The Corinthian columns at Cipriani Wall Street have presided over bank mergers, wedding toasts, and a century of New York's other business. On a crisp night in late October, they presided over something else: an argument, dressed in gowns and tuxedos, for who counts as a leader in America.

The occasion was the Hispanic Star Gala, presented by Claudia Romo Edelman and the We Are All Human Foundation. Before the first course arrived, the room already read like an inventory of talent that no one in it could plausibly call invisible: leaders in media, science, technology, and the arts, gathered under a ceiling built for grander claims than any single career.

Then Romo Edelman took the stage, and the mood shifted from celebration to conviction. She calls her method "factivism," the discipline of leading with data instead of sentiment, and she made her case the way an economist would rather than the way a host would. "We are not invisible," she told the room. "Latinos represent nearly one in five Americans, contribute over $3.2 trillion to the U.S. economy, and power the country's workforce and creativity. The numbers speak for themselves. It's time we make sure the narrative does too." The applause that followed was less politeness than agreement.

What came next belonged to a different register entirely. A small troupe from Cirque du Soleil took the space above the crowd, twisting and balancing in a kind of suspended math, gasps rising with them. It was a strange and fitting pairing, precision on a spreadsheet followed by precision in the air, both making the same point in different languages: that mastery, once you've seen it up close, stops needing to explain itself.

Dinner arrived on gilded plates, but the real texture of the evening was in the room's ordinary conversations, held among people for whom this was, in the end, a network gathering rather than a spectacle to watch from the edges. Itzel López, a Latina Professionals LEDC board member and community leader, put it plainly: "Tonight wasn't just about celebration, it was about visibility, unity, and pride. To see so many trailblazers, so many faces of our community in one place, it reaffirms that our power lies in showing up for each other."

By the time the music started, the formality of the seating chart had dissolved into something looser. A Pulitzer-winning journalist danced beside a tech CEO. A media mogul spun with a NASA pioneer. These are not people who typically share a dance floor, and the fact that they did, easily, said as much about the evening as any number Romo Edelman had cited earlier.

When the night ended and the guests filed out past the columns, the feeling from the ballroom didn't stay behind. It left with them, folded into the evening the way a scent stays on a coat. The 2025 Hispanic Star Gala made its point without needing to raise its voice again: the community it celebrated is not waiting for a future moment of arrival. It is already in the room, already counted, already leading. The only remaining work is making sure the rest of the country notices.

                                                                                                                                  

Event Host

The We Are All Human Foundation, founded and led by Claudia Romo Edelman, advances Hispanic visibility and leadership recognition in American business and culture. Its flagship annual gathering, The Gala by We Are All Human — publicly known as the Hispanic Star Gala — was held October 31, 2025, at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City.

Reported and written by Rafael Magaña, Founder & Publisher, for Latino Professionals Magazine. → Full archive

RECORD №00107 · MMXXVI · Latino Professionals Magazine
Published by Latino Professionals Media Group.
Documenting the people, ideas, and institutions shaping American business.