituents of things that are going on, so we want to be responsive and adapting to the changing times. But it also includes engaging directly with constituents as well and helping them also navigate nonprofit and government agencies and infrastructures that can be a little bit scary or or confusing to kind of figure out how to, you know, get what you need to do and get that done. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

How Communities Organize And Identify

SPEAKER_02 4:40

Yeah, especially when there's language barriers or just cultural barriers and American governments different from government in other par parts of the world. I remember when the African diaspora group formed and created a festival, and that was before your office existed, but your office has continued to work with them, and then the Korean community has been organized in some parts of the county particularly. And then there are Latino communities, Hispanic from different parts of the world, sometimes organized. Are are they organized by country or are they generally more organized by language?

SPEAKER_00 5:11

You know, I find this is an interesting one. So I think this goes uh beyond Inner Rondo County and how people connect and identify with others in their own community. What I can say about Inarondo County and what I've seen kind of like as the newbies still too in the county, I think people are they have their like specific maybe spaces where they connect really specifically around like a country and like the specific cuisine and specific slang and terminology, but are very open to connecting with others. And so our Immigrants Affairs Commission is a great example of that, where we have immigrants represented from all over the world. And then we have other groups that are like the Comites Salvadoreño, which is like very specific on building up the Salvadorian diet diaspora that exists, that's very prominent in the DMV for the last 40, 50 years. And then you have other groups as well that connect based around language who maybe feel more comfortable speaking Spanish and so will more honestly engage and understand the information better, and then some that feel comfortable in English and maybe not so much in Spanish. So there's all these nuances, right? And so I think that's what our office tries to do is ensure that everyone can engage in the way they feel most comfortable.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

And then I I should mention that y'all are very closely tied to the work at our economic development department or team. They have the inclusive ventures program where they're train training business owners to grow their businesses, and then you specifically have worked with small business owners, correct?

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Yes. I I really do believe that like in our ecosystem, like small business owners are really at the heart of a lot of community because they are locally owned and they usually have these deep connections to the community and is the sort of thing that gives back, right? Like you support a local business owner, they support the local community, and it's like this great balance. We've hosted uh roundtables with them where we bring in experts from EDC, from the Office of Central Services to talk about PAVE, to talk about these opportunities with procurement. And so as much as possible, what I tell folks is I may not have all the answers that you are like to the questions. You have really good questions, but I have some really genius friends, and I can connect you to those experts to ensure that you get the support and the answers that you need. And I think it's all about that. It's building those connections and community to sustain the local economy and the vibrancy. Yeah. Yeah.

Why Center Families Over Politics

SPEAKER_02 7:30

And they're government agencies generally. I mean, they're the nonprofit supporters, but then the government agencies as well. Because we don't want to replicate every every agency's work, you know, for every group. We want to make the connection. So I know that that's been really, really important. So let's talk about the why a little bit. You know, I think maybe because of the political times that we're in and and how immigration has been talked about and politics. I think this kind of work to engage and include immigrants in American jurisdictions has been going on forever. I mean, it didn't used to be that the Statue of Liberty was something controversial. It was something that we were proud of because it was about welcoming immigrants to America and and that was, you know, foundation of the country. There are some who who sort of get a little bit nervous when you start talking about immigrant affairs that, okay, now we're going to talk politics. No, we're not talking politics. We're talking about the people who live here. And and I remember we have a great thing called the Hispanic Health Festival that's been going on in this county for years. And hundreds of people show up. And it's largely because a lot of folks don't have access to health services, and then they come and there are agencies, there's there's REACH, where doctors who volunteer their time or do it at discount rates and other services, lots of services available there. And I go speak to them every year, and you told me this last year, this was in 2025, you knew how I felt about the Federal Immigration Mass Deportation Program, and that I really wanted to get up there and talk about that and you know attack the administration for its tactics. And you said, be careful not to get political with this group. People will either turn off and stop listening or they'll get nervous. The more you talk about families, uh, the better. And that really hit home to me, and I've I've remembered that and I've tried to stick to that, and I think it's it's really powerful. It makes the point of what our values are better than any political talk. Is that is is that correct? I mean, is that what you're finding in your work?

