“I meet people who work two jobs, have multiple children, don’t speak English and yet are still saving for this dream they’ve had their entire lives at a rate that’s astounding.”
Ryan’s work at Conexión Américas is two-fold. Half of his time is spent managing some of the adult education programs at Conexión Américas, while the other half is focused on financial counseling. 95 percent of his clients are Spanish-speaking. He says that the barriers they face are often complex and unjust. “If I encounter a financial issue, there are thousands of places I can go and people I can call. The government is ready with programs to help me do that. But when my problem is that the naming customs for my country don’t match with how credit bureaus work and I have seven different versions of my own credit profile floating around—and I can’t access any of them—that’s a little harder to navigate. And if I don’t speak the language, it’s even more difficult.”
