Axios Visionarios 2025: Latino change-makers take the stage in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES – Latino leaders shared insights on culture, leadership and community at Axios and Noticias Telemundo's fourth annual Visionarios event on Oct. 8.

Why it matters: The annual event, coinciding with Hispanic Heritage Month, spotlighted those championing change in mental health advocacy, entertainment, politics and even canine behavior.

• The event was sponsored by Bank of America.

Catch up quick: Here are our main takeaways from the evening …

1. The Kids Mental Health Foundation executive clinical director Ariana Hoet said, "There's a lot of fear" right now among the immigrant children she sees as a pediatric psychiatrist, and that some kids have even stopped coming to treatment.

• "Kids need to feel accepted – and so when a whole community is being targeted and made to feel less than, that's going to affect their mental health," Hoet said.

2. Comedian and writer Aida Rodriguez said the "greatest threat" to what's happening in America right now is a lack of education.

• "We are having these culture wars, people are not being informed. … I think in order to fight for our humanity as Latinos, some people keep saying they want us to leave, but if we left, America would crumble," Rodriguez said.

3. Former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who is running for governor of California, said current HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s claims linking autism to Tylenol use during pregnancy are dangerous.

• "When you have someone who is the Secretary of Health and Human Services all of a sudden says to you, 'Tylenol may be dangerous,' what message is that pregnant woman supposed to take?" Becerra said.
• "And so what I can say to you is, this is real, this is reckless, it's dangerous, and it will take lives."

4. Acclaimed dog behaviorist Cesar Millan, also known as the Dog Whisperer, said he teaches people more about themselves than he does about dogs.

• "I don't train dogs. I train people, I rehabilitate dogs," Millan said. "What I do is I rehabilitate dogs who are aggressive, who become fearful … so I bring the dog back to his natural state of mind, which is calm surrender, happy-go-lucky, calm, confident."

• "If we learn from animals, we can learn this beautiful state of mind."

Content from the sponsored View From the Top conversation:

Ray Vasquez, Bank of America West Coast regional credit executive of business banking, highlighted data from a report recently presented at the Velocity economic conference in LA, which showed the growing purchasing power of Latinos in America.

• Velocity "touched on a report that they've been doing for a few years now," Vasquez said. It's called the U.S. Latino GDP, meaning that if you took all the Latinos living in this country, which represent about 18.5% of the U.S. population, that U.S. Latino GDP has now hit $4 trillion."