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Working to build a better world for Hispanics
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Victor
Pinzon (left) meets with a delegation of Guatemalan community
leaders invited to the U.S. by AGF’s Come to Washington
Program.
PHOTO COURTESY OF VICTOR PINZON |
It was a Hollywood movie that inspired him to immigrate to the
U.S. from humble roots in South America. But rather than personal
fortune and fame, Victor Pinzon (BS ’64 ME) was seeking
something much loftier: a better life for himself and his people.
“My future in Colombia did not look bright or challenging,”
Pinzon says. “I made up my mind that, if I was allowed to
enter the U.S., I would do any and all work within the law necessary
to accomplish my goal.”
Now, 45 years later, Pinzon is effecting change economically,
socially, and culturally as president of The Americas Global Foundation
(AGF), the Washington, D.C.-based think tank and advocacy organization
he founded in 1991. His goal is to empower Hispanics in the U.S.
and the peoples of Mexico and Central and South America and build
a bridge of understanding linking the Americas.
“In order to accomplish any change, we have to come together
with other people to exchange ideas and adjust our thinking,”
Pinzon says. “In math there is one solution to every problem,
but that’s not so in engineering or in life. I look for
solutions where everybody wins.”
The idea of coming to America hit him like a thunderbolt in 1957,
when he saw “Rebel Without a Cause,” the James Dean
film dramatizing the angst of marginalized youth. Pinzon spent
a year raising funds through his own mattress manufacturing business
and, on a snowy morning just after his 18th birthday, arrived
in New York City.
Although the first advice he received from a fellow countryman
was to turn around and go home, he held fast to his vision. Within
six months, Pinzon found a high school where he could get his
diploma. In 1959 he was accepted at Berkeley to study engineering
and topped that off with a Berkeley M.B.A. in 1966. He paid his
way with numerous jobs, sometimes as many as four at one time,
including selling magazines, teaching tennis, busing dishes at
the Faculty Club, and working as a teaching assistant, while still
managing to play varsity soccer.
For AGF’s two major programs—one to bring students
to Washington to mobilize them politically, and another to build
affordable housing for low-income families—Pinzon has succeeded
in getting the attention of U.S. congressmen to secure federal
matching funds. He does most of the work at AGF himself. Challenged
by modest resources, he counts on members, advisors, and volunteers
around the globe for support.
“I may be a dreamer, but I believe all of this is doable,”
he says. “I invite those who are really hungry to do something
for themselves and their communities to join us.” For more
details on AGF, visit the Web site at http://theamericas.org.
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