SPEAKER_00 9:28

I I would say so. And I would argue that it's not that people don't care about politics. I think like a lot of uh people here in the United States, they feel frustrated with politics and they feel like it's a blame game, and saying one party is is worse, you're worse off with one party, and not really offering an agenda for something else leaves people feeling really hopeless. But really going back to what are universal things that we care about, our family is something that I think universally all of us really care about, whether we have children, our grandparents, our parents. And so I found that speaking through that lens allows us to connect and and find solutions, even with folks that we may not always agree with on everything, and that's okay, right? Like I think part of a society is having diverse thoughts. Like that's part of it, but it's still having this agreement that as human beings we all deserve dignity and that we believe in those things and that we want our children to be safe and have a better life than we had. I've thought about this more recently than I've really ever had in my whole entire life. And I think that's kind of by design in the type of society that I grew up post-9-11 as a kid, and really in a time where assimilation was the goal, right?

Allison’s Family Story From El Salvador

SPEAKER_02 10:54

And so I can can you share just briefly what your your background is? I meant to ask you how you ended up in this job, but you don't have to tell the whole story. But but as much as you want about your cultural background.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Yeah, I'm a daughter of immigrants. My parents migrated from El Salvador because of the Civil War that was going on for 12 years.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

What year would that have been that day?

SPEAKER_00 11:16

They migrated at different times. So my dad came when he was about 17, 16 or 17, he came with two shirts that he wore layered on, and those were the two last shirts that my grandfather gave, like purchased for him ever. And so he was a young, he was a child. And he grew up, he was a farmer, and that's kind of where the Civil War was the most brutal at that time, where you had massacres and the militarization of the Salvadorian police force by the United States, right? That this was during the Red Scare and this big push to relate.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Massacres in Catholic churches. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Priests. Priests were killed for saying, you know, that children and families deserve safety.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

And so all things that we care about, right? And so that became very dangerous. And my mom migrated afterwards, she grew up in the city. She was the first swan. She's the youngest, she was the baby, so I think she was a little bit more spoiled. And she grew up, you know, in the city and more connected to resources and everything that that typically will bring.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

She's not listening because you're in trouble now.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Yeah, oh yeah, I'm sure. Well, she told me to be a good dinner guest, so she's the one. But uh, you know, she she was going to she was in school, she was uh at the like state college, I guess you would you know say, and she was uh gonna be an economist. She had one more semester left to graduate. And that's when In San Salvador?

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

In San Salvador, and that's when the civil war came to the city. And so it was no longer contained to these rural parts where I think it was easier to keep out of the eye of other people. This is before social media, way before the internet. And so unless you were there, you weren't really aware of what was actually going on. And so it became a thing where she also migrated. And I think that's a great point.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

I would assume students on campuses generally were not with the military attacks on the people. They were more part of the resistance.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Part of the resistance, part of people fighting for economic and social reform and opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

And a lot of her professors disappeared, right? And so she also grew up in an environment of you don't say it your opinion to anyone on the bus. If someone says, like, hey, I'm really frustrated with this, you don't respond because you that might be like a spy, and then someone may come and kidnap you in the middle of the night and accuse you of something, and you have no due process. And so you are disappeared and probably executed. And that was the reality for many Salvadorians, and that's a reality for a lot of folks in Latin America. The struggle for people fighting for the everyday person.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

And so that I think I won't go too deep into it, but let me just comment on that, because it is true that when you're working to engage folks who have immigrated from countries where, you know, militaries have taken over governments and been cruel, there's a legitimate fear of engaging with government, right? Absolutely. There's not a lot of trust. And I will say that there's a generation of Americans, people like me, who got involved in political issues because of we watched what was happening in Latin America and what the CIA was doing and some of the support for the big corporations that were extracting resources out of these countries and wanted to maintain power and didn't want democracy to thrive in those countries. So I was at the University of Chicago in eight eight 1980 to 84, and there was a professor of economics. No, of of no, he was not in economics. Economics was was on the other side, that department. He was actually in political science and history. And he was from Chile. His name was Manuel Garatón. And he fled the country. He went to the church, the Catholic Church protected him, and then he got out and he became a visiting professor at the University of Chicago where I was. And we studied authoritarianism and democracy throughout Latin America and the back and the forth. And I'm really glad that I got some of that education, because here we are in this country now confronting those same questions. Do we want democracy? Do we want authoritarianism? What's the role of the military? Are they going to step in or they're not going to step in? And so those are really important lessons. And so we have, you know, millions of Americans who came from countries that experienced those same challenges, so, like your parents.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Absolutely. And that is, I think, something that also is a unifying thing for all Americans, is that throughout history there's been these challenges, and there's been people who maybe are not of that country, maybe who has experienced who are experiencing that Civil War part of it, but they've offered shelter to people who are seeking safety and refuge. And that's something that goes back to.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

