The Dallas Morning News

By Jason Villalba

Dallas is, by every demographic measure, a Hispanic city. Hispanics are the largest ethnic group within the city limits, at 42.6% of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Non-Hispanic whites are 27.6%. Black residents are 22.9%. Across the Dallas area, more than 2.2 million Latinos live, work, pay taxes and contribute.

From an economic perspective, Dallas’ Hispanics punch at, or above, our weight. Economists at the University of California, Los Angeles and California Lutheran University put the Latino GDP of Dallas-Fort Worth at $99 billion, with Latino consumption approaching $69 billion. That exceeds the entire economy of New Hampshire or Idaho. Nationally, Latino economic output has reached $4 trillion, which, if it were the GDP of a country, would rank as the fifth largest economy in the world.

It follows that the civic and economic leadership of Dallas should include a significant number of Hispanics. Unfortunately, that is not what the data tell us.

Let’s start with business. Dallas-Fort Worth is home to 24 Fortune 500 companies, which together generated nearly $1.1 trillion in revenue last year. Dozens of chief executives have led those companies over the past 10 years. Only one was Hispanic, and he retired in 2017.

Nationally, Hispanic executives lead only 3% of Fortune 500 companies, and Hispanics represent fewer than 5% of the members of the boards of directors of these companies.

The Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce’s four board chairs from 2024 through 2027, and the new president it installed this January, include no Hispanic leaders.

My own profession fares no better. Hispanic lawyers hold only 3% of law firm partnerships nationwide. The Dallas data largely mirror these statistics, even though our Hispanic population far exceeds that of the nation as a whole.

Dallas city government tells the same story. Sixty people have served as mayor of Dallas since 1856. Not a single one has been Hispanic. Over the last decade, three people have served as the city manager, the chief executive of Dallas. Only one was Hispanic, and he retired in January 2017. The city has had one Hispanic police chief in its history, hired in 2021, but gone by 2024. The Park and Recreation Board of Dallas, governing one of the largest municipal park systems in the country, has never had a Hispanic serve as its president. Likewise, the 15-member task force that shaped the 2024 capital bond program, which planned more than $1 billion in public investment, did not have a single Hispanic member.

Only three of the 15 Dallas Area Rapid Transit board members are Hispanic, and DART has never had a Hispanic CEO.

Exceptions exist and deserve recognition. But one or two chairmanships across 10 years prove the rule rather than refute it. In the rooms where taxation is shaped and the regional agenda is written, Hispanic representation runs at a fraction of Hispanic presence in the city.

How did we get here? Three explanations carry the most weight.

The pathways into Dallas leadership were built generations ago, through neighborhoods, schools, civic institutions and social clubs that Hispanic families largely could not enter or were prohibited from joining. The Dallas Citizens Council spent much of the 20th century effectively selecting the city’s mayors. Institutions like that recruit from the circles in which their members already circulate, and those circles were drawn long before the city’s demographic complexion changed.

Also, demography moves faster than tenure. The median Hispanic Texan is roughly six years younger than his Anglo counterpart, and leadership rewards seniority. Some of this gap will close on its own. But a city that is 42% Hispanic should not go 10 years without a Hispanic city manager, Fortune 500 chief executive, or regional chamber chair.

Finally, with tremendous respect, I say this to my own community: Many of us were taught to work hard, keep our heads down and let the results speak. In civic life, results do not speak. Positions go to those who ask for them and to those whom institutions deliberately seek out. And often, even when we do seek out these roles, the vestigial institutional networks and antiquated notions of a solely white and Black Dallas thwart our mobility into the leadership ranks.

The business case for bolstering Hispanic leadership in Dallas is straightforward. This is about market recognition, not some woke diversity exercise. Leadership that does not understand the largest community with the greatest purchasing power in its market will dramatically misread that market.

The North Texas companies and institutions that develop and cultivate their Hispanic leaders will drive the next decade of growth and prosperity in the region, not because of DEI, but because of the economic power of this growing population.

Dallas has always been a city of great promise. The data regarding Hispanic advancement in our city, however, suggests that we have more work to do to fulfill that promise and continue on our upward trajectory.

Jason Villalba is a Dallas partner with the law firm of FBT Gibbons LLP, a former member of the Texas House of Representatives and the president and CEO of the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation.