Top DC Latino internship group names former Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen new chair

The Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute (CHLI) on Thursday announced former Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) as its new chair, taking over for former Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.), who will become chair emeritus.

The group, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in the summer, is a bipartisan organization that runs an internship program in Washington for young Latinos to learn the ropes of government and the corporate world.

The group was founded by Díaz-Balart, Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.) in 2003 to open doors for Hispanic youth who otherwise would not have the opportunity to intern in Washington.

“I’m honored to build on the work of my legislative brother Lincoln Díaz-Balart, CHLI’s Chairman Emeritus, and lead CHLI’s efforts to grow and shape future Hispanic leaders and present opportunities to advance diversity of thought and the Hispanic community at large,” Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement.

“Lincoln founded CHLI more than 20 years ago and nurtured it into a transformative institution whose alums always tell us that their experience changed the trajectories of their lives for the better,” she continued. “As a co-founder of CHLI, empowering Hispanic students is near and dear to my heart, and I look forward to championing CHLI alongside our great board of directors.”

The board of directors includes Mario Díaz-Balart and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who serve in the executive committee, as well as three other Democratic and five Republican members of Congress.

“CHLI focuses on the interns, on the students. But there’s a glue that makes the diversity of CHLI possible and bipartisanship possible: That is support for freedom and opposition to the totalitarian regimes in this hemisphere,” Lincoln Díaz-Balart told The Hill in a recent interview.

“If you feel comfortable with those positions, you’re gonna feel comfortable in CHLI. And you can be a liberal, conservative, a Republican, a Democrat, but that’s the glue.”

In a broader political environment where bipartisanship seems passé, CHLI’s mission to teach diversity of thought has been challenged.

“Democracy isn’t, isn’t nice and pretty and delivered in a little bowl in a package. It’s messy. It’s messy, and so they need to learn how to navigate the messiness and come out cleaner and shinier and be part of an inclusive conversation,” said Mary Ann Gomez Orta, president and CEO of the organization. 

“We didn’t used to be in that situation years ago,” she added. “Before you could talk to people and disagree and agree to disagree and you’d be fine but, but now people take it personal and then make personal jabs and, and that, you know, we’re trying really hard to tell the students not to let it get to them personally, but it’s hard when the external forces make everything so personal.”

CHLI recruits and places young interns in congressional and corporate offices, but the group also guides the interns through social and networking events, often with Gomez Orta’s personal touch.

“We know that they’re intelligent, that’s out the gate. They’re all super smart. But they haven’t all learned from dealing with different people. How to deal with elected officials, how to work in, how to deal with people in the private sector, how to network, how to introduce yourself,” she said.

“And it may not seem like a big deal to maybe what I call ‘others.’ But for us, it is a big deal. Because that helps build your confidence and helps you feel like you belong. And most of the time, you know, people don’t go around telling you ‘Hey, your nametag goes on the right,’ ‘When you shake hands, look at the person’s face.’ You know, ‘Be presentable, look presentable.'”

Gómez Orta’s experience mirrors that of many CHLI interns.

The eldest of five siblings and daughter of field workers in California, she went to college on scholarships and worked in the corporate world before joining CHLI.

“Mary Ann and her siblings helped in the house and helped their parents in every way they could, but they studied. So that’s what we have to try to portray. We have to try to convince people to emphasize in their home — emphasize education,” said Lincoln Díaz-Balart.

“It’s difficult to think of circumstances more trying and the ones that Mary Ann had, her parents had. And yet, all of her siblings are professionals. Right when I met her, I said, ‘I want her,’ and then she has this vocation as an educator, exposing, nurturing — exposing to all ideas — and nurturing, nurturing the young people. We’ve had an educator of calling as the leader of CHLI, and that’s been a blessing.”

Keith Fernández, head of CHLI’s alumni network, said he was recruited to the program by Ros-Lehtinen’s office while a student at Florida International University.

“One of the interesting things that is not in the brochure, but I think is always a great benefit, is that it shows you that there are people who have done this before and you can do it too,” Fernández told The Hill.

“So seeing people like Omar Franco, for example. You know, being one of the big Hispanic lobbyists in town. Obviously, I saw Ileana, Mario, Lincoln as members of Congress, but I think it demystified the path to success for me.”

And while for the Díaz-Balarts, CHLI has literally been a family affair, the organization has adopted a sense of family, in part guided by the friendship between Lincoln Díaz-Balart and Gomez Orta.

Gomez Orta’s first interviewed for the job in 2011 with Mario Díaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen and after good results walked confidently into the interview with the elder Díaz-Balart.

“It didn’t even didn’t even really feel like an interview. It was just like, I was just meeting somebody for coffee kind of thing. And, and I just think the world of him he is just such a statesman. I have the utmost respect for Lincoln, as a former member, as the chairman. And through the years has also become a mentor and a friend,” said Gomez Orta.

Lincoln Díaz-Balart, who said he’s begun publicly talking about “the glue” that holds CHLI together because “it’s been 20 years, so you got to talk about something,” said he holds his experience with the internship program in special regard.

“It’s been beautiful. It’s been one of the beautiful experiences of my life, to be able to see so many young people’s lives touched in a marvelous way. Many, the great majority of them, from families where they were the first to go to college. It’s really beautiful.”