Boston City Councilor-At-Large Felix Arroyo began his lecture at the Howard Thurman Center by addressing Boston University students directly.
“You are going to college,” he said. “How are you going to give back to the world?”
Arroyo, the second Latino to ever be elected to the Boston city council, spoke to a crowd of about 20 BU students at Café con Leche Tuesday night, urging them to get involved in their communities.
Arroyo, who was once the leader of the University of Massachusetts-Boston Latino Center, revealed that he doesn’t celebrate his status as the only current Latino city councilor.
“Being the only Latino on the Boston council is not something I’m proud of,” he said. “It’s not a positive statement . . . Another Latino millionaire doesn’t change the fact that 90 percent of the Boston population doesn’t make it to college.”
When he was in his 20s, Arroyo worked with the SEIU Local 615 to fight for property service workers in Boston, he said.
He asked the audience to pay closer attention to the people cleaning the dorm rooms and eating areas. They are hard-working people who could have up to three jobs and who could have been working all night, he said.
This overall ignorance of the workers who clean up after everyone is what moved him to be an activist, he said.
Arroyo said he was given this opportunity to influence and change Boston and the help the Latino community.
“The realization that every single one of you is a child of privilege,” he said. “Just finishing high school is an accomplishment. What really matters is what you do with it.”
Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences sophomore Stephanie Raymond said she sincerely enjoyed his speech, even though she hadn’t originally planned on attending the event.
“I’m from Jamaica Plain, where he is from,” she said. “I really like how he encourages kids from Boston to represent the entire city of Boston and be part of the city.”
The purpose of the event, which was sponsored by Alianza Latina, was to discuss the importance of community involvement and unity.
“Arroyo interested me because he is an advocate for the community and I felt like he would be a great person to talk to us because in order for us, the Latino community, to make changes, we need to stick together,” said College of Communication sophomore and event coordinator Ivellisse Morales.
Arroyo, who attended Boston Public Schools, said he knows that he can live in a country where one can be a good person and still be successful.
“Race and gender are not an impediment anymore,” he said. “Change happens through the organized, change happens in the streets.”
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