Emporia Spanish Speakers founder and newly-named Chief Executive Officer LeLan Dains expects a busy 2025 for his agency.
Along with a three-year, resource and outreach partnership with Newman Regional Health announced this week and plans to expand similar efforts across Kansas into neighboring states, Dains says Emporia Spanish Speakers is looking for a place to call home.
Dains assumes leadership of Emporia Spanish Speakers at a time when much of the national conversation revolving around Spanish-speaking people in the United States deals with immigration — more specifically, illegal immigration. Dains says increasing talk of deportation has a lot of Spanish-speaking people worried about the consequences of that action. He says more English first-language residents should also be concerned.
Emporia Spanish Speakers has helped over a dozen people gain the necessary asulym documents since April, but that is a slow process through the federal government. Dains says things may get “more challenging” in that regard once Donald Trump returns as president.
The group was founded in 2017 as a way for English-as first-language speakers to get better at speaking Spanish. Now it offers community engagement activities, bilingual resources, workshops and other activities for local Spanish speakers. More information is available at emporiaspanishspeakers.com.
