Syracuse Mayor Sharon Owens gives the State of the City Address at Nottingham High School Thursday, January 29.

Mayor Sharon Owens’ quest to strengthen the City of Syracuse’s connections to its Hispanic and Latin community brought her to Puerto Rico last week.

Owens joined Democrats from across the state for the 40th anniversary of the SOMOS Conference in San Juan — an experience she said will be instructive as the city launches what it is calling the Syracuse Latino Hispanic Advisory Committee.

The annual conference is aimed at elevating New York State’s Latino community with an emphasis on issues impacting Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico and New York. The conference sees thousands of New York Democrats, primarily from downstate, flock to San Juan each year. SOMOS Inc. also hosts an annual conference in Albany, which was held in April this year.

After Tuesday’s massive midterms gains for Democrats, political intrigue — including whether the party’s growing progressive wing would challenge party leaders’ Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Senator Chuck Schumer to lead the incoming Democratic majorities in their respective chambers of Congress — buzzed around the conference.

For Owens, though, the focus was learning more about what Syracuse can do to build inroads with both its Puerto Rican community and other residents of Hispanic or Latin descent, she said. Puerto Ricans represent about 60% (9,000) of the city’s roughly 15,000 Hispanic/Latino population, according to 2025 data.

Owens in an interview with Central Current said the trip provided a critical opportunity to immerse herself in the Hispanic and Latin community to gain a better cultural understanding that she could bring back to Syracuse.

“So much of our population of our neighbors and our community are of Latin and Hispanic descent,” Owens said. “Just like it is with new Americans, African Americans, Italian Americans, our diversity in this community mandates that you continue to try to stay connected to, not my perception of the importance of their culture, their perspective of the importance of their culture.”

The mayor’s trip did not involve any city funds, city spokesperson Sol Muñoz said.

The mayor attended panels and workshops on housing, public safety, and other issues affecting the Latino and Hispanic community, while networking with Albany power brokers and Latin and Hispanic-oriented organizations and businesses. Owens said she attended a panel hosted by the Acacia Network, a social services organization and the largest Hispanic-led organization in New York, which highlighted Syracuse’s housing initiatives.

“Being highlighted for housing in Syracuse in Puerto Rico was amazing, the opportunity that we’re going to have on the West Side,” Owens said.

Connecting with Acacia Network’s president was a welcome surprise, Owens said, and just one of several connections with businesses and organizations that she hopes will express interest in investing in and working with Syracuse.

Beyond that, Owens said she’s bringing back from Puerto Rico a better understanding of how Syracuse can look to engage its Latin and Hispanic community through violence prevention initiatives. The city has for years sought to reduce violence through its Safer Streets Program and related efforts aimed at intervening with at-risk youths and interrupting cyclic violence.

“It’s been hard to move into that Hispanic community and Latino community on the West Side, language barriers, cultural barriers, and finding those what we call ‘credible messengers’ who can really help us there,” Owens said.

Public safety as it pertains to Syracuse’s Latin and Hispanic community is a central consideration of the city’s fledgling Latin and Hispanic advisory committee, but far from the only goal of that body, said City Council President Rita Paniagua. 

Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Paniagua has lived in Syracuse since 2003 and has become a prominent leader in the Latin and Hispanic community. Paniagua has attended the SOMOS conference in Puerto Rico in the past, but was not able to attend this year.

Maintaining relations between the city and Puerto Rico, while representing the city and Upstate region in statewide political conversations, is “absolutely” significant, Paniagua said, adding that the cultural understanding Owens gained on the trip is equally important.

“Remember that the largest Hispanic demographic in Syracuse is Puerto Rico, and so to learn who we are and where we come from, what Puerto Rico represents to us when we move here,” Paniagua said.

Paniagua helped find a chairperson for the city’s Hispanic and Latino advisory committee, which held its first meeting earlier this week. Paniagua and Muñoz said the committee is the first of its kind in Syracuse.

Owens and Paniagua tapped Luz Encarnación, the executive director of Spanish Action League (also known as La Liga) of Onondaga County, to serve as the advisory committee’s chair.

“My role will be identifying leaders in the community that can look at what are the issues affecting the Hispanic and Latinos, whether it is on health, whether it is on housing, school, education, so we can have a voice, and we can say these are the things that we need,”  Encarnación said.

That insight will allow Owens to identify appropriate organizations to collaborate with on initiatives for the Hispanic and Latino community, and to request relevant funding from the state and federal levels to invest in community programs.

Beyond public safety, health, housing and education, the group will look to advise Owens on how the city can consider the Hispanic and Latino community’s priorities regarding immigration, business development and careers and job development, Paniagua said. 

The committee is particularly interested in elevating and mentoring new voices from that community.

“We want to embrace the new leadership, the younger leadership, so we can work with them to see if you know where their interests lie, and maybe get them more involved in government processes, and having a better representation than just me in government,” Paniagua said.

Paniagua and Encarnación agreed that Owens’ trip to Puerto Rico provided an important opportunity for the mayor to learn more about the Puerto Rican experience there and in New York, and also a chance to gain a greater cultural understanding of the broader Latino and Hispanic community and its needs.

Encarnación said the trip also offered critical networking opportunities for the mayor to seek out the state and federal funding which Encarnación said will be significant in actualizing the new advisory committee’s goals.

“So much policy is driven by downstate. Upstaters have to be in the room and have to be part of the conversation,” Owens said.

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Patrick McCarthy is a staff reporter at Central Current covering government and politics. A graduate of Syracuse University’s Maxwell and Newhouse Schools, McCarthy was born and raised in Syracuse and...