This Is Tu Momento: New Jersey’s Latino Business Story Has a New Home

Every movement reaches a moment when its stories need a home of their own. For New Jersey’s Latino business community, this is that moment. 

Welcome to Tu Momento. 

If you are reading this, you are already part of nuestra familia. That includes the more than 11,00  members of the Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, mor than 180,000 Latino-owned businesses we represent and the partners, sponsors and readers who show up for this community year after year. About 45% of our members are not Latino. You chose to build alongside us anyway. This publication is for you too. 

Why Now

Since I joined the Chamber in October 2024, I have watched this organization move. Last year we relaunched shccnj.org. Earlier this year we launched Business Link, our member directory, now at 2,440+ listings and growing. Our programs have graduated 1,400+ entrepreneurs. Behind those numbers is a community that drives $127 billion of New Jersey’s GDP and has done so, with the Chamber at its side, since 1989. 

Those milestones taught me something. The Chamber has never had a shortage of stories, and we have told them well. Now we are ready to amplify them, with a publication built on our own site to carry them further. 

Our newsletter reaches more than 28,000 readers every other week, and it does its job well. But a newsletter moves. It lands in your inbox and two weeks later it is buried. Now every op-ed, member story and partner announcement has a permanent address on shccnj.org, where it can be found, shared and read long after the eblast goes out. 

What Tu Momento Is

Tu Momento is a standalone digital publication on the Chamber’s website. Every article is searchable, shareable and available year-round, written by industry leaders and contributors from our board, our graduates and our media, industry and corporate partners. It is edited in-house and built with the community, not merely about it. 

Whose Voices It Carries

Staff. Board members. Program graduates. Corporate and state partners. Creative professionals. New Jersey leaders who have something useful to say and the standing to say it. Contributors write in plain English, and in Spanish when the story calls for it, and they write to be useful. No recycled promotional copy. No filler. 

Why “Unidos, Somos Más”

We are launching during Hispanic Heritage Month under this year’s national theme, “Unidos, Somos Más” / “Together, We Are More.” That is Juntos Somos Familia in another key. It also picks up where the 2024 theme, “Pioneers of Change: Shaping the Future Together,” left off. Pioneers are not only historical figures. They are the people advancing business, technology, medicine, arts and public service in New Jersey right now, and they do it together. SHCCNJ’s familia of pioneers wrote for this issue. 

Inside the Debut Issue

“Hispanic Heritage at the President’s Table” by John Lucas 

Our president and CEO opens with a small business morning: the key in the lock, the coffee pot, the pressure before the bell rings. He writes about his father, an immigrant from Spain who started a newsletter on the Hispanic market, and about walking the floor at this year’s Feria de Negocios in Edison, where nearly 1,500 people came to network, talk shop and make sales. It sets the tone for everything that follows: personal, practical and rooted in the people doing the work. 

“SHCCNJ Announces Sept. 24 Health & Wellness Fair Panel”

Three New Jersey leaders will take the stage at our Health & Wellness Fair to discuss workforce development and the growth of the state’s health care economy. Somerset County Commissioner Sara Sooy, Andrea Martinez-Mejia and David Perez-Herranz will explore recruitment, talent development, clinical operations and access to care during the Sept. 24 breakfast panel in Fairfield.

“No es suerte: es trabajo, disciplina, perseverancia y relaciones”  by Luis O. De La Hoz

Our board chairman writes in Spanish about what truly drives Hispanic business growth in New Jersey: preparation, trusted relationships and results that can be measured. He challenges partners to see the Chamber as more than an organization to sponsor—and instead as a bridge connecting entrepreneurs with capital, contracts, knowledge and opportunity. His message is direct: success may look like luck when it arrives, but it is built long before that moment.

“Business Spotlight: The Rey Sol Coffee Story”

Our first Business Spotlight follows six generations of the Ramirez family’s coffee-growing tradition from the mountains of Colombia to cafés in Ridgewood and Morristown. But the Rey Sol story reaches beyond the cup. When an earthquake devastated the family’s hometown of Balboa, their New Jersey community helped them send urgently needed aid back home. It is a story of family, enterprise and generosity moving in both directions.

“The Quiet Side of Influence” by Aixa López 

Our chief of staff, an engineer by training, writes about leading without being the loudest person in the room. Her father was a police officer who walked 10 steps behind her so he could see 10 steps ahead. Read it and you will understand how she runs this Chamber. Republished with permission from her Substack, Awakened Engineer. 

“From New Jersey to Colombia: Dr. Alexander Rios Answers the Call to Serve”  by Dr. Melissa Baralt

Our board contributor Dr. Melissa Baralt writes about her longtime friend Dr. Alexander Rios, an emergency medicine physician and entrepreneur who turned compassion into action after an earthquake devastated communities in Colombia. He raised funds, organized volunteers and spent nine days delivering relief to families in remote villages. It is a deeply personal reflection on service—and the question that can move any of us from concern to action: “What can I do?”

“Marketing That Works Is Simple and Requires Less Than You Think” by Nadya Ramos 

Nadya is a graduate of two of our programs, LETS and HETP, and the founder of MRK Marketing Consulting. Her piece is a clear-eyed audit of what stopped working in the age of AI (loud content, borrowed voices, chasing trends, marketing to everyone) and what always will. If you run a small business and your feed feels like noise, start here. 

“Your Voice Is Your Advantage: How Latino Entrepreneurs Can Use AI Without Losing Their Identity” by Alison Salamanca 

Alison, a Colombian-born interpreter and content strategist, makes the case that AI should help you say what you already believe, not decide it for you. She backs it with research from Stanford and Edelman and gives you a prompt you can copy tomorrow. It is the most practical piece on AI I have read this year, and it comes from one of our own. 

And more!

What to Expect

Useful business guidance. Original commentary. Leadership perspectives. Member stories. Economic insight. Ideas you can apply Monday morning. Tu Momento will publish every other month to start. 

Our newsletter is not going anywhere. It will continue every other week by eblast, with the latest Tu Momento pieces folded in, so you can read on the site, in your inbox or both. 

We Want to Hear From You

A publication is only as strong as the people who write for it. If you have a perspective New Jersey needs to hear, a lesson worth passing on or a story that belongs in these pages, we want to know you. Share what you read here. Connect with us. And if you are interested in contributing, mailto: [email protected] 

Read it. Share it. Send it to the person who needs it. And when you are ready, contribute. We are looking forward to growing Tu Momento contigo. 

The stories were already here. The leadership was already here. The ideas were already changing New Jersey. Now they have a publication built to carry them forward. 

This is Tu Momento.

Juntos Somos Familia. 

Giovanna Aguilar