Five years ago we lost a very close and dear friend, María Frieberg. It is times like this, her voice surfaces. I recall a statement she often made to me, “Chris, you have a powerful vehicle - use it.”

Many who know me, understand my outlook on life and that I believe in the idea of live and let live. However, today that philosophy seems so unbalanced. There are many who try to live their lives according to their rights as a human being, unfortunately there are those who stifle the freedoms of others with their self-righteous beliefs. This is not limited to the realms of religion, education, sexual orientation and language -- it trickles into economics and politics.

Our daily news exhibits numerous horrific examples of peoples’ narrow minded thoughts and the threats presented to our freedom of choice.

However, the struggles we face today are not much different from the past. But, if we want change, we have to continue the course. We have respectable representation for transformation. This week, Congresswoman Diana DeGette presented an opportunity to update her Latino constituency on the country’s current legislation. As I listened, I remembered when she began her first term - her efforts in our community have been unparalleled. Diana addressed immigration issues and held community forums – a first in our community by a congressional member. Her efforts and passion to transform our country have not diminished.

Our representation however, goes beyond our political leaders. They are individuals, people like you and me, that have responsibilities to get involved and actually participate.

The Weekly Issue/El Semanario’s twenty years of publishing proves that positive efforts can and will succeed if we chose to work together and do so.

Our struggles cannot be done by one individual or a small handful of elected officials. Successful efforts do prevail through unified action. A good example is the City of New Orleans, they were dealt one of the decade's most disastrous blows, yet they maintain their integrated efforts to rebuild.

I encourage our community to stay the course for positive action. It's important that we not only support our elected officials who are advocating human rights, but also hold them accountable for representing our communities and issues. With our country’s current leadership, we need to take advantage of the opportunities available to us.

I would ...