Amnesty. Yeah. It's in international law.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Absolutely. And so that's my story of my parents migrating, and then my dad went to Buffalo for a time when I was in California, and they ended up somehow at the same place, the same time at the right time, where everyone thought my dad was just going to be a bachelor for life.

unknown 16:12

A little bit older than my mom.

Trust, Democracy, And Civic Memory

Culture On The Big Stage: Halftime Reflections

SPEAKER_00 16:14

And so they made a home, and I grew up in Prince George's County, Maryland, within the underbeltway communities. And so really grew up in a community, a working class community, predominantly black and brown. And so my America, like most of the uh parents in that neighborhood, most of the children in the neighborhood, is one of hard work, right? And so I grew up watching my dad go to work before the sun was up and then come home after the sun was down. And my mom worked two jobs trying to make ends meet. And when I could start working, I also started working. I was very like, I'm gonna be independent and self-sufficient. But I also grew up in that post-9-11 era and also in that time where there was a huge increase in unaccompanied minors from Central America in the early kind of like 2000s. I don't know if you kind of remember that, 2005, 2006, 7. And so there were a lot of messages around who I was supposed to be based on these things, right? And so there was a lot of sort of anti-immigrant sentiment post-9-11 against Muslim communities, but against other immigrant communities, right? So when we saw the Department of Homeland Security created and this whole thing, you have the fight on terror, but then you also have a big shift in domestic policy around who belongs and who does it, and you have the funding of detention centers in a way that you hadn't seen in the United States before in that way. And then in addition to that, right, you have unaccompanied minors and you kind of grow up in an environment where you start to kind of internalize these lies about who you're supposed to be and what you can be. And so I was an ESOL student, which a lot of people don't know, but I didn't speak any English when I started school, and so I was in ESOL for most of my born here. Even though I was born here. I was in ESOL for most of elementary school, and the messages a lot like students like myself and other students received were kind of expectations of like maybe you're gonna be a gang member or you're gonna get pregnant, and then maybe if you're really ambitious, you would do both. And so it's sort of undoing and undoing that experience and that lie, right? And starting to be like, you know what, that's not mine to carry, and this is actually who I am. And so I I think that that has informed the way that I speak on issues that may be political in a way that feels not like I'm trying to convince you of a political side, but I'm trying to present an issue to you based on these shared experiences. Because I would argue that the experiences I've had other Latino families have had, other immigrant families have had, other communities of color have had, and still it's an ongoing challenge. And so that is, I think, how I've tried my best to approach difficult conversations. And that's why I'd mentioned the focus on shared values of family, because I I think those are the universal things that unite us, even when there may be differences in certain some areas. There's still this more often than not we have more in common than we do different.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Did you watch the halftime show at the Benita Ball?

SPEAKER_00 19:23

Yeah. I did. I watched up until the pro the halftime performance, and then afterwards I did. I did too now afterwards.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

But I did watch it.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

What what was your action?

SPEAKER_00 19:34

You know, it was a mix bag of reactions. On one hand, I felt so overjoyed and like emotional in a way that I couldn't quite put to words. And in a time where like Bad Bunny came out and was just like, I'm proud, I'm Latino, this is my culture, and it was vibrant, and it was community, and it was dance, and it was food, it was local business owners, right? He featured like local businesses, and you talk about this like cultural storytelling through visuals. It was so inspiring and so like marriage as well. Yeah, a marriage. Like it doesn't get more like value, like family values than like a marriage and community and food.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Love, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Yeah. Those are all uniting things. And so it was like he it he reclaimed, I think, a culture for a lot of Latinos that grew up, probably like millennials like myself or even prior generations. He just like owned it and was like, I am not gonna speak any English. I'm gonna sing completely in Spanish, and I'm gonna be unapologetic about it. And that was a moment where I was like, oh shit, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

That's okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Um I was like, wow, he he did that on this stage where millions of people are watching, and he is defining not just who is Latino and what that means and what that looks like, but what is American and what that looks like and the Americas and this bigger sort of history that he gave, that I'm like, I I think a lot of folks needed a reminder in history class, and he did it in a way that didn't feel political in ways, right? There was so much meaning, but it felt just like I'm on this journey with you. And it was almost like a paradox, right? Because what's currently going on in America, to say that I'm proudly Latino, Latina, there's something about that where there's this other narrative that's trying to paint you to be something very different. And so it just felt like this thing where I was overjoyed, but then I also was like, we have more work to do.

