Representatives from a variety of Arizona companies came together at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown Hotel on Wednesday with the goal of expanding LGBT and multiethnic acceptance in local hiring processes and ensuring equality for all Arizonan workers.
The fifth annual Multicultural Networking and Recruiting Forum, hosted by the equality coalition One Community, included a number of local organizations, such as #vidit, the Asian Corporate & Entrepreneur Leaders, the Arizona Black Chamber of Commerce and Local First Arizona.
Angela Hughey, co-founder and president of One Community, said she began the coalition after working closely with the Hispanic population in Arizona and receiving funds from Hispanic colleagues to start a LGBT human rights group.
Hughey said it is much easier to head One Community now than it was seven years ago due to the change in political climate.
One Community opposes political campaigns such as the now-infamous SB 1062 in 2014, which would have made it legal for any businesses to claim exemption from Arizonan laws for religious reasons. The group also partners with progressive local businesses.
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Devida Pi’ilani Lewis, ambassador for the Hawaiian Civic Club of Arizona, spoke to the need for collective action.
“When we can stop individualizing our plight … we have a louder voice,” she said. “The reality is, there’s more of them than there are of us, so the more we band together, our numbers are stronger.”
Jennifer Sultzaberger, founder of the video marketing company #vidit, said she came to look for Phoenix-based interns and businesspeople.
Sultzaberger said she created her business after being discriminated against for years as a woman. Shortly after leaping into her entrepreneurial lifestyle, she was introduced to One Community through an annual honoring of One Community supporters where Hughey became one of the first women in Arizona to enter a same-sex marriage onstage in front of 800 attendees.
In addition to One Community’s current goals of fighting for both inclusion and diversity in Arizona’s workforce, Hughey said the group is creating a program to target millennials because they are the most culturally diverse generation.
“If you leave this state because you don’t think this is a state that is tolerant and is diverse and inclusive, then we don’t have a future,” Hughey said.
Contact the reporter at rachel.banks@asu.edu.
