The Epic of Huertas
NOV. 20, 2023
The Iliad, whose most noble figures run the gamut of life’s precious virtues, has no perfect analogue for Mauricio Huertas, the 29-year-old history and mythology aficionado who is currently giving Homer’s epic yet another read. Instead, the development director for the Latino Union of Chicago exhibits an ethos comprising many ingredients from this ancient Greek cocktail. There’s a dose of Patroclus’s loyalty. A large helping of Diomedes’s passion. Maybe a dash of Polydamas’s shrewdness. Plenty of Zeus’s erudition. And, by his own admission, perhaps too much of Achilles’s fierce obstinance.
“I’m pretty intense at times,” says Huertas. “There’s no middle ground with me. It’s all one-hundred percent, for better or for worse.” Don’t conflate these occasional bouts of intensity with self-service, however. Huertas is who he is—and does what he does—thanks to humble beginnings, compassion for the underprivileged, and insatiable curiosity.
Born in New York City to working class Colombian immigrants, Huertas knows well the assimilation hurdles faced by newcomers to the United States. Having this relatability is both a motivator for and an asset to have when it comes to his work with the Latino Union of Chicago, a nonprofit he has toiled with for the past four years. The organization, according to its own mission statement, “collaborates with low-income immigrant and U.S.-born workers to develop the tools necessary to collectively improve social and economic conditions.”
As for Huertas’s job description, it entails, well, an assortment of tasks—fitting for a man with polymathic affinities. He conducts research, prepares reports, coordinates social media, writes letters, and, most notably, powers the Union’s fundraising engine. Huertas isn’t shy in bemoaning the occasional tedium of his job, but “what really helps get through it is when I can identify with and connect with the work I am supporting,” he says.
Insofar as there’s any lingering dissonance on the job, it doesn’t detract from his effort and dedication, which his colleagues praise. “It’s really great to work with Mauricio because he covers quite a lot in the organization,” says Evelyn Vargas, the organizing director for the Latino Union. “He’s so interested in supporting not just the day-to-day activities, but also the wider advocacy that we do.”
Such initiative, in that respect, is the likely byproduct of numerous environments throughout his young life that have fostered intense rumination about society’s problems and how to correct them. A self-proclaimed nerd, Huertas has always exercised a strong reading habit, which, along with his formal education, has cultivated political beliefs that transcend oversimplistic labels. “Progressive” is only a start, he quips.
Huertas attended the prestigious boarding school Phillips Exeter Academy; he then became the first person in his family to obtain a college degree. After graduating from Cornell College (in Iowa, not Ithaca) in 2016, he worked at AmeriCorps and The Boulevard of Chicago, other nonprofits, before landing at the Latino Union in 2019. According to childhood friend Stephanie Lane, Huertas has altruism in his DNA, regardless of what he pursues. “He’s an amazing person,” she says. “I definitely could have seen him being an English teacher or a history teacher, but he clearly has a lot of passion for what he does now, which doesn’t surprise me either.”
All it takes is a conversation with Huertas for English teacher to make sense. A charismatic communicator, he speaks, often times, methodically, as if he’s reading well-written prose, though not in a pretentious way. Literature has been a lifelong interest, he says. And it certainly shows. Huertas is bilingual, having spoken Spanish with his mother as a young child, but he considers English his native tongue. He conceals his admitted introversion well, citing an ability to “turn it on when [he] need[s] to,” it being a zestful animation, much like a politician—only with Huertas, there’s no disingenuous shtick.
Running for office is a reasonable expectation for someone cut from the same cloth as Huertas, but he is content with his current roles—advocate, organizer, community leader—in the democratic process. Over the last month in particular, Huertas has dedicated considerable effort to growing support, and staving off opposition, for the Chicago Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance, which City Council passed on November 9th. “That campaign honestly reinvigorated my energy for this current role,” he says. “For now, this is exactly where I want to be.”