The Family Protection Initiative

SPEAKER_02 21:46

Sad that it even felt so important. Yes. Maybe that it was such a such a contrast with the narrative that people are getting. Yeah, I was pretty moved myself too. I watched an interview with him uh and I wasn't familiar. I'd never actually watched any of his videos or listened to any of his music, but I heard about him because he was doing the Super Bowl. And I went online and I I saw an interview where he said, people won't need to learn Spanish. They need to learn to dance. As long as you can move, you know? Which was it was sort of like, don't worry, I'm not saying everybody needs to learn Spanish. We just need to learn to dance together. And I was just so thrilled that it was so well received. And it was like a lot of America, a lot of people in the world, like myself, had missed this phenomenon that he's the most streamed artist in the world. So of course it's natural that he'd be doing the the halftime of the Super Bowl. I felt like it was a moment, a really important moment. So we talked a little about the work that you do in the Office of Multicultural Affairs, and well, I know that that work has changed somewhat in the last year, with uh, you know, the mass deportation effort and the increase in ICE funding and the numbers of the the quotas that they're under, having to go far beyond what they had initially talked about, which was deporting people that were, you know, criminals to anybody who they could get into their numbers, you know, who they could say, ah, yeah, I deported them, and a lot of violations of the Constitution as they go. But I don't see you out there online screaming and yelling about get ice out. What I do see is you working with a lot of these same organizations, churches in particular, on this thing that you presented to us called the Family Protection Initiative. So tell us what that is, and tell us how you feel that the mindset and the goals have shifted over the last year within the leadership of the Latino community here.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

So I will say this. I'm not shouting in the streets and that sort of thing, but I will say that I do think we all have a role in the ecosystem to play, and I do think there is a need for those advocates to emerge and do that work. The work that I see through OMA is the ability to adapt and pivot to be the safety net for the most vulnerable. And so, really, December 2024, we started having these conversations with our partners, with our faith coalitions about what we could do, having been through sort of a similar previous administration before, and what we could do and what we anticipated, and also what was being said was gonna be done, right? Like I think part of it was taking that seriously and taking it like add, it's what you're saying is what I believe you're gonna do. And we started organizing family preparedness workshops, I know you're right, workshops at churches, which really allowed us to reach a lot of people who maybe don't interact with government or don't trust government, but trust their churches and trust that community that they built. And so from like January 2025 to like April 2025, we hosted probably like 15 to 20 at different churches. And my family at that time, anytime they were like, Oh, do you want to come over for dinner? And be like, no, I'm going to church, you know, this and that. They were like, Wow, you've really converted. Like you were saved, you saw the light. But it was really, I think, powerful to see why having and investing in these relationships from a government perspective and building community is really important so that when there is a crisis, you already have a network and you can then work off of that. You're not trying to figure out who's there and do that. You can kind of start the work immediately. Out of those workshops, there were gaps identified by our faith leaders. And there was like, well, you know, people are saying they can't afford a lawyer. Can you, you know, what is there? What does the county have? If someone supported, what happens to the remaining children who are US born citizens or who are deciding to stay the family that remains? And so we really, the pastors and the faith leaders really started organizing. I mean, there's a Latino faith coalition that has over 30 different members and churches from northern county all the way to South County, and folks who've been here for 30 plus years, some of them. It was really about bringing them together as well, right? And doing that community organizing and really emphasizing that there's powers and numbers, right? And so they did a budget letter, they advocated through FY26, and that's how we got the funding. And so now the Family Protection Initiative has two core parts to it.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

One is You got the funding because I said yes. Yes, you did, that's why.

COVID Lessons, Labor, And Community Strength

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Well, the community did, right? I think I always emphasize And the Council said yes. Yes, is the importance of building those relationships for sustainability, right? I learned that lesson the hard way before of not doing that. And so as much as possible, just I think building those coalitions, but the funding covers the rapid response for legal services, which are really critical. What we're seeing more than now is detentions are a cash grab for private institutions. And so someone needs a lawyer more than ever to even have a chance of getting out, even if they have a work permit, right? Like who is being targeted is it isn't this criminal, scary person. It's the person going to work at five in the morning. It is the mom doing Ubereats or doing these things to survive. And then the crisis services, like when the breadwinner is removed, that family falls into a deeper poverty, right? Like you've just unstabilized that family. And so it's things like rental assistance, food, mental health support, and that sort of thing. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Hope, Gratitude, And Closing

SPEAKER_02 27:24

And we expect the numbers to increase because the funding for ICE to hire the new agents, those agents are being trained as we speak, and they're working to build new detention centers and increase their, you know, meet their quotas. So I know that folks were coming to budget town halls and saying the$300,000 that you did was great, but we need to up that to a million in this budget. So we're looking at that, of course, as we go. You know, I want to acknowledge a couple things. One, during COVID, the Latino community and and restaurants, some of them, got very involved in feeding people. A lot of the essential workers were immigrants, some undocumented, who were keeping our economy moving. Undocumented immigrants did not have access to the supports, the money that was being passed out to American taxpayers, and even though many of them were paying taxes with their paychecks. But so they were falling through the cracks in a big way. And at the end of COVID, at the end of a lot of that, I remember there was an event that was organized to thank me by a group of restaurant owners and pastors and others in the Latino community, I think it was the immigrant community, actually, broader. And I felt like we should be thanking them, but they were thanking our administration for the things that we did during COVID. So the folks who move here from other countries tend not to ask for as much because maybe they don't feel like it's their government and often step up, often run businesses, as you've said, self-sufficient, wanting to make make the way in the new country. And then the last experience that I had, you were there, that was very moving to me with the Latino community, the Salvadoran community in particular, was after the collapse of the the Key Bridge at the funeral for Miguel Luna. That was I had never been to a funeral like that. I mean, the the funeral actually had started the night before and people had been worshiping all night. His wife was incredibly brave. Families were there all that night, all day. I was there at the burial, and I just felt like we were blessed in Anorundal County to have a Salvadoran community that was so strong and so faithful and worked so hard to help our economy move forward and to repair our bridges in the middle of the night that it's been hurtful for me to see some of the rhetoric, some of the by politicians for political purpose. And we saw some of it even when I ran for election, there it seemed to be MS-13 was every other word coming out of some politicians' mouths and just gross stuff. So it was very important to me, and it's been important to you and a lot of people in our administration and a lot of our residents to change that narrative, to have, you know, welcoming America, being certified as a place that is welcoming to immigrants and recognizing their value in our communities. And I will say that that halftime show and the celebration of Latino culture really gave me a sense of hope that this has been a little bump in the road, or big bump in the road, and it's happened before in our history, as you know, where anti-immigrant sentiment has has risen at times during economic distress or whatever it is. But I'm really optimistic that we're moving towards something better where we can all embrace one another and protect our neighbors. So thank you for the work that that you do in the Office of Multicultural Affairs, and yeah, thank you for for being brave enough to also get on this this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Well, thank you. And I will say also on behalf of the community, I think everyone genuinely feels really grateful to you, County Executive, for having courage to say the things that I think a lot of times people shy away from for fear of political backfire or whatever it is. I think you have said things to stand up for other people when they can't do that for themselves or feel too afraid to do that. And so it's people like you, people like our faith leaders, our nonprofits, our volunteers who do a variety of different things of delivering food or ensuring that people are monitoring things and things like that who make a big difference, especially in moments of crisis like what we're experiencing right now. And so I want to genuinely thank you for your leadership. And I know that the community really feels grateful to have someone as vocal and as truthful as you, and especially in this such a scary time that it feels like we're in.

SPEAKER_02 31:40

Well, thank you. And also thank you for steering me away from political rhetoric at times and recognizing that really the goal is to support families. Period. End of sentence. So I will stop there and thank you. And you get the last word because that's the way that we we we do the show.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

Perfect. Well, thank you. You're listening to the Pittman and Friends podcast. If you like what you hear, please hit the subscribe button, share with a friend, and join us for the next episode.