Full Transcript is Below:
– I’m Bessie King. I’m a licensed loan officer assistant here in Hingham, Massachusetts with Kelcey Morange’s team. For me, the actions that I’m taking to help advance my community are, essentially, follow the example that my mom gave me, coming from a family that owns a small business, and that has helped its own community of Hispanic speakers and immigrants advance by offering advice, or finding ways to help educate the community and just level the playing field for our people is the example that I’m trying to follow, so making sure that the community members that are mainly ESL speakers, or that don’t have as much of a financial education, can understand and know what they need to do to make a home purchase a reality in their lives, and to also be economically stable. The small actions I like to take is making resources available in other languages, specifically Spanish, because that’s the language that I speak, and also keeping in mind that every customer is an individual with a story, with values that may or may not be like mine, but that are equally important and valid. My voice matters because as a quote-unquote “minority,” it’s important to show to other people that minorities are important, they are valuable, and they are incredibly professional and responsible. We are an asset to any industry because we can be bilingual, we are multicultural people that understand a variety of experiences because of how we grew up and because of how our communities are formed. As a woman of color, it’s incredibly important for me to let others understand that, a. people like me matter, and b. show people like me that they can also get ahead.