Time to get to work at Somos

Bronx Assembly Member Karines Reyes, who also chairs the Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force, is gearing up for this year’s Somos conference. With her continual focus of making Somos more useful from a policy standpoint, Reyes thinks attendees will have a lot to take away. But there’s still the Somos of it all – wheeling, dealing, plotting and planning are all part of the annual tropical get-together of New York’s politicos.

Beyond just the networking and knowledge-building, Somos also serves as an opportunity to deepen ties with Puerto Rico. For Reyes, to miss Somos means forgoing a chance to further understand what New Yorkers and the Latino community need from its elected officials. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

So it sounds like it’s going to be a pretty interesting Somos conference this year.

Yeah. Unfortunately, we’re always victims of everything else that’s happening around us politically. So whether that be the New York City Council speaker race or whatever the case might be, there’s always a lot of talking and organizing that happens during Somos. It’s evolved into one of its purposes.

What do you envision will be this year’s highlights?

I would say my goal as chair of the Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force is, one, to really professionalize the work of the task force and try and unify us around budgetary and policy priorities that impact the Latino community. But I think more broadly, I didn’t want my tenure to be that when people thought about the conference, they think about it as a junket. So for me, it was always a priority that that the conferences were work- and mission-driven, and that, yes, people had a good time, but also, they left the conference informed with actionable tasks, with better ideas of where we stand policywise in New York, what the challenges are and what the goals are. So with that said, I think the first conference that I chaired, the first Albany one, we had about 30 workshops. Last year in Puerto Rico, we had about 37. This year in Puerto Rico, we’re going to have 60 workshops that cover a breadth of topics that impact the Latino community and Puerto Rico as well. So I think that’s definitely something to look forward to. There’s all the fun things, but there’s also the things that are, I think, impactful and substantive regarding the conference.

Last year when New York City Mayor Eric Adams didn’t come, part of what he said was that while he’s trying to deal with the city budget, he didn’t want to be gallivanting on a Puerto Rican beach or something.

I think he said something about drinking piña coladas, which I think is very unfortunate, one, because he had every intention of coming, and at least that’s what his staff had communicated to us, and so when reporters asked me, “Is the mayor coming?” and I said, “As far as I know he is, because they drove us crazy about schedule and rooms and all the things, because he was coming, right?” And it just happened to be that the FBI takes his phone around that time. The purpose of the conference is for us to talk about the issues of the Latino community and I think it’s very short sighted of him to say something like, “Oh, well, I’m not going to go. I’m not going to Puerto Rico to drink piña coladas.” What we’re doing in this conference is important, and it would behoove him to take part of it, because I think he would have a better understanding of the challenges that the Latino community is facing in New York and maybe get some ideas for some policy solutions. Right? You know, City Hall also has a lot of different leadership, and they take part in the conference and they participate. Some of them speak on panels, and they, in many ways, parrot the vision of the mayor. I think it would have been important for him to come, and I think it’s respectful for him to come to the conference. We are the largest Latino policy conference in the state, and it’s very significant. So I think that speaks more about him and his personal troubles, than about what goes on at the conference, and if he would have been there, he would have seen that it is very substantive, and we have worked to make it that. He saw that in Albany as well. Puerto Rico is no different. It just happens to be warmer.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but there were some discussions about moving Somos to the Dominican Republic?

Yeah, we’re not moving it, just rotating the conference, because I am a firm believer that we should be having conferences that are representative of the broader Latino community and the Latino community has changed over several decades, and now the largest Latino group in the city of New York is Dominican, and closely following the Dominican and the Puerto Rican community is the Mexican community. And as the diversity of the Latino community changes, I think our conference is to be reflective of that. Also, Latino leadership in the legislature and the Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force is not predominantly Puerto Rican. We have members that are representing or have roots in other communities like we have Tony Simone and Marcela Mitaynes’ family is Peruvian. We have Zellnor Myrie, who has Costa Rican parents. We have Catalina Cruz and Jessica Ramos, who are Colombian, so I think it’s important for our work to be reflective of them as much as the communities that they represent.

In a scenario where Democrats have a tough Election Day, what do you imagine that first day of Somos is going to be like?

I remember what the conference felt like in 2016. I remember getting ready for my 5 a.m. flight to go to the conference and Hillary (Rodham Clinton) was winning when I turned off the television and when I got up in the morning, Trump had won the election, and the plane ride was eerie, because it was it felt somber. Like nobody had televisions on. Nobody was really talking much, and I think at the conference also, there was a lot of lamenting, but I think people were also trying to strategize what the future was going to look like. So I anticipate, if things don’t go our way, Nov. 5, the conference is not going to be as jubilant as it would be if Kamala (Harris) were to win the presidency, but I’m optimistic, and I think that there’s a very strong possibility that this conference is going to be a big celebration, at least, I hope so. But if it’s not, I think it’s definitely an opportunity for us to come to terms with the fact that we need to change course, and we need to figure out why we are hemorrhaging membership in the Democratic Party and how we really correct our messaging to bring to bring more voters into the polls.

What are the things to look out for as far as personality clashes are concerned at this year’s Somos.

I think we have a contentious mayoral race and a lot of those talks may be happening. I think there’s conversations about the City Council speakership, and maybe those talks will be happening, and then some congressional seats that we might have flipped. I mean, nightmare scenario is always Trump wins, that’s probably at the top of the list.

But I think Somos is a place that the conference is built to hold all the personalities. I think it is well attended enough that it gives everybody an audience who would like one and it’s really an opportunity to make meaningful connections. So regardless of how you feel about the conference or my leadership, or whatever the case might be, people participate because of the value that comes with having so many key power players in the same space or on the same very small island.

What kind of feedback do you get about the conference?

People wanted it to be more about policy. We’ve been deliberate about creating a report, memorializing a lot of the conversations that take place during the conference, because I think some of the feedback was like, we come here, we do this, and then nothing happens afterward. So I think the first step in that is really memorializing the conversations that happen during the workshops, which I think are so important, so that then we can refer back to them when it’s time to craft policy and really building out the capacity in terms of workshops and the conversations that take place and we don’t shy away from controversial topics, and I like to give a lot of rein to executive task force members, and task force members to really shape what the conversations are going to be. I consider them the experts in their own topics, because they’re working on a piece of legislation or an issue area. I let them bring whoever they think is going to make the most impact in terms of adding to the conversation. So that’s from the feedback I’ve gotten. Those are some of the changes I’ve strived to make.

What’s your favorite memory after years of going to Somos?

I think a lot of people don’t know this, but my husband and I actually reconnected at Somos, and that’s how we ended up getting married. So many years ago, he and I had met at a previous conference in D.C., while I was a union member (and) he was a union member, and then we reconnected at Somos and we haven’t left each other’s side. 

Should people expect to find love at Somos? 

I think there are a lot of Somos couples. You guys should probably do a Somos couple special in the lead-up to the conference.