Unidos, Somos Más: Belonging at Rocket

There are moments when you don’t realize how much you’ve missed a feeling until it comes back. Recently, friends I hadn’t seen in years traveled from Puerto Rico to visit me. I hugged them as if there were no tomorrow. For a moment, life felt right. I felt full. It was more than catching up.

I had my crew with me again: people who understood my humor, my memories, and parts of me I didn’t have to explain. That feeling is something I want others to experience through Mi Gente, Rocket’s Team Member Resource Network for Hispanic and Latino team members and allies. It’s what sealed my decision to embrace this year’s official Hispanic Heritage Month theme, “Unidos, Somos Más,” or “Together, We Are More,” for our celebration. In these uncertain times, that reminder of what we have in one another felt especially meaningful. When so much feels unsettled, knowing we have one another can help us feel a little more grounded. Being united means supporting one another, but it also means feeling with one another. A language or a lived experience may separate us, yet at our core, we are human. We love, hurt, grieve, and need to feel appreciated. We share meals and miss people.

There is always something that can connect us. We have so many ways to communicate now, but a quick “How was your day?” doesn’t always reach the part of us looking for connection. Sometimes we need someone to stay, listen, and understand. Each person brings a piece of themselves, and together, we become capable of more.

The home I carry with me

I was born in Kentucky but raised in Puerto Rico until I moved to Florida for college at 17. I’m grateful my mom brought me back to our homeland to raise me, because when I moved to Florida, I carried so much of Puerto Rico with me as I began making a home of my own. That journey taught me that home can be wherever you go and make it yours, with your roots still a part of you. Something I carry from home is how passionately we love and support our people. Being Boricua doesn’t have one face or skin color. When we say “eres de los nuestros (“you’re one of us”), it’s a way of claiming each other with love. And honestly, you don’t even have to be Puerto Rican. Appreciate our culture, say something good about our island, and we’ll probably start claiming you, too.

That pride is part of why our flag means so much to me. It carries a history that reaches beyond the island: Puerto Rican exiles adopted it in New York in 1895. I think about those people away from home, coming together around something that represented them. When I see our flag today, I feel that connection. Wherever we go, we carry something of each other.

My family reminds me of that, too. My brother is half Mexican and half Puerto Rican, born in Germany and raised in the United States. We Puerto Ricans say there are Boricuas even on the moon. Through Mi Gente, I’ve learned to appreciate the similar sentiment that a Mexican can be born anywhere. It makes me smile because I recognize the feeling behind it. Home can travel with us.

Still, I miss home. Hearing my language, having someone understand my music, or laughing at a joke without explaining it can fill a space I didn't realize was empty. That's part of what my friends brought back when they visited. It's also something I've found at Rocket through Mi Gente.

Being understood at work

People often say being bilingual is cool. It is. I'm proud of it. But I wish more people understood that it can also be exhausting. Sometimes I'm thinking about how to explain something clearly, how my tone will sound, and whether my humor will come across, all while trying to connect with the person in front of me.

Language carries more than a literal meaning. In Spanish, “te quiero” and “te amo” can both translate to “I love you,” but to me, they carry different emotional weight. “Te quiero” holds real affection and care. “Te amo” feels more vulnerable, like letting someone know how deeply they matter and how firmly you’re beside them. With family, friends, or a partner, those words cement a connection. When my abuelita and abuelito (my grandparents) say, “Te amo,” I feel it: I am loved, and I belong. I hear their love. I hear my roots. I feel home.

I can translate their words into English, but explaining what I hear in them takes more than a translation. I feel that same challenge when I’m sharing a joke, telling a story, or trying to express something personal. I want the person listening to understand the feeling, too. Sometimes, while working out how to convey it, I shorten the story or leave the joke unsaid. I know what I want to say, but it doesn’t come out quite like me. When that happens often, it can feel like I’m holding pieces of myself back. That’s why finding people with whom I can relax and simply be myself means so much.

When you're constantly working out how to communicate, you can start holding pieces of yourself back. You leave out a joke or shorten a story. You know what you want to say, but it doesn't come out quite like you. When your communication feels limited, your personality can feel limited, too. That's why it means so much to find people with whom you can relax and simply be yourself.

Since joining Mi Gente, I’ve felt that belonging. Someone shares a family story, and I recognize my own. Someone introduces a tradition I didn’t know, and I learn something new. We have different backgrounds, but those conversations keep showing me how much we share.

As president of Mi Gente, I want to share the light that community has given me. During our Hispanic Heritage Month celebration, we brought team members together in person and virtually for conversations, games, and cultural experiences. I wanted people to feel welcome enough to participate, meet someone, and carry a little of that connection back into their day.

I want that feeling to reach beyond an event. In my work as a bilingual transaction coordinator, I know how much understanding matters when people are navigating something as important as buying a home. The same care belongs in our relationships with coworkers. Giving someone time to explain, asking another question, or making room for a different perspective can change what we understand and how we help.

For me, that's where this theme connects to Rocket's work. Helping Everyone Home asks us to understand people whose experiences may differ from ours. When we bring those experiences into the conversation, we have a better chance of noticing a barrier, improving an idea, or finding a solution together. I want us to ask whose voice we haven't heard yet and what we might learn if we did.

The power we have together

I sometimes think about the Tower of Babel. In that biblical story, God recognizes what people could accomplish together, then confuses their language so they can no longer understand one another. What stays with me is how much power they had united, and how changing their ability to communicate disrupted it. It makes me wonder how much of our own strength we lose when we stop trying to understand each other.

We already have so much to carry. People are grieving, missing home, or losing something others may never see. When the world feels divided, I want us to remember that there is a person on the other side of that difference who needs care, just as we do.

Bad Bunny’s song “DtMF,” short for “Debí tirar más fotos,” meaning “I should have taken more photos,” reminds me to make memories while I can. I want to look back on time we actually spent together, instead of wishing we had. That is why those hugs with my friends mattered so much. But I also want to make room for connections with people I haven’t met yet. That brings me back to the Mister Rogers invitation we shared last year and carried into this year’s celebration:

Won't you be my neighbor?

He didn’t ask, “Do you speak the same language as me?” He didn’t ask, “Are you from the same place as me?” He simply asked, “Won’t you be my neighbor?”

That stayed with me. We don’t have to come from the same place or speak the same language to make room for each other. We can choose to care before we discover what we have in common. To me, that invitation belongs to Rocket, too; in how we welcome a teammate and how we treat a client hoping to find a home. Before we know their whole story, we can help them feel that they have someone beside them.

For Rocket team members, joining Mi Gente is one way to begin. You don't have to be Hispanic or Latino or speak Spanish. Come with your curiosity. Share your story and listen to someone else's. If you've found support, pass it along: help someone learning, make an introduction, or share what experience has taught you. That's “legado” (legacy) to me. Giving back what we've learned so the next person has someone beside them.

Each of us gives a piece of ourselves. Together, those pieces can help someone feel appreciated, give them the confidence to speak, or make a place far from home feel familiar. That's what I want to build with Mi Gente and what “Unidos, Somos Más” means to me.