Annette Taddeo picked oranges from her family’s grove and sold them to neighbors in Colombia when she was 13 years old. Her entrepreneurial spirit led her to found one of the top 100 small businesses in Florida, LanguageSpeak, after moving to Miami at 18.
Taddeo is running for Florida’s lieutenant governor alongside Democratic candidate Charlie Crist, and UF is her next stop.
Taddeo will speak at Hispanic Heritage Month’s two-part forum "It’s Our Story. It’s Our Time. It’s Our Voices" today at 7 p.m. in Pugh Hall Ocora. If elected, she will become the first female Hispanic lieutenant governor, assisting the governor with duties in the executive branch.
Taddeo, the current Miami-Dade Democratic Party chairwoman, will focus on her life as a Hispanic businesswoman, mother and political leader.
"We want to hear what she has to say as a Latina who has a strong voice in an area that many people of color do not," said Liana Guerra, president of the Hispanic Student Association.
Organized by UF students Brenda Hernandez and Yareliz Mendez-Zamora, the forum aims to inspire students through Taddeo’s story on making the American dream a reality.
"She will be talking about her story and who she is, not as a candidate, but as a person," said Mendez-Zamora, a 20-year-old UF English junior.
With voter registration deadlines approaching on Oct. 6, the forum hopes to teach students about a career in politics and urge them to vote.
"I’m really excited to hear what she has to say and her story," said Natalie Pedota, a 21-year-old tourism, event and recreation management senior.
Only 31 percent of eligible Latinos voted in the 2010 midterm elections, according to the Pew Research Center.
"A lot of people don’t vote because they don’t feel represented," Guerra, 21, said. "They feel that their voice and their story doesn’t matter, that their vote doesn’t count. This is something I want to change."
[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 9/29/2014]
