{"id":57906,"date":"2025-09-06T22:54:42","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T02:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=57906"},"modified":"2025-09-06T22:54:47","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T02:54:47","slug":"latin-american-transformation-conference-held-for-the-first-time-in-polk-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/09\/06\/latin-american-transformation-conference-held-for-the-first-time-in-polk-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Latin American Transformation Conference held for the first time in Polk County"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first-ever major Hispanic leadership conference took place in Polk County on Saturday at Southeastern University, known as the Latin American Transformation Conference.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img data-dominant-color=\"4a4679\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #4a4679;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"675\" height=\"303\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 675px) 100vw, 675px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Screenshot-98-7.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-57907 not-transparent\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Screenshot-98-7.webp 675w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Screenshot-98-7-300x135.webp 300w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This conference first kicked off in Tampa back in 2022. Since then, it\u2019s been held in Houston and Atlanta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This year, the conference organizers decided to host it in Polk County because of its rapid growth in the Hispanic community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The conference brought together local leaders like Haines City commissioner Omar Arroyo, Polk County commissioner Martha Santiago, and Teresa Martinez, the editor of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/vivapolk.com\/\">Viva Polk<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mariela Romero is the founder of the conference. She says this conference is a stepping stone for many Hispanics looking to pave their way in leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201c(It is) a space where Latinos could find the tools so they could respond to a crisis,\u201d Romero said. \u201cThey can reinvent their lives. They could have a mindset of growth and not just of survival.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Each speaker shared a bit of their journey in the U.S. and the impact they hope to have on the local Hispanic residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some of the topics discussed were navigating imposter syndrome, the power of being bilingual, and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first-ever major Hispanic leadership conference took place in Polk County on Saturday at Southeastern University, known as the Latin American Transformation Conference. This conference first kicked off in Tampa&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDlcL1NjcmVlbnNob3QtOTgtNy53ZWJwP2ZpdD02NzUlMkMzMDMmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJMYXRpbiBBbWVyaWNhbiBUcmFuc2Zvcm1hdGlvbiBDb25mZXJlbmNlIGhlbGQgZm9yIHRoZSBmaXJzdCB0aW1lIGluIFBvbGsgQ291bnR5IiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.R34TFDaipQDkxG1DTIPo_JvEs0Na_iPtRnyPCMXdDJIMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":57907,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Screenshot-98-7.webp","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[12187],"class_list":["post-57906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-latin-american-transformation-conference-held-for-the-first-time-in-polk-county"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57906"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57908,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57906\/revisions\/57